Commander Keen 2.5D: The Quest for Spotls Collar

Hi there Doomworld Community! =)

