CCCC OOOO M M M M AA N N DDD EEEE RRRR CC OO OO MM MM MM MM AAAA NN N D D E R R C O O M M M M M M M M A A N N N D D E E R R C O O M M M M M M AAAAAA N N N D D EE E RRRR CC OO OO M M M M M A A N NN D D E R R CCCC OOOO M M M M A A N N DDD EEEE R R K K EEEE EEEE N N K K E E NN N KKK E E E E N N N K KK EE E EE E N N N K K E E N NN K K EEEE EEEE N N COMMANDER KEEN NEWSLETTER :) Issue-2: May 14, 2002 Working Title: Fan Games (C) 2002 by Joseph Burke all rights reserved. All trademarks are properties of their respective owners. Warning: This document may not be distributed without permission. ----------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter Homepage: http://www.commanderkeen.net Newsletter Index: [1] Featured Articles [1.1] Interview with byrd_no7 [1.2] Interview with therealdopefish (Pieter Jordaan) [1.3] Interview with John Eubank [1.4] The Creation of Commander Keen [2] Fan Game Reviews [2.1] Real Keen Player II [3] Website Reviews [3.1] The Keencyclopedia [3.2] RKP2 Website [3.3] BWBR Technical Manuals [4] Monthly Fiction [4.1] Story by "Talking Dog" [5] Keen Community News [5.1] The Chasm of Strife [5.2] New Website "Commander Keen Vault" [5.3] Commander Keen in Yorphius II screenshots! [5.4] Get the Beta To "Commander Keen in Yorphius II" [5.5] Real Keen Player III [5.6] New Fan Game "The Lost Oracle" [5.7] New Fan Game "Day of the Alien:Tentacles Ate My Babysitter!" [6] Miscellaneous Stuff [6.1] Announcements [6.2] Credits ----------------------------------------------- [1] Featured Articles (We aren't looking for a permanent "Featured Article" writer at this time, but if you want us to publish an article for you, we'd be most obliged. Email "forge315@commanderkeen.net" about this.) [1.1] Interview with byrd_no7 CK-Newsletter: Where are you from and how did you end up in the Keen Community? byrd_no7: I am from Houston, Tx. When I was very little, I used to remember watching my older brother playing K1 on a computer that is older than us all, and I liked how it played for a game of the time. Recently though, I was looking for some Keen related stuff (downloads, cheats, and the like), and I found the message board. Question: What types of games interest you? Answer: I like 3D-shooters, RPG... well, pretty much all games. A game that has a good storyline and is intense, is better than one with just graphics. Question: What do you like to do when you program? I'm sure that there is some things that you can't do that you'd like to do, what are these? Answer: When I make a game, I like it to be able to be customized. Making it so that the User has lots of fun with what is there, and then changing it and having even more fun. I'd like to be able to make it so that DOS games are easily ported into Windows, but it's not going to happen. Question: If you go into programming as a career, would you find it boring if you didn't program for games? Answer: Yes and no. After I'd finish with the task that I was given, I'd be glad that I managed to do it. With games though, I also get to see if the programming worked right and play some to check. Question: Game designers tend to get more credit than programmers, but this is not the case for a company like id Software, or for Tim Sweeney, (lead programmer of Unreal II) so with this in view would you rather work in a tech-company like id or somewhere else? Answer: I'd would rather have a little credit than no credit, but the programmer acutally has the power to make it so that he has a little more credit. You know, adding those hidden messages in the program/game that says who the programmer is? Question: Other than playing computer games and programming what do you like to do; are you a study aholic? Answer: I like Art. You know that whole drawing, drafting, etc.? I'm not really good at it, but I like it for some reason. I'm also into music. Not listening to it, but playing it either on a piano or keyboard. Question: Who is the better programmer you or DML? Are you better at some things than him? Answer: I'd probally say DML, because he's been at it longer. For a little background information, I started programming because I saw that the original Isis team could program a game good, and I figured that I could too. Question: Will you and DML, both share the credits spot as lead programmer? Answer: Yes both DML and I will share credit for programming. DML (David Layne) did set up the basic engine with Worminator, and has been helping me with errors and doing some programming here and there. Question: Do you think that if there's going to be a sequel to Isis you'll be commissioned to make a new engine for it? Are your abilities up to the task? Answer: For right now what I know is that if there is going to be a sequal to Isis, it will be like K1-3 or K4-6 with the same engine. As for afterwards, I'm learning DirectX and Windows programming. Question: What are your skills in programming, doing