Public Commander Keen Forum

Mods to recommend: XkyKeen 1-3 are a nice place to start with Vorticons mods! Pretty polished, fun mods, I like 'em.

No, not really. Why would you think that?

Then it's just me being paranoid. I apologize.

Mod recommendations some more: Lego Keen is a fun one. Worth a try!

Hey Ceilick. Long time lurker here, first time poser. When can we expect the new version of this game?

Ceilick, about 2 pages back, wrote:Right now I don't have an estimated time of release or even plans to continue working on it.

There's a v2 beta over here though, if you're jonesing for it that bad.

Well, so much for that then. *logs off*

If Ceilick doesn't intend to finish the second revision, would he be okay with passing the torch to someone else instead? I don't mean me specifically, just someone who worked with him who would be willing to finish what he started.

@Eurysilas

1. I don't see why there can't be different kinds of gems in Keen. You seem to be ready to declare this as a solid rule, but call 'so what' on the established 'rule' that each episode use a different type of 1up item. I don't understand the reasoning here. And the idea of Keen caring around pockets of gems is basically the same as any other item Keen collects: candy, water drops, vivas, etc. And anyway, the crystal's have a 'dissolve' animation when you grab them anyway, as if Keen is gaining some mystical 'essence'.

And yes, the orbs are made of Vitalin. I thought this was mentioned somewhere, but perhaps it wasn't.

2. Magic is just a term to describe unknown or unexplained phenomena. It may not sound sciency, but plenty of scifi has unknown sciences that, for all intents and purposes, could be called 'magic'. Also, a culture having a caste of 'magi' doesn't necessarily make them an object of fantasy, unless you consider the various real world cultures that have magi to be fantasy. Bottom line: Keen is experiencing an alien culture which employs unknown sciences that appear 'magical'.

5. Spot's presence is partially a tribute to Xtraverse's Norp the Yorp series, in which Spot is the main character and is rather personable. Additionally, you seem to be drawing your own conclusions about Yorps. If Yorps are so dumb, how do you explain the Yorp statues that offer hints in Keen 1?

Despite her weak introduction to the series, Princes Lindsey IS canon. By including her, I hoped to add depth to her character. Better to work with existing characters than add more. I'd sooner enhance and build on actual Keen canon than create all new material, at least in the case of UTUIT.

Duplex wrote:Ceilick, I hope you feel that it wasn't a fruitless endeavor. On the contrary, you inspire me and your work is the only thing left now that rekindles the 90's kid in me... The Unofficial TUIT trilogy, on the other hand, proved to me that only we can cater to our own tastes... not impersonal corporate entities that create and nurture great IPs, only to inexplicably abandon them for several years.

It has been rewarding in a variety of ways, despite a number of disappointments as well. I'm glad it's inspired you and prompted a new philosophy on media for you

Me wrote:Right now I don't have an estimated time of release or even plans to continue working on it.

I should explain that I've recently become employed, kicked out of the house, and am barely managing to stay afloat atm. That has a little bit to do with this.

Duplex wrote:If Ceilick doesn't intend to finish the second revision, would he be okay with passing the torch to someone else instead? I don't mean me specifically, just someone who worked with him who would be willing to finish what he started.

This is a rather...big task. And like Tom Hall, I feel a strong desire to maintain 'intellectual property rights' on the unofficial TUIT However, if someone is willing to put up with me as a supervisor or whatever in working on and having things approved, I'm game.

Ceilick wrote:

Duplex wrote:If Ceilick doesn't intend to finish the second revision, would he be okay with passing the torch to someone else instead? I don't mean me specifically, just someone who worked with him who would be willing to finish what he started.

This is a rather...big task. And like Tom Hall, I feel a strong desire to maintain 'intellectual property rights' on the unofficial TUIT However, if someone is willing to put up with me as a supervisor or whatever in working on and having things approved, I'm game.

Okay, here's what I'm thinking. If there is a fan games engine out there that can accurately replicate the gameplay and feel of the Goodbye Galaxy games, we can remake the unofficial TUIT trilogy with that engine, fixing a lot of the problems that were inherent in the original Goodbye Galaxy games as well as adding all sorts of new features.

While that sounds daunting and pointless at first, the payoff is we won't have to work within the limitations of modding the original Keen games. We can make the games as big as we want them to be. However, if the fan engine is too troublesome to work with, then it's best to just stick with modding the original games instead.

This is a nice idea

Also to make it on an engine that is cross-platform (or at least works well on modern Windows), like SDL.

Donnow about the legal rights though. Can it be a problem?

This...is not what I thought you meant. I thought you meant just fix, revise, etc, the unofficial tuit series in its current state.

if anybody wants to help, the CommanderGenius project is trying to exactly do that: remake the keen engine crossplatform without the limitations.

What kind of help do you need?

Ceilick wrote:And yes, the orbs are made of Vitalin. I thought this was mentioned somewhere, but perhaps it wasn't.

i think this arose from the original teaser video, where the bubbles melted into Vs rather than splashes in the current state, which i and others drew to conclude that they were unrefined vitalin.

this was changed, and i don't believe you have the actual statement anywhere, but i may have just missed it

DoomJedi wrote:What kind of help do you need?

this is best adressed over at the Commander Genius forum: viewforum.php?f=9

but currently it's still mostly recreating the Galaxy engines (enemy behaviour and physics stuff like that) as far as I know. The engine uses SDL and is written in C++. At some point we'll probably also need high colour tilesets for the galaxy games. head over to #CommanderGenius irc channel, if you want and well find something for you to do.

But now lets get back to the actual topic.