Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Here is where to post about the latest Commander Keen fangame or modification you've finished, a new website you've made, or another Keen-related creation.
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Trevor_trev
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Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Trevor_trev »

Hello fellow Keeners! I've been lurking on here for a bit now, first of all I want to say this is a mighty fine community you've got here. I'm sad to see it's not as active as it once was but I think that's common for forums these days, especially ones primarily made up of adults with adult lives. I've played a few of the mods and so far my favorite is Atroxian Realm! I'm a big fan of the puzzles that Gridlock was able to incorporate with the limited features of the engine!

I want to finally share a fangame that I've made in Unity. I started learning how to use unity as well as coding in general at the beginning of this year, using Keen galaxy as a template to learn from seeing as it was one my favorite of the games I grew up with in the good 'ol 90's.

So what I've done is strung the first three levels of keen 4 together (including the bean w/bacon megarocket level) without enemies, hazards, or moving platforms. They're not perfect copies, but they're pretty close. This game's main purpose is as a kind of demo for me to add features to until I have the functionality I need to make the fangame that I plan to make, but seeing as it stands on it's own as a simple time attack, super smash bros style "break the targets" game I figured I would put this in the release forum.

To anyone who downloads and plays the game: I would be so so incredibly grateful if you could leave your opinion on how closely I've been able to mimic the feel of the Keen Galaxy games as well as any bugs you run into! Feel free to go into as much detail as your willing to, the more feedback I hear the better I can make this!

To help aid myself in cleansing my game feel palette so to speak I'm going to take the next few days to a week off of this project and spend all my free time playing the awesome looking mods around here! That way, when I come back to this I'll more easily be able to sense any differences between this game and the originals. On that note, there are some things I want to list to save people the time of pointing out things I am aware of:
  • The camera doesn't behave exactly the same way as keen galaxy. I spent over a month trying to get it right, instead of making it 2 months I called it good seeing as it's somewhat close and the final product I'm going for isn't going to have quite the same camera behavior as the original keen games.
  • The player is not yet able to enter houses/doors, this is one of the functionalities I still need to learn how to implement.
  • The drop through grassy platforms that are to the right of the bean w/bacon megarocket are solely there for testing purposes. They don't function as an integral part of the gameplay or level design.
  • The secrets are made to look very out of place to aid the non-keeners that I'll share this with
  • The falling sound is missing, I couldn't find it anywhere. I got the sounds that were uploaded by levellass here: https://keenmodding.org/viewtopic.php?t=2896 but I cant for the life of me find the falling sound in there or anywhere else. I also tried using keenwave to rip them myself but It wont work on my computer for reasons I'm not yet computer literate enough to know. (maybe because I'm using windows 10?)
  • The music is a good deal more quiet than the originals, I've always thought the music overpowered the other sounds. I didn't even know keen had footstep sounds until yesterday! Let me know If you guys think it's too quiet.
  • Keen's running frames are slightly off, which keeps his head in place as he runs instead of moving forward with each step. This was unintentional, but I didn't fix it because I never was a fan of the chicken-like head bob. Let me know what you guys think about this change as well!
Controls:

movement/look up/look down - arrow keys or wasd
shoot - space bar
jump - right ctrl or "v"
pogo - right alt or "c"

Also, Unfortunately I have yet to learn how to implement a menu system so In order to restart you have to close and reopen the game.

Granted, I'm the one who placed the targets and I've run through this a lot, see if you can beat my best time! I tried my best to place the targets in a way that allows for the optimization of runs.
Current best time:
1min 47sec

Let me know if any of these don't work! This is my first time building and sharing a game, as well as my first time using Dropbox.

Windows: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8la7riio3cdh ... hsRva?dl=0

Mac: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f8kx66hwdprp ... HUFJa?dl=0

Linux: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oglmx8y47t0w ... DowOa?dl=0

Thank you so much for your time and have a wonderful day everyone!
Last edited by Trevor_trev on Thu Sep 24, 2020 8:53, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Roobar »

Welcome! I'd say it's impressive what you've achieved with Unity. I think this is the first demo of a Galaxy implementation made in Unity. Some people were saying they were going to do it in the past, but no one delivered. Until now.

I'd say gameplay wise it's rough around the edges and still needs polishing, but I think so far you've managed to make it feel really keen-ish. I won't dive too deep into what issues I've experienced as this is an early build demo and I'm not sure what your long-term goals are. I'd say that the pogo and impossible pogo jumps feel satisfying. Shooting on the other hand, feels unsatisfying.
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Trevor_trev »

Hey thanks! I would actually love if you went into detail with issues you found. I'll make sure to add that to the op.