AI, graphics, etc.? What are your weaknesses? Answer: My train of thought would be what I'm best at, because I can think in a "If this... then this..." type fashion. As for the whole AI and graphics, it's all the same to me. What I'm worst at is that sometimes I don't remember the correct format for functions. Question: Have you surprised eK, and put any features into Isis, that he didn't ask for? Answer: I don't know If I've supprised him or not, but I have put features into the game that he didn't ask for. ---------------------- [1.2] Interview with therealdopefish CK-Newsletter: Please tell us a little about yourself, and when you first joined the Keen Community? Answer: I grew up with the computer. I played computergames from an early age and I always wanted to make my own game. Especially platformers were my favorites. My father had Turbo Pascal, so that's the programming language I learned to make my games. the I found out it was harder than I thought, but I didn't give up and well you can see the result. I joined the community about 5/6 years ago. Commander Keen Forever was a simple KNP-game. The first RKP was a bit dissapointing(the engine was the problem), but the second game was a lot better. The next game will probably be a lot better. Question: Can you give us a list of the things you've done so far in the Community? Answer: For as long as I know I only made Comamnder Keen Forever, RKP1 and RKP2. I tried to make a gamemapmaker for RKP1, but never released it. Question: Why do you make Keen fan games? Do you think the future of fan games will be better than the present? Answer: Commander Keen was one of my favorite games. Then I found out there was a community and I decided I could make a Keen game. It's hard to predict the future. I probably think the future games will be better. There aren't any upcoming TGF/KNP games and Isis 2 looks promising. Question: How much time do you think went into making RKP 1 & 2? Answer: Let's see. For RKP1 it took about a year. Probably about 100 hours. For RKP2 I probably took 80 hours. It's hard to know how long it took to make the game. Question: Are you going to continue the RKP story line with RKP3? Answer: Yes, I have already written some ideas. The only thing I can tell you that all the levels will be on (the new) Solitaire Planet from the previous game. Question: Your using a game-making program for RKP3, what are the benefits and disadvantages in doing this? What type of program is this? Answer: The benefits is that I don't have to pay attention to certain things, like the sound. The sound would be a lot better. The disadvantages are the limits the program give me. The program has a lot of limits on text and words. It's called DivGamesstudio and is a very easy to use. The programming language in it is a combination of C++ and Turbo Pascal, so it wasn't hard to learn it. Question: You were saying that unless you could get a 3d looking Keen sprite you might not make this new Keen game, however you always created your own graphics so who would draw the foes? Answer: The only reason I didn't want a 3D-rendered Keen sprite was because a lot of people wouldn't like it. There were also some people(I can't recall who) who didn't like the new look in Isis 2. I'm now pretty busy with rendering enemies and bosses. But 3d-rendered enemies and a flat Keen doesn't work, so I have to think about that. Question: What are some things we can expect to see in RKP3? Will it have points this time? Answer: It will be more than a platformer. Some boss battles will be turn-based RPG- like. I remade RKP2 in a non-keen game and that game had points plus some extra stuff which was missing in the game. RKP3 will have a score system. Also the energy bar will disappear. You can now control more than one character. If a character gets hit he'll run away and the next character gets in. It works a bit like Donkey Kong Country. There will also be some parodies to other videogames. Question: How long do you estimate RKP3 will be in development before a demo is out, will there be a demo at all? Answer: Right now I don't have much time because of school. This time I won't show much of the game, so the game will be more surprising. I expect it will be finished around december 2002/january 2003. ---------------------- [1.3] Interview with John Eubank J.E. Keen website: http://classickeen.virtualave.net/ CK-Newsletter: Who are you and how did you come to be a Keen fan? John Eubank: My name -- just call me either John or J.E. I became a Keen fan while browsing the internet and coming across the game called "Commander Keen in Goodbye Galaxy: The Secret of the Oracle", at some obscure shareware collection. This being when I was only about 9 years old, I persuaded my dad to download it, and I was immediately addicted (that is no longer the case, as I have finished each game about 5 times). Question: What would you