Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

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XrackProject
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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by XrackProject »

ktch0 wrote: Wed Apr 19, 2017 17:49 Glad to hear that! Keen 2 was tough for me too back in the day and often frustrating too. I wanted to make Rixot a little easier, a la Keen 1. More of a pleasant throwback instead of a tough challenge.

Btw, I saw your let's play and really enjoyed it. Even with my limited understanding of German :)
Thank you for watching! :D I still had to focus a lot during my gameplay but I really enjoyed the level of difficulty. Your next episodes could be more difficult but aslong as the controls stay like they are its gonna be great anyways. Im also in touch with kids so Im gonna deffinetly recommend your game. Its also great that you can play it in a browser! Im not sure if nowdays kids would be ready/able to use a dosbox just to start a game...
A project for lifetime.
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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by ktch0 »

Hey everyone!

It has been a while and perhaps I should have made a new thread instead of resurrecting this one but...

Over the past year while porting the original web version of the game from js to c I also added some additional improvements that I talked about earlier in the tread. There is now an overworld map much like in Keen and I also added save games. Quite a few additional fixes and tweaks too.

There are builds for windows and linux here: jlv.fi/rixot

Otherwise it's mostly the same but check it out if you like :)

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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by Roobar »

Oooh! What a nice surprise! Now it looks much more like a complete game! Good additions. Feels even more DOS-like (exit to DOS? 😄). World map is awesome.

My slight complain would be that if you are standing on either left or right edge of a tile and if you slightly tap left or right to fall of it, you'll still fall moving too much forward the direction you have pressed the key. Whereas in the original keen, if you slightly tap a key and fall, you'll fall directly downward or downward and a very small amount of forward the direction key pressed. This makes some areas slightly harder to execute or sometimes mislead falls.

Hopefully you'll continue updating it with adding more stuff?
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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by ktch0 »

Roobar wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 13:42 My slight complain would be that if you are standing on either left or right edge of a tile and if you slightly tap left or right to fall of it, you'll still fall moving too much forward the direction you have pressed the key. Whereas in the original keen, if you slightly tap a key and fall, you'll fall directly downward or downward and a very small amount of forward the direction key pressed. This makes some areas slightly harder to execute or sometimes mislead falls.
That is an interesting detail I hadn't noticed! When playing the games side by side Keen definitely feels heavier and tapping the keys allows for very fine movement. I should make another tuning pass over the controls as I'd like them to be close to Keens. Were there any other differences you noticed?
Roobar wrote: Wed Jan 05, 2022 13:42 Hopefully you'll continue updating it with adding more stuff?
Yes that's the plan at least :) A 2nd episode would be fun to make. Also I'd like to add better pc speaker emulation as right now the sounds are just clean square waves with no distortion. Should sound more like playing on an actual early 90's era pc.
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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by Nisaba »

thanks for the linux port!
this is actually amazing. the controls and velocity feel very close to the originals but still give their own, very convincing touch. appreciate that.

And I love the detail that you can quit to DOS :lol
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the Pat-Pat animation looks pretty slick. In general your sprites a really well done. The mutated Garg especially.
but where to find ammunition to shoot those wicked creatures?
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the level design is also well done. the big pyramid map might be my favorite level so far. very diversifyed style and quite a challenge. this absolutely is a neat game. just feels like back in the day when I first laid my hands on a Marooned on Mars

I also appreciate the hint sheet. really helpful
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and thank good this comes with a worldmap saving option. are there plans to add in-game saving as well? at least for me this would make life way easier as my Vorticon skills are kinda rusty... (and what about cheats?)

turning this from js to c is an interesting approach. should - at least in theory - run faster now, right? and have you learned C for this very project or is that a skill you've already had?


some further impression:
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looking forward tp further updates
out now (link) : Image
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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by ktch0 »

Hey thanks for the detailed reply!
Nisaba wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:32 the level design is also well done. the big pyramid map might be my favorite level so far. very diversifyed style and quite a challenge. this absolutely is a neat game. just feels like back in the day when I first laid my hands on a Marooned on Mars
This is nice to hear. I haven't done any level design outside of this game and it's difficult to gauge how well they work while building them. Hopefully the overworld map also made the game feel less linear.
Nisaba wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:32 and thank good this comes with a worldmap saving option. are there plans to add in-game saving as well? at least for me this would make life way easier as my Vorticon skills are kinda rusty... (and what about cheats?)
I kind of find some of the clunkiness in the Vorticon series endearing when it comes to features like this. But I agree, it can also be frustrating having to keep replaying longer levels. For the sake of authenticity I think I'll keep it as is though.
Nisaba wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:32 turning this from js to c is an interesting approach. should - at least in theory - run faster now, right? and have you learned C for this very project or is that a skill you've already had?
It was actually the other way around and I started the previous version as an experiment to try some js and WebGL. C was the first language I learned and I really like the simplicity and portability of it. To better future proof Rixot I decided to re-write it. And besides it's a much nicer environment to work in when I'll get to episode 2 :) Code hotloading makes gameplay tuning a breeze!
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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by DoomJedi »

Somehow I very much enjoy it.

And controls are so accurate and fair. Levels start easy but get harder with some good level of adrenaline.
I like how some upwards level have more chance of you falling than dying, and you can just keep climbing from earlier spot and trying again.
I like how long you go before getting any ammo at all, the platformer core of it.
Lack of pogo makes the game simpler and more direct.
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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by Nisaba »

ktch0 wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 17:08
Nisaba wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:32 and thank good this comes with a worldmap saving option. are there plans to add in-game saving as well? at least for me this would make life way easier as my Vorticon skills are kinda rusty... (and what about cheats?)
I kind of find some of the clunkiness in the Vorticon series endearing when it comes to features like this. But I agree, it can also be frustrating having to keep replaying longer levels. For the sake of authenticity I think I'll keep it as is though.
fair point. And I appreciate the overall authenticity level of this mod. this truly feels like it belongs in the original series.

Allow me, nevertheless, to go into the saving of game saves again. After all, the code is rewritten and allows for additions that would otherwise be difficult if not impossible, as we simply lack the source code for the Vorticon series. I would find it charming if there was, for example, a selection option in the menu that activated the "classic mode" by default. If desired, a switch could also be activated here, which gives the option for extended in-game saving. Just a train of thought...

anyways. awesome job! I'm looking forward to the next episode.
out now (link) : Image
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Re: Captain Rixot - neat hommage to Commander Keen by jlv

Post by ktch0 »

Thanks for playing DoomJedi, glad you liked it!

@Nisaba: your suggestion could indeed be a good compromise and I think I'll have to revisit this decision for ep2 :)


Unrelated, I mentioned earlier that I'd like to make the sound effects feel more like coming out of an actual PC speaker... for authenticity and also I thought it would be an interesting thing to look into :)

Here's a comparison video of what I've got so far, first with speaker emulation off and then on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75dBTxh-Zck

The game is still playing a square wave like before but it is convolved with the impulse response of a 2.25" tin can speaker from my old DOS PC that I used to play Keen on. There's a similar speaker inside the machine but since I had the external speaker already at hand I used it for convenience :). Understanding the process and recording the impulse response took some time but I found out that the convolution itself was a simple thing to implement and basically boiled down to a couple of for loops. The result is almost indistinguishable from playing the sound effects through the actual speaker. I'm still making some tweaks here and there but overall I'm quite happy with how effective this method is considering it's (relative) simplicity.

Anyway, not sure if that is interesting at all but though I'd share :pogo
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