My long term goal is to make a keen galaxy feeling game with added features and more "modernized" gameplay and level design that emphasizes exploration and combat, still keeping platforming in the gameplay loop but with less emphasis as the originals. I'm basically looking to make a keen metroidvania.
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Benvolio »

Is there an original post which is somehow deleted or concealed?
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by DarkAle »

Yeah, I got notified about a new topic but I didn't find nothing
Commander Keen in... Robot Apocalypse!
Episode 13: The Ultra Omegamatic viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6802
Episode 14: Secret of the Sorcerer viewtopic.php?t=13031
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Fleexy »

The original post was edited after being approved, which caused it to vanish back into the pending-approval state. Welcome to the PCKF, Trevor_trev! Your account is fully activated now, so weird things like that won't happen again. :)
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Trevor_trev »

Yay! Thanks for the warm welcome! I'm hoping to eventually make a development thread for the game I'm working toward as well, but I'm going to wait until I've fleshed Ideas out a bit more. I've been putting all my time into learning Unity and coding that I haven't put much into the gameplay/level design or story beyond basic ideas.
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by XrackProject »

Oh my God!

Finally Keen has made it to Unity aswell! :love
A project for lifetime.
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Tormentor667 »

Screenshots please :)
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Trevor_trev »

I would be happy to oblige! I even got some cool action shots! :smokin


Image

Image

Image


As if that wasn't enough, Here's a video of me doing a complete run! This video not only shows how to break every target, it also features:
  • Moving Platforms!
  • An altered running animation that better mimics the original Keen Galaxy games!
  • The recently added Perilous Pit!
  • A Unity error message that I really should look into!
  • A bug that occurs when landing on the very edge of a platform! WOW! :O
  • Leaked title of the game that I am trying to eventually make! :oops
Video:
https://youtu.be/4-OH-OJrTGA

As per Roobar's comment, I looked into the shooting mechanics and believe that one of the main reasons it felt so off was that when shooting while running keen would keep moving for a split second after the shooting animation started, so he would do a kind of slide just before shooting, and the other main reason being that the timing of the shooting sequence was off. The sequence basically goes like this:
Shoot button pressed >>(If running, Keen stops >>) Keen raises gun >> bullet appears >> Keen lowers gun (>>if run button is held, Keen begins running).
Each of the stages in the shooting sequence has a small amount of time between them. Due to me knowing nothing about Keen Galaxy's source code, I have no idea if it measures that time in frames or real time. For my code, I measured it in real time. In order to improve the feel and more closely mimic the original games, I recorded myself firing off 10 rounds in keen 5, calculated the average time between each stage in the firing sequence for each shot, and set the time intervals in my code accordingly.

I'll try to upload the improved version in a few weeks, when I'm done implementing doorways and building the rest of the levels (insides of houses and whatnot) that the doorways lead to. I may just create a development in the unofficial games board and share my plans on where I want to take this project. Thanks for checking this out everyone, have a great day!
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Nisaba »

... I'm especially impressed be the all-in-one-level idea. I really like how the first three or four levels blend. just the way I'd imagine how it must feel wandering the Shadowlands. neat!
out now (link) : Image
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Trevor_trev »

Part of me wants figure out how to put all of the levels together in an open fashion, but there's other things I want to put my time into with this project. At some point I'm going to release all of my code on github with instructions on how to put it together so other people can use it as a no-limits level builder, maybe someone else will undertake that task.
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Trevor_trev »

Happy Keen Day everyone! I'm super excited to play everything that's coming out!

Version 2.0 is out now! Things that I've added/improved:

-Improved the timing of the shoot sequence to get rid of the weird slide and feel more keenish.
-running animation is now more similar to the original.
-50 Targets total!
-Added the ability to walk through doorways.
-Added Moving platforms.
-Added the blue key gem in the perilous pit.
-Added a main menu and a pause menu.
-Added the ability to create your own control setup.
-added the thumbs up loading screen
-Added a rudimentary trophy system.
-The game now keeps track of your best time.

As always, let me know what you guys think. If you find any bugs or if something just feels off, anything at all! :D

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hjkaj7hjqa4s ... 2-9ja?dl=0
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Roobar »

There's the pogo/jump thing you need to fix. Feels unresponsive. Jump with pogo and turn off the pogo in air, but hold jump. In the original keens, after you land, you will jump once more.

Or just plain jumping. Try moving and jumping repeatedly. Sometimes it doesn't register jumps.

Or: impossible pogo jump and land on an edge (like in the second level on the single green tiles). You land on them, but the falling animation is still playing.

Or when you impossible pogo jump towards a vertical wall, but try to turn back. Feels like you're attached to the wall and can't turn back. It's like there's something off with the inertia thing.

When you grab a ledge, in the original keens, if you press the opposite direction, you fall.
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Re: Commander Keen in: Break the Targets!

Post by Trevor_trev »

Thanks for the feedback!

When you say the pogo jump thing feels unresponsive, do you mean the fact that keen doesn't jump when holding the button down after disabling the pogo stick? Or do you mean the pogo stick is I responsive in general? I didn't even know keen would jump like that when holding it down! I'll be sure to add that in there!

This morning I briefly tried to jump repeatedly while moving and it felt responsive to me. Although I could be biased from having worked on it so much. What operating system do you use? I'll try to find someone else who uses the same one to test it out and see if that could be it. Also, when I get more time I'll compare it to the original.

I think I know how to fix being attached to a wall and the falling animation as well. And while testing that out myself I found another bug that has to do with sprite layering when standing next to an edge. I'll fix that as well.
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