classify you programming skills as, beginner, intermediate, or expert? Answer: I would classify my programming skills as intermediate to expert; probably closer to intermediate. BTW, just in case you didn't already know this, my art skills suck. Question: Do the programs you make have good compatibility, Win 95, 98, 2000, XP, etc.? Also are they basically bug free? Answer: All the programs I've made so far have had complete compatibility with Win 98 (my OS) and Win 95 (my old OS). They use basic enough code to almost certainly be compatible with any OS higher than 95. (I also can make DOS programs, but choose not to.) My beta versions of programs are certainly not bug-free; my final programs are if I choose to make them so (which is not always). CKLO will be as absolutely bug-free as I can make it. Question: You said that you've done other programming projects, are any of these games? Can we have some info? Answer: My main programming projects have been a quick picture-file displayer (for BMP, GIF, JPEG, and WMF formats) and a simple music CD playing program. I have begun one or two games in The Games Factory, but have not finished them. (If you want, I can upload to WWW or email you the picture program.) Question: Why do you want to make a Keen game? Answer: The main reason that I want to make a Keen game is to better my programming skills, and to get the experience for anything I might want to do in the future with similar requirements. Question: What types of features could be in the completed game, assuming you get a graphics artist? Answer: The game should include all the features of the original games, probably excluding paddle-war. Question: What quality of game are you hoping to produce; will it be comparable to the originals or Isis? Answer: I would like for the game to be of the same quality as the original series, but I don't know that that would be realistic with my skills. Possibly it would be the same quality as Isis, although I'm not familiar with the "current quality level" of Isis. Question: Will you continue this game if you don't get a graphics artist? How much work would the graphics artist have to do? Also what about music and sound, have you got that covered? Answer: IF I do not get good graphics for the game, it certainly will not be the same quality as either, although I'll still try to release the game. It will merely have pretty bad pictures. If someone else does do graphics for me, they would just have to make pictures and email them to me; if they wanted they could make suggestions as to how the game could be improved. As to music and sound, I'm not quite sure. I will try to include music (MIDI format), and see what happens as to sound (I don't really have any source for sound effects). Question: If this game goes good will you make a sequel? Also lets say your project fails but your engine was completed and it was just awesome, would you release the source code so that the C.K. Community could use it in the future? Answer: If this game (The Chambers of Gnosticus IV) goes well, I will most certainly make the next in the trilogy, and if that one well, the next. And as soon as I get the engine working, I'll release the source code for puplic perusal. (I don't know that the engine will be awesome, however.) Thanks for your interest! CK-Newsletter: Our pleasure :) ---------------------- [1.4] The Creation of Commander Keen Tom Hall along with John Romero and John Carmack, the eccentric co-creators of "Commander Keen", "Doom", "Wolfenstein 3D" and "Prey" among other games have made the the addicting Commander Keen, a 2 dimension side-scroller action packed game starring our favorite 8 year old, Billy Blaze! Tom Hall was first working at Softdisk when he met John Romero and John Carmack and together they created a smooth side-scrolling engine with graphics similar to Super Mario World 3 but Softdisk didn't approve of the game engine since it wouldn't run on CGA so the project was officially canceled. But the authors began receiving fan mail from a Mr. Scott Miller founder of Apogee Software who said he could fund the completion of a using the new engine. Hall, Romero and Carmack asked for 2,000 dollars in payment for the game with they got some weeks later. So that's how they went on for some time dedicated Softdisk workers by day and working furiously on their game by night after some struggle with the in game graphics they hired Adrian Carmack (no relation to John Carmack) who helped them a lot in the last levels of the game. And then on December 14, 1990 the first episode, which would be shareware, of the eagerly anticipated game who was going to be named Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars the first part of the Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons Trilogy for which the public would have to pay for. And in January of the next year the people at iD got there first big check