Which versions of Keen 4 & 5 are currently being sold as digital downloads?

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Which versions of Keen 4 & 5 are currently being sold as digital downloads?

Post by K1n9_Duk3 »

Has anybody here bought any Keen games on Steam or the 3D Realms store? I would like to know which versions of Keen (specifically Keen 4 & 5) are currently sold, so that I can perhaps add support for those versions to my screen update patches.
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Re: Which versions of Keen 4 & 5 are currently being sold as digital downloads?

Post by troublesomekeen »

Steam versions for
Keen4 is v1.4 (Keen4e.exe 103 KB)
Keen5 is v1.4 (Keen5e.exe 104 KB)
Keen1 is 1.31 (KEEN1.EXE 50 KB)

They come bundled with and run off DosBox, version 0.72
This information is about 3 years old. Not sure if anything has been updated, like if they're using Dosbox 0.74 now.
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Re: Which versions of Keen 4 & 5 are currently being sold as digital downloads?

Post by K1n9_Duk3 »

Thank you. Unfortunately there are at least three different versions of "version 1.4" of Keen 4 and 5 floating around (id Software's version handling was complete garbage back in those days, there are also multiple different versions of Wolf 3D v1.4).

I know of these three different versions of Keen 4 v1.4:
- Apogee release
- FormGen release
- Goodtimes Software (a.k.a. GT Interactive) release

The Apogee and the FormGen release are almost identical, they just have slightly different EGAGRAPH files (and therefore slightly different EGAHEAD data embedded in the executable), while the GT release has a different layout of the executable which makes it incompatible with the other releases.

The GT version can easily be identified as it has the text "brought to you by goodtimes software!" at the bottom of the text-based startup screen. The main difference between the Apogee and FormGen releases is that the ordering info screens and the text-based exit screen will show the name and address of the respective company.

Could you please double-check and let me know exactly which version that is? Even just the full size of the executables (in bytes) would help me identify the version. You could also try to open the GAMEMAPS.CK? file with my level viewer, which should already have the matching definitions for both the Apogee and the GT releases of v1.4 (as I mentioned before, the FormGen release is mostly identical to the Apogee release and therefore uses the same definition in my level viewer).
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Re: Which versions of Keen 4 & 5 are currently being sold as digital downloads?

Post by Multimania »

All of the currently sold releases (Steam, 3D Realm's website, as well as the now-defunct id Software store) are selling the Apogee 1.4 versions.

3D Realms 4/5 version:

Code: Select all

-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users  33325  1 Feb  1992 AUDIO.CK4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users 101990  1 Feb  1992 AUDIO.CK5
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users    557 28 Nov  2014 CONFIG.CK4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users    557 28 Nov  2014 CONFIG.CK5
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users 520581  1 Feb  1992 EGAGRAPH.CK4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users 573664  1 Feb  1992 EGAGRAPH.CK5
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users  99040  1 Feb  1992 GAMEMAPS.CK4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users  73721  1 Feb  1992 GAMEMAPS.CK5
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users 105108  1 Feb  1992 KEEN4E.EXE
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users 106417  1 Feb  1992 KEEN5E.EXE
-rw-rw-r-- 1 david users 836174  5 May  2009 manual.pdf
Steam Keen 4:

Code: Select all

-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users   33325 23 Jan 10:01 Audio.ck4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users     557 23 Jan 10:01 CONFIG.CK4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users  520581 23 Jan 10:01 Egagraph.ck4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users   99040 23 Jan 10:01 Gamemaps.ck4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users  105108 23 Jan 10:01 Keen4e.exe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users     766 23 Jan 10:01 keen4e.ico
Steam Keen 5:

Code: Select all

-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users  101990 23 Jan 10:01 Audio.ck5
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users  573664 23 Jan 10:01 Egagraph.ck5
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users   73721 23 Jan 10:01 Gamemaps.ck5
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users  106417 23 Jan 10:01 Keen5e.exe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 david users     766 23 Jan 10:01 keen5e.ico
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Re: Which versions of Keen 4 & 5 are currently being sold as digital downloads?

Post by K1n9_Duk3 »

Thank you for the detailed reply.

I'm still a little confused about this, though. After the "Ancient DOS Games" episode on "Goodbye, Galaxy!" I contacted the creator of that show to let him know about the patch that fixes the display problems he mentioned in the video. He said he couldn't get the patch to work, and that he had "the 1.1 3D Realms installer from 2014", which seemed a bit odd to me. Maybe the installer is labeled "1.1" and the game is still the v1.4 Apogee release? But that wouldn't explain why he couldn't get the patch to work.
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Re: Which versions of Keen 4 & 5 are currently being sold as digital downloads?

Post by Multimania »

Hmm… I'm not sure which version of the 3D Realms installer I was checking (I think it was 1.0 of the 3D Realms complete pack installer), but I downloaded the "Commander Keen Galaxy 1.1" installer from the 3D Realms store, and the files all match. (I checked the contents as well as the sizes, the Steam and both 3DR versions are all identical.)

I think the version numbers are just updates to the installer and/or included DOSBox configs, I've not heard of non EGA/Apogee/1.4 versions of anything being sold online. (The last I can recall is the id Anthology including a CGA Keen 6.)

As for why the patch didn't work — I have no idea. I've not been able to reproduce the VW_SetScreen() gliches under stock DOSBox here. I did try running the patches with CKPATCH, though, and they didn't break anything, so the version seems compatible. The .exes are LZEXEd, though, so really old CKPATCH would struggle.
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