(un)known glitches and mechanics in keen

[Vortlike]

Hello keeners, are there any glitches or mechanics in keen that you are aware of but that you are unsure of if the wider keen community is aware of it? There are a few glitches I know about that I know others are aware of and I probably learned it from them too. Most notable the ones that are used in speed runs. Like you can pass the top of the level at some point in keen 1 and in keen 2 you can take advantage of a kind of "double jump" which seems likely is a glitch and take a big shortcut (in the Moscow level). Although I would find that very hard to do in a speed run. apparently you can do it right about 25% of the time but I can only do about one in 20 times at most. Another known glitch which makes me wonder if it is actually intentionally included in the game is in the keen 2 level "Weaponry A" you can use a scrub to push you through the 4 doors. Interestingly you cannot use the scrub to push you back out again when he walks the other way over the floor. So aside from going through the exit you are trapped there forever.

Now there is another mechanic that I am aware of that would likely be considered a glitch working in the way that it does. That is when you hold down the up or down arrow keen keeps walking in a constant pace. this is mostly useful (potentially) and intended probably to walk slower than normal. If you stop walking then you don't stop immediately but slow down first. You can then press and hold down or up to walk a slower constant speed. (It is similar to walking on slippery tiles by the way)

Now here is why it is potentially more useful and might be a glitch (or partly). If keen is "propelled" to move faster for some reason and then you hold down down (pun unintentional) you can move faster than was otherwise possible! So what can make you move faster then? In keen 1 it is the enemies that push, Yorps for instance. The increase in speed is somewhat marginal. You can even make a big Pogo jump while doing this. Just don't touch the actual directional keys except down. So being pushed by a yorp you can jump about one tile further than otherwise. But this is enough in theory to make otherwise inaccessible areas accessible. In keen 3 the balls can push you to a far greater speed that makes the effect more dramatic.

Now I don't think you can benefit that much from this in the original levels. I made 2 small levels to showcase this mechanic. Now before someone says this is not the official games but a mod. Well, the mechanic still is possible in the original game especially in keen 1. I'm not sure how often you can do this in keen 3.

Here is the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDLYQT9SsWM

[Roobar]

Neat find! Not sure for speedruns, but could be used for some custom levels/mods. It could've been a nice fit for the insa levels.

[Nospike]

I really dig what you did with the video, well done. Honestly with patching you could turn this into a great new mechanic in a platforming/movement based mod, like the springs in Sonic that send you flying.

[SodiumtheGlitcher]

Something I discovered not long ago:

On the KeenWiki it states that there are 16,000 inaccessible points in the Security Center (Level 2). However, there IS in fact a way to get these points. Exactly how is shown below.

Sorry about the extremely slow gif, but I don't know how to fix it.

[Roobar]

Upload the vid to YouTube instead?

[SodiumtheGlitcher]

I would, but I don't have a channel yet. I might get my cousin to upload it though.

Does anyone else know about the mechanic I posted above?

[Roobar]

Speedrunners know how to abuse the save load to exit levels fast.

[SodiumtheGlitcher]

I meant using it to get those points. I know about the speedrunning tricks. But what about using it to get to the other side of a scrollbar to obtain otherwise inaccessible points? If this can be confirmed, I'll change the wiki.

[Roobar]

Please do.

[Vortlike]

In keen 1-3 there is a glitch that allows to to, well, glitch into the wall for a moment. It is somewhat difficult to reproduce and not obviously usefull in most situations. To do it keen must do a jump and then activate pogo right before he would hit the ceiling. it works because the hitbox for the pogo sprite of keen is slightly larger for some reason.



Once you are in though you can not accelerate your jump anymore enough to actually make it through (without godmode). You cannot accelerate fast enough after doing this by hitting the control because you must activate the pogo without the control button.

So this glitch is mentioned in the keen wiki. But I think it is somewhat misleading or inaccurate or I have just not been able to do what they descripe. First of all it is called "shooting" through the ceiling. This is confusing because shooting has nothing to do with it but also in the screenshot keen if far higher into the ceiling than I think is possible without cheats and also he is shooting literally. It is also implied that you can get all the way through a 1 tile thick ceiling without godmode but I don't think you can.

Now there is also a point in keen 2 where you can potentially benefit from doing this move, or rather doing this or something similar but easier to perform. That is because what would happen if a blocking tile that was glitched into is also a pickup or something similar? Well it turns out some of the blocking tiles in keen 2 also have the property of the vorticon elder message. meaning that "picking them up" will yield a message and causes them to dissapear. With this knowledge you can use this to your advantage and go full mario style on these levels and rearrange the order to your own benefit. You can also do this in levels that have no vorticon elder. Here a blanc message appears (or should I say white?)

Fortunately this is easier to perform than what was previously explained. that is probably because even if keen already bumped the ceiling you can still glitch in by making the hitbox slightly overlap into the block above (thus activating the message in this case)

There is also something else. if keen goes somewhere with a 2 tile ceiling above him of this type. If his last jump was a regular non-pogo jump and then he activates the pogo from standstill (without using control) it will happen. I am not sure why and how this works but it is as if doing a regular jump charges up keen, so to speak. Allowing his next pogo jump to smash into the ceiling with high power or something. by the way you only notice this with these special bricks because you will still bump and fall back down but presumably you will be one hitpoint or so deep into them for a moment.