for about 10,000 dollars and on that very same day John Romero and John Carmack went with the owner of Softdisk and told him that they were taking Adrian Carmack with them. When Adrian was informed of this he thought that it would be wise to go with them as the whole design team was leaving and with that iD Software was officially formed on February 1, 1991. Since the team was still obligated to make another game for Softdisk they started working on Keen Dreams also referred to as Keen 3.5 because it was made in terms of time and technologically between "Invasion of the Vorticons" and "Good Bye Galaxy!" After the completion of Keen Dreams the team moved to Shreveport to Madison, Wisconsin (Tom Hall's birthplace) in September of 1991 but they didn't work there for a long time and after six months they moved to Dallas on April 1, 1992. And when they arrived at Dallas they began working on the sequel to "Invasion of the Vorticons" The sequel that would be called "Good Bye Galaxy!" would have better graphics, sound card support and better playability. And it was in the fist game of the "Good Bye Galaxy!" duology that they created one of their most famous characters, the Dopefish which was inspired from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. For more information on the Dopefish check out the official website at http://www.dopefish.com. After the completion of "Commander Keen and the Armageddon Machine" which arguably is the best Commander Keen game, the creators began making the sixth and last Commander Keen game "Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter" which was sold in retail by a company named FormGen, but since FormGen doesn't exist now the game is impossible to obtain legally except for a 3 level demo that was released to help promote the full version. If you completed the sixth episode you would get a message promising a second trilogy called "The Universe is Toast" and a final showdown with Mortimer McMire-Commander Keenīs archrival but the game never came. Why, you ask? Simply because iD was working then on more violent and popular games like "Wolfenstein 3D" and "Doom" and having more popular games to work on the project was abandoned and thus ending the Commander Keen era of Tom Hall, John Romero, John Carmack and Adrian Carmack. Currently Tom Hall and John Romero are working together at Monkeystone a company who develops and publishes games for Palm's, Portable PC's, Computers and Video Game Consoles. John Romero is Chief Executive Officer and Lead Programmer at Monkeystone as Tom Hall is President and Lead Designer. For more information on Monkeystone and it's games go to the official Monkeystone page at http://www.monkeystone.com or write to John Romero and Tom Hall directly! You can write to Tom Hall at tom@monkeystone.com or you can write to John Romero at john@monkeystone.com As for John and Adrian Carmack there still working at iD Software as lead programmers and owners where they are currently working on some hot new games. And to close this article I want to quote Tom Hall with "I do miss the good ol' days of Keen. I love the universe and the gameplay. We will see how the future unfolds" -Olac Fuentes Zueck A.K.A Shikadi ----------------------------------------------- [2] Fan Game Reviews [2.1] Real Keen Player II This game was programmed in Turbo Pascal, it's an old programming language for DOS; because of this the game suffers incompatibility with newer computers and OS'. The game seems to run fine on Win98 but anything newer and it probably wont work; I can't get it to work on XP and I've heard that it doesn't work on 2000 etc. either. So there is a definite negative side there. Game-play wise it's boring and not true to the original Keen games; but it does have its better areas and I'd say innovation was at the top of this list. The levels seem to be diverse with interesting ideas on game-play, and as I progressed through the game I new I'd see something new on almost every level. The innovations cannot be simply classified however there was bosses, and the enemies were diverse. Lengthwise the game is very long and hard; it's even hard if you play on easy. One thing that makes the game hard is the time limit on each level, if you don't complete the level within the allotted time than you have to start it again. Also the bosses aren't simple and I only managed to get past one of them because the game messed up. But don't think the game is buggy cause it's not; I never really had any frustrating trouble with it other than the fact of it's hardness. The game doesn't stop with just innovative game-play and very hard levels, it comes with an editor and you can even make your own tiles. It's not the easiest editor to use but after a couple hours you'll know how to use it. So far no fan made levels have come out but who know maybe you'll make one. I only played this game to about level 14 