VortaKeen - Commander Keen "Invasion Of The Vorticons" on the Gameboy Advance

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John314
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VortaKeen - Commander Keen "Invasion Of The Vorticons" on the Gameboy Advance

Post by John314 »

It here! :garg Commander Keen on the Gameboy Advance! After almost 3 weeks of work, I've recreated Commander Keen Invasion of the Vorticons on the GBA.

Check out the latest version here https://github.com/john314thegeekygenius/VortaKeen, or watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3ANStbRh30

After the somewhat successful port of Netkeen a few months ago, I decided it was time for a real attempt at porting the full game, and where better to start then from the beginning. From the beginning of the project I had fan mods in mind, which is why I wrote a special tool to compile the original keen files into usable gameboy files (you can check that out here https://github.com/john314thegeekygenius/VortaKeenMake).

As of writing this post, it's currently still in beta, so there will be a few bugs and such, but it should be fully playable.
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Multimania
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Re: VortaKeen - Commander Keen "Invasion Of The Vorticons" on the Gameboy Advance

Post by Multimania »

This is extremely neat!

It plays very well — the physics are very close to the original (apart from the improved smoothness from the higher framrate), and everything "feels" right. Even fitting things in the GBA's lower resolution was barely noticeable (though I do know the levels pretty well, so not being able to see as far ahead isn't much of an issue.)

I almost managed to play through the whole thing, but the yellow door in the bottom-right of Treasury (Level 3) wouldn't open for me:
Image

(Interestingly, other doors did, even those which weren't on the ground, so I'm not sure what went wrong.)

Edit: It did evenutally open, and I was able to complete the game, but it took a lot of goes and jumping at it quite precisely…
Last edited by Multimania on Tue Jul 12, 2022 13:47, edited 1 time in total.
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DoomJedi
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Re: VortaKeen - Commander Keen "Invasion Of The Vorticons" on the Gameboy Advance

Post by DoomJedi »

Keep it up, port more stuff, I'll sure have fun playing!
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DoomJedi
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Re: VortaKeen - Commander Keen "Invasion Of The Vorticons" on the Gameboy Advance

Post by DoomJedi »

Just played it, you made my day! This is fantastic (beside pogo key mapping to R2), it feels like it was always gba game, controls are so keyboard-like.

Ability to save at any moment is fantastic as well.
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Pandakeen
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Re: VortaKeen - Commander Keen "Invasion Of The Vorticons" on the Gameboy Advance

Post by Pandakeen »

Played a few levels, and it's pretty cool!
One thing I noticed is that the Keens Left window shows up after winning a level, which doesn't happen in the original game. Was this intentional?

What would be really cool, would be a port to the GameBoy Color. I don't know how much more effort that would take, though.
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Re: VortaKeen - Commander Keen "Invasion Of The Vorticons" on the Gameboy Advance

Post by Toshiba-3 »

Hello! This looks absolutely fantastic, however I can't seem to get it to work on my EZ Flash IV..! The ROM loads up to 111% (heh) then the system freezes. Does that ring any bell? I reckon this might entirely be ony end though, especially as my cart is getting quite old now and acting up.

@Multimania: May I ask you which cart model you're using?

[Edit] Ah well, what do you know: just as I post this, I notice loading the ROM from NOR works properly :)
Last edited by Toshiba-3 on Mon Jul 25, 2022 10:39, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: VortaKeen - Commander Keen "Invasion Of The Vorticons" on the Gameboy Advance

Post by Nisaba »

fantastic project!
and even more awesome that you've posted the source code. very much appreciated

gave it a shot on my emulation machine and it's so much fun playing it on a handheld

Image Image
out now (link) : Image
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