Public Commander Keen Forum

In Chuck's Lair, all the switches have to be flipped. It's a little disorienting at first, but basically while you're on a platform you have to hit the up key twice to get them to flip.

Since you've obtained the book on summoning holy fire, Keen sits down in a shorter period of time. Once you get to the second half of the stage you'll know why. Before you get to the second half of the stage, I strongly encourage you to save your game, because, as mentioned in previous posts, this stage tends to crash a lot.

Also, without giving it away, there's a little hint for the second half of the stage written in blood above the cross on the platform just before you get to the door at the far right of the stage. Once you figure out what it means, you're all set for the final boss fight.

Edit: Oh bummer. Every single time (with one exception, but at that time I failed) I enter the doorway, the game freezes in a way - there is a screen without Keen or Count Chuck visible, music is still playing, but the game doesn't react to pressing anything.
You know?... Is there someone here who is able to get past this stage? I seemingly can't for technical reasons. If you could send me some screenshots from the ending sequence, I could wrap it up and be done with this game. It's a pity that it's so buggy, and a little too hard, but some of the graphics - particularly the graveyard and the pumpkin patch backgrounds - are among the best in Commander Keen games.

Nowhere Girl wrote: ↑Sat Aug 14, 2021 8:04 Edit: Oh bummer. Every single time (with one exception, but at that time I failed) I enter the doorway, the game freezes in a way - there is a screen without Keen or Count Chuck visible, music is still playing, but the game doesn't react to pressing anything.
You know?... Is there someone here who is able to get past this stage? I seemingly can't for technical reasons. If you could send me some screenshots from the ending sequence, I could wrap it up and be done with this game. It's a pity that it's so buggy, and a little too hard, but some of the graphics - particularly the graveyard and the pumpkin patch backgrounds - are among the best in Commander Keen games.

I've beat the final stage many times. When I've had the crashing problem, I've found that by switching to the pc speaker and turning the music off I was able to get the stage to load properly, since this cuts down on memory usage. Once you do this the boss fight should load properly, and as soon as it does, go into the door Keen is next to, which will take you to the opposite end of the stage. Save as soon as you do this, and from there you should be able to turn the music and adlib sounds back on, and you should be all set to complete the stage. Just know that the stage may crash every now and then when you try to summon holy fire, so if this happens just reset the game and you should be all set. Good luck.

Turning the sound off (in the game's D-Fend Reloaded profile) didn't help, it still freezes.

Nowhere Girl wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 8:37 Turning the sound off (in the game's D-Fend Reloaded profile) didn't help, it still freezes.

Oh yeah, I forgot that you're not running this in DosBox. I'm not sure how much advice I can give you at this point, since I'm unfamiliar with D-Fend, so forgive me if I sound uninformed, but when you say you turned the sound off in the game's D-Fend reloaded profile, was this done in the game's main menu?

No, not in game menu. Should I?

yeah, you wanna consult the games sound menu and switch things off over there

And by the way... how to summon holy fire? I thought that it would replace my slingshot automatically, but no...

Nowhere Girl wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 19:19 And by the way... how to summon holy fire? I thought that it would replace my slingshot automatically, but no...

To summon holy fire, you're supposed to stand in front of a cross and wait for Keen to sit down and start reading the book. Since you acquired the book on summoning holy fire, this won't take as long as it normally would. Once you do this, the cross will catch fire. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

Soul Monster wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 21:00 To summon holy fire, you're supposed to stand in front of a cross and wait for Keen to sit down and start reading the book. Since you acquired the book on summoning holy fire, this won't take as long as it normally would. Once you do this, the cross will catch fire. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

I'm still not sure what to do later: set all crosses on fire? Ugh... I'm afraid my game won't last that long without crashing...

Nowhere Girl wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 21:26

Soul Monster wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 21:00 To summon holy fire, you're supposed to stand in front of a cross and wait for Keen to sit down and start reading the book. Since you acquired the book on summoning holy fire, this won't take as long as it normally would. Once you do this, the cross will catch fire. I'm sure you can figure out the rest.

I'm still not sure what to do later: set all crosses on fire? Ugh... I'm afraid my game won't last that long without crashing...

You only have to set 1 on fire at a time. Just remember to save often as summoning holy fire can crash the game sometimes.

I'm afraid that I can't complete it. It crashes all the time.

Nowhere Girl wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:29 I'm afraid that I can't complete it. It crashes all the time.

Just keep resetting the game when that happens. Sometimes it takes me a few times but eventually you should be able to beat the boss.

There's another glitch you may want to know about: Sometimes after Count Chuck has been hit by the holy fire, the fire will disappear and any time you try to summon more, it will also disappear. Just reset the game if this happens and it'll work.

Soul Monster wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 19:09 There's another glitch you may want to know about: Sometimes after Count Chuck has been hit by the holy fire, the fire will disappear and any time you try to summon more, it will also disappear. Just reset the game if this happens and it'll work.

I have exactly this glitch. I'm back to the game after having learned a cheat , but so far it doesn't help because of the glitch.

Nowhere Girl wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 16:11 I have exactly this glitch. I'm back to the game after having learned a cheat , but so far it doesn't help because of the glitch.

Well, all I can really say is keep trying and whenever you manage to hit Chuck, save ASAP. It may get annoying at times, but this has always worked for me. You know what to do in this stage right?