and I don't even think that was half of the levels. So this is a pretty good game though very different from the originals, and it certainty stands out from all the want to be fan games out there. - Forge315 ----------------------------------------------- [3] Website Reviews (If you want your website reviewed, please email "yorpy@commanderkeen.net") Rating System Horrible (1-2) Bad (3-4) Okay (5-6) Good (7-8) Excellent! (9-10) [3.1] The Keencyclopedia Excellent (10/10) Quality - 9/10 Originality - 10/10 Keenishness - 9/10 Overall - 10/10 http://www.commanderkeen.net/keencyclopedia/ The site it well designed and has a wealth of information. I didn't find any major spelling or grammar errors. There is a choice between a version with images or just the definitions so if don't want to wait for the images to load go for the text version. But I have a dial-up modem and it didn't take more than a few minutes for all the images to load. The site is organized with every enemy, every item, every level, and just about everything else in alphabetical order for easy look up. The site also includes a list of archived Keen sites and a list of many fan games plus the downloads for them. Work is still being done on the site. The framework is there to be able to see the encyclopedia by letter or episode. So if you ever wondered what the name of the that weird looking enemy was or what do the items look like in the Game Boy Keen or just want to know what the heck something is, check out this site! ---------------------- [3.2] RKP2 Website Okay (7/10) Quality - 6/10 Originality - 8/10 Keenishness - 7/10 Overall - 7/10 http://geocities.com/pieterjordaan.geo/rkp2/objects.htm This site was made to contain information about the fan made game Real Keen Player 2. There is a frame on the left with a list in it to navigate and a frame on the right in which the information appears and there is a frame on top that seems to do nothing of importance. The site only properly works in Internet Explorer but still gives errors. You can download the game on the site. There is also a FAQ, tips on making a level yourself, and a list of the fastest times. A list of enemies is there but no pics or info on them. Ratings, pictures, info make the level list much more complete and informative. If you are interested in playing a fan game or want to know more about this game visit this site. - Yorpy ---------------------- [3.3] BWBR Technical Manuals Good (8/10) Quality - 9/10 Originality - 10/10 Keenishness - 7/10 Overall - 8/10 http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Orchard/6221/bwbrtm.htm How exactly does the Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket work? What the heck are all those parts for? This site will provide some answers for these questions. Simple but informative, this site is worth a read. There are detailed descriptions of all the parts of the ship along with pictures. A cutaway view of the ship allows you to see how all the parts fit together to provide Keen with reliable transportation. Well, that's about it for this site except for a link to a defunct message board. I really liked the animated gif at the bottom of the page. It looks like that yorp is having seizures of some sort :P - Yorpy ----------------------------------------------- [4] Monthly Fiction [4.1] Story by "Talking Dog" It was a normal day for Billy Blaze. He was on his way home from school, when he saw Mortimer inventing a new type of rocket. "Better sneak by quietly..." Keen thought to himself. But it was too late. Mortimer McMire had seen Billy. And he knew that Billy knew about the rocket. "Oh, it's you again Mr. 314, is it?" said Mortimer. Billy said "Get rid of that rocket, you're using it for no good, I can tell because..." "Because WHAT?" said Mortimer. "Because..." said Billy. "Because WHAT?" said Mortimer again. "SHUT THE GARG UP MORTIMER!" said Billy, easily working out that Mortimer was trying to annoy him. Billy went the rest of the way home. When he got home, he knew that any time soon Mortimer would be at it again. So he went and donned his brother's football helmet and became... COMMANDER KEEN, DEFENDER OF EARTH! He hopped into the Bean- With-Bacon Megarocket and just as he left the ground, he saw that Mortimer had finished the rocket and started to go somewhere. Keen tried to follow Mortimer but Mortimer's rocket was way too fast. Keen, who was searching for Mortimer using the BWB Megarocket's newly added radar system, finally located Mortimer McMire near Korath VII, helping the Shockshunds build a new machine to destroy the rest of the Shikadi creatures. "I can't believe that those little doggies could turn on their best friends like that! I'd better go check - this may be a trick," said Commander Keen. And it WAS a trick - a trick to lure Keen nearby! "WOOF HAHAHAHA WOOF!" said the so-called 'Ultimate Shockshund' and pressed a button. Out of