This is also "useful" when using godmode. Ever noticed that with godmode you can also "glitch" through 2 high ceilings as long as the ceiling is only one layers of tiles thick this can be useful for shortcuts. However I was never able to do this consistently and it would leave me somewhat frustrated sometimes not being able to right away sometimes

Well guess what the regular jump to "charge up" also works for this. charge keen up with a small regular jump the activate pogo and immediately press control to fly. congratulation you can now smash through ceilings consistently with god mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdkRs-y9hTA

[Roobar]

Wow! That tile removal is wild! I'm still not sure how you're doing it though.

[Quillax]

That video in the original post is really neat, Vortlike! I remember KeenRush bringing up the "strutting" years ago (and I probably discovered it myself years prior to that but forgot about it). I think when I did the strutting, I may have noticed that Keen gets a slight speed boost when being pushed by a Yorp or Butler Robot, but if I did then I wouldn't have thought Keen actually went faster than his normal maximum walking speed. The video is such a revelation, the jack ball part in particular is jaw-dropping! I wonder if this could be taken advantage of in a speedrun, even if it's just for a mod.

As for that block removal glitch, I actually remember seeing that way back when I used to play the Keen games with cheats on. I would sometimes get that glitch while going through the Vorticon Elite room in Home A, where it's all cramped. This glitch is actually required to beat a level in the Community Smile Levelpack (don't remember which level unfortunately; there are no maps uploaded yet), with a block that's blocking in one side (bottom) but can be picked up from other sides or "within".

I don't know if it's really possible to get Keen's whole body through a single layer of tiles via the "shoot through the roof" glitch without God mode on, although in that screenshot you're talking about it looks like the screenshot-taker may be doing the "Fly without cheating" glitch that's been sitting in the Keen 3 Bugs page. I tried doing that aforementioned glitch but could never get it down. Even when using a fork of DOSBox that lets me slow down the game to a point where I can pick out the individual frames, I still couldn't pull it off. I'd like to see a video of that glitch. It seems like Snortimer and Levellass are (or were) able to do it, but it would be nice to see visual proof of it.

[Vortlike]

I have to say that I have some doubt about the legitimacy of the fly without cheating bug. Because the way that it is describe seems identical to what happens if you shoot in the air with god-mode. Yet is is not acknowledged that this also happens with god-mode and isn't hard to do then. If someone says they remember doing it were they sure god-mode was off at that moment?

I think you are right that the screenshot on the wiki is done with the "shoot jump" trick. But it is also described to use god-mode to reproduce it. Implying however that it can be done without god-mode

In this video it is showed how to "shoot" through the ceiling. Note however that this is with god-mode. If this trick were possible without god-mode that would allow the player to take significant short-cuts. beating the world record speed run.

Note that you need to briefly activate the Pogo right as you hit the ceiling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hl9HhOqZYc

[Benvolio]

My childhood brain will have fed me distorted memories of "fly without cheating" working in ordinary play (I had some delightful "Keen dreams" in my day). But decades of hard experience in Vorticons brings absolute certainty that God Mode is needed.

Otherwise, let's just say that my GODRP (Dutch language) and Aarrgh the Garg mods would have relied heavily upon it no doubt.

[Vortlike]

The following glitch I'm about to show you is partly already known. But some of it may be new. In keen 2 the scrubs can push keen through locked doors under certain circumstances. It is described on the keen wiki that this can be done in Weaponry A and Engine Room B.

Doing it in Engine Room B is slightly more difficult because you have to jump into the scrub as he passes (Let's just jump into it). Whereas in Weaponry A all you have to do is just continuously walk right into the door until the scrub pushes you.

I am actually not sure why or how it works. To successfully perform it you have to wait until the scrub is already upside down and moving to the right. Then you just jump into it. But I don't know why you can jump into it because a scrub should be blocking. How keen can jump in the scrub is unclear to me.

But did you know... If you desperately want to glitch through the door in Engine Room B and you missed the jump. What if I told you that. There is an alternative way to get past there. Simply wait for the scrub to come back. Jump on the scrub and ride it. Then walking from the top of the scrub into the door. It must work similarly to the keen 3 door glitch in Fort Cavort where you can glitch through a door when walking from a moving platform.

You would think that the acceleration of the platform moving to the right in addition to keen moving to the right is what makes keen able to bypass the doors security system. However it turns out even when standing on a scrub walking in the opposite direction does this trick work. It must have to do with the game not properly checking doors block when standing on such an object.

It seems that doors in the keen engine have a prejudice towards pushing keen to the right. This may be somehow related to keen being inspired by Mario. Anyway you can only glitch through doors from left to right it appears.

I find it interesting this glitch can be done in these two levels but in no other levels can you take advantage of this. Similar to how only in level 1 of keen 2 can you observe the scrub walking off screen and reappearing.

That makes me think that the developers did discover these bugs and deliberately kept them in to be potentially discovered in a limited controlled way. Does anyone else think so?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jxfjUDr5SI