2.5D Keen

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Ronnie
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2.5D Keen

Post by Ronnie »

Hello!

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I'm really excited and honored to be able to share this remake I've been working on. I got into game development by doing modeling and animation, but recently I've gotten tired of waiting on other people to get their side done. So I'm learning to code!

I use Blender for all the 3D stuff, and I put it all together in Unity.

You'll need the Unity webplayer thing to play: http://unity3d.com/webplayer/

Once you have that, you can check out my work in progress here:
http://josephmcarney.com/test/KeenTest3.html

Let me know what you think of it. I value this forum's opinions a lot.
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Levellass
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Post by Levellass »

*Whistles*


I like Keen's model very much, the expression is missing a little... something, but is otherwise quite excellent and very stylized. This looks to be a total blast.
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lemm
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Post by lemm »

This looks really good. I like the artistic style.


Is the entire game going to be a remake of the Vorticons series? Is the game going to be entirely 2D?
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Ronnie
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Post by Ronnie »

Levellass wrote: I like Keen's model very much, the expression is missing a little... something
Can you be more specific? Is it the eyes that bug you? Or the mouth? I agree there is something a bit off about his realistic mouth paired with the cartoony eyes. The reason I have it that way is because Unity doesn't do blend shapes (which make facial expressions doable), so I got to stick with a static mouth shape and do what I can with the eyes and brow, which I borrowed heavily from the Ness/Lucas Smash Bro's character design.
Is the entire game going to be a remake of the Vorticons series? Is the game going to be entirely 2D?
To be honest, I don't know a ton about the entire library of the Keen games or which ones belong to the Vorticon series I played the first Keen probably 100x as a kid, and it's my intention to recreate the first level of Keen 1 and polish it to perfection. As far as 2D goes, what you can see in the demo is what I call "2.5D". 3-dimensional models and assets, but the game plays like a side-scroller.
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Post by troublesomekeen »

This is so awesome. Awesome, awesome. Great work, Ronnie! Perhaps he looks a little too much like Ness/Lucas. His arms are really long and legs short. I think Keen's hands should be clenched in a fist, and his arms more rigid with a determined attitude, in the fashion of Galaxy Keen. The way his arms sway now is a bit too flippy-floppy. That's just my two cents. It looks so awesome already.
For everyone who can't play the actual thing, here's a little video:
http://youtu.be/PWRSMwlfKLI
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Commander Keen in... Canteloupe Quest!
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Post by Keening_Product »

The face looks older than that of an 8y/o (maybe because of the eyebrows), but other than that, neat.

I approve this product.
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Levellass
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Post by Levellass »

Can you be more specific? Is it the eyes that bug you? Or the mouth? I agree there is something a bit off about his realistic mouth paired with the cartoony eyes. The reason I have it that way is because Unity doesn't do blend shapes (which make facial expressions doable), so I got to stick with a static mouth shape and do what I can with the eyes and brow, which I borrowed heavily from the Ness/Lucas Smash Bro's character design.
Possibly it's the nose. The eyes and eyebrows are excellent, a nice cartoony look.
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Post by Nospike »

I also think his nose should be smaller and thinner.
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Post by Roobar »

The character looks very cool. However, it doesn't look keenish to me at this point.

This is like 5-6-th time someone is trying to make a 3D keen game. So far nobody succeeded at creating a full game. Anyway. This, of course, definitely looks promising because you chose the 2.5D perspective. Hopefully after recreating the first keen 1 level, you'll start making some new unique levels. And maybe implement edge grabbing.

It would be interesting to see some of your other projects/models.
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Post by Benvolio »

Fantastic and mindblowing. Kind of like what I would imagine it would be like to play keen1 on LSD. And @wiivn bear in mind that, (I presume) the plain décor is all a placeholder for more authentic colours, and the yorps too are to be replaced with models of yorps. Apologies to the artist if in fact it is meant to be a stripped-down take on the Keen games. Anyhow this is among the most exciting fan-programmed Keen projects I've seen.

@Ronnie to clarify, 'Vorticons' is generally used to refer to the games, engines and mods of Keen 1,2,3 i.e. the trilogy "Invasion of the Vorticons". So what you've made is the first level of Keen1. Meanwhile, 'Galaxy' is generally used to refer to the follow-up 'Goodbye Galaxy' series Keen4 and 5. Then 'Aliens' is Keen6 even though it is also made with the Galaxy engine. And then there's Keen Dreams.
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Post by Ronnie »

troublesomekeen wrote: His arms are really long and legs short. I think Keen's hands should be clenched in a fist, and his arms more rigid with a determined attitude, in the fashion of Galaxy Keen. The way his arms sway now is a bit too flippy-floppy.
This is why I wanted to talk to you guys! You folks are very intune with Keen's personality. And the flippy-floppy arms is something I end up doing all the time. The animator in me always gravitates toward smooth motion, even when more deliberate motion is need :P
The face looks older than that of an 8y/o (maybe because of the eyebrows), but other than that, neat.
I'm glad he looks older than 8, I'm shooting for an older Keen. More like a 10/11 year old.
This is like 5-6-th time someone is trying to make a 3D keen game. So far nobody succeeded at creating a full game. Anyway. This, of course, definitely looks promising because you chose the 2.5D perspective. Hopefully after recreating the first keen 1 level, you'll start making some new unique levels. And maybe implement edge grabbing.
Yea, I've been following the progress of the other 3D keen games here. I went with the 2.5D perspective because of my own limitations with coding. 3D games are much harder to pull off.

Once I get the first level to a point where I'm satisfied with it, I'd like to recreate the whole game. Mars map, keycards, to whole thing. Not sure about unique levels, level design isn't my strength.
the plain décor is all a placeholder for more authentic colours, and the yorps too are to be replaced with models of yorps.
Yup!
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Post by Levellass »

This is why I wanted to talk to you guys! You folks are very intune with Keen's personality. And the flippy-floppy arms is something I end up doing all the time. The animator in me always gravitates toward smooth motion, even when more deliberate motion is need
You could always try and animate him like the nicelanders from Wreck It Ralph.
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Post by Lava89 »

First of all, welcome to PCKF!

This looks pretty cool! I especially love the jumping and running animations of Keen (I can totally see Ness' influence in the design). I also like the low poly look. Keep up the good work! :D

And thanks for giving us a playable test run!
wiivn wrote:This is like 5-6-th time someone is trying to make a 3D keen game. So far nobody succeeded at creating a full game.
Well actually Keen Dreams 3D was the first 3D Keen game, being a full recreation of Keen Dreams. Also, my pogo demo was meant to be a self-contained game (since it had its own storyline and original levels). Its just really short on the level count.
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Post by Roobar »

From what I remember, Keen Dreams 3D was just one level or something. I remember it was bad. I didn't even manage to complete it... How could that be a full recreation?

Btw searching for 3D keen games, found some oddly things I didn't even knew exists (but may deserve a different topic). Like this oddly looking karate Keen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOPoiS1 ... cw&index=8

A terribly and creepy looking Keen 1 3D (but not exactly recreation) made by a woman (but at least looks pretty much complete):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVB1cOV_plM
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Post by Gridlock »

:drool
This is super cool. We've seen a couple past attempts at 3-D Keens, but they've allen fallen through. Just from this little tech demo, you seem to have quite a lot of skills at this sort of thing. I'll give you my constructive criticism:

The engine is quite nice, but I think it'll need more tweaking. The jump physics aren't bad, but it does seem rather tricky to pull off jumps sometimes. I don't know if the jump button isn't responsive enough or what, but something about it feels awkward. Maybe Keen needs a little more velocity when he jumps while running? It would be nice if jumps height could differ depending on how long you hold down the button. It already seems like you've referenced the vorticons engine a bit on how the jumps work, but I still think it needs work. Also, it seems like Keen moves too quickly when you change directions midair. I think it needs more deceleration/acceleration instead of an instant direction of velocity change. Again, the Vorticons engine could be a helpful reference. You might also want to add a look up/look up behavior similar to what you can do in the Galaxy games.

Some of the platforming is tricky, especially since a few of the circular platforms seem to vanish when you jump or move on them. It's kind of finicky, but I've had a few times when I fallen off of them because they just vanished while I was standing on them.

I also don't particularly like the design of Keen's face. It just... doesn't look right. Remember that most of us are used to the way Keen looks in the games, and he doesn't really have much of a nose or eyebrows. Also, the eyes might need to be smaller and certainly need some color in them so they don't look like big black circles. I have to wonder if maybe Keen is a little too short, or maybe his head is just too big for his body. I know significant edits to the model would be challenging, but right now he looks kind of short and fat.

Customizable controls would be nice too. It took me a while to figure out the correct buttons, and they're not especially easy to use with my keyboard setup.

Anyway, I'm still really really impressed by this. This is the best 3-D Keen engine I've seen yet, and with more polished graphics it could look downright amazing. I see a lot of potential here, and I hope you stick with it. The Keen community has a lot of people with the right skills to help you if want. Good luck! :)
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