nowhere, a cage fell on Keen and he was trapped inside. Mortimer and the Shockshunds were leaving. Although the Shockshunds headed back for Korath III right away, before heading back home Mortimer got his rocket and aimed the guns at Keen. Suddenly, in a flash of light, someone only known to Keen(and many other people) as TheTalkingDog appeared. "Die... Mortimer" he said and sent a blast of energy flying right into the side of Mortimer's rocket. It was so powerful that it sent the rocket back to Earth, damaging it both when the energy blast struck and when the rocket crashed. And the rocket crashed right where Mortimer stored all his rocket construction materials, so he had none left to build a new rocket. However, in a seperate place, he had four more completed rockets, and he planned to use them. Meanwhile, back on Korath VII, TheTalkingDog (from here on reffered to as TTD) made the cage disappear, then teleported Keen and the BWB Megarocket back to Earth. Then, as quickly as TTD had appeared, he disappeared again. Mortimer got in the smallest and most quiet rocket he had left and went to buy more materials - not for new rockets, but to upgrade the old ones for resistance to energy blasts. When they were all upgraded, Mortimer flew to Vorticon VI and once again put the Vorticons under a spell. When Keen came in the BWB Megarocket, Mortimer immediately shot at the BWB Megarocket, but the shot bounced right back, damaging Mortimer's rocket, and removing the spell from the Vorticons. Mortimer's rocket almost crashed onto the biggest city on Vorticon VI [what's it called? Name one from the game.], but it suddenly went quite far away from that spot and crashed into the ocean. That's when Keen and Mortimer noticed how that happened. TTD was back. "Hehehe" thought Mortimer and pressed a rainbow-coloured button on the control panel. The rocket almost immediately regenerated to full power, and blasted TTD very hard in the face. When the smoke from the blast cleared, TTD wasn't hurt a bit. "If this was an RPG game, that attack wouldn't have made me lose even 1 hit point!" said TTD and sent a wave of mysterious power towards Mortimer's rocket, blasting it to smithereens. "See ya Keen! Get rid of that Mortimer brat, I'll help ya when it's most needed!" said TTD, then disappeared in a flash of light. - The Talking Dog ----------------------------------------------- [5] Keen Community News [5.1] The Chasm of Strife Keen fan "To Much Spare Time," has redesigned and relocated his awesome Keen website: http://www.thisstrife.com/sluggy/ ---------------------- [5.2] New Website "Commander Keen Vault" Go see this new website by KeenRush: http://ckvault.150m.com/ ---------------------- [5.3] Commander Keen in Yorphius II screenshots! Thanks to Andrew it's now possible to make complete Keen1-3 MODs. Check out some screen shots from one: http://pub7.ezboard.com/fpubliccommanderkeenforumothercommanderkeenstuff.showMes sage?topicID=354.topic= ---------------------- [5.4] Get the Beta To "Commander Keen in Yorphius II" A beta to KeenRush's Keen1 MOD is now out, go here and get it: http://pub7.ezboard.com/fpubliccommanderkeenforumothercommanderkeenstuff.showMes sage?topicID=356.topic ---------------------- [5.5] Real Keen Player III Keen fan "therealdopefish," is making a new RKP game, look at these two post about it: 1: http://pub7.ezboard.com/fpimentogamedevelopment.showMessage?topicID=413.topic 2: http://pub7.ezboard.com/fpimentogamedevelopment.showMessage?topicID=428.topic ---------------------- [5.6] New Fan Game "The Lost Oracle" A new or old fan game is in development by John Eubank, check out this topic about it: http://pub7.ezboard.com/fpimentogamedevelopment.showMessage?topicID=430.topic Also go to the games official website: http://www.classickeen.virtualave.net ---------------------- [5.7] New Fan Game "Day of the Alien:Tentacles Ate My Babysitter!" Go read about this cool new game here: http://pub7.ezboard.com/fpimentogamedevelopment.showMessage?topicID=424.topic And download the demo here: http://www.geocities.com/lubbynbubby/downloads-list.html ----------------------------------------------- [6] Miscellaneous Stuff [6.1] Announcements Well the newsletter came one day later than it was supposed to; that's because I, (Forge) had some studying to do, sorry. Anyway expect good things from us over the rest of the year and the next. Sometime this summer we may be getting a better graphical design for the website and maybe by Christmas we'll have a completely new design up; HTML wise that is. Well that's it for this month, bye. - Forge315 ---------------------- [6.3] Credits Too Much Spare Time: Proofreading Shikadi: Wrote a featured article Yorpy: Website reviews Forge315: Stuff (constant delays guy) Other thanks: Talking Dog, for submitting the first fan fic, :) ----------------------------------------------- "Swim swim hungry, swim swim hungry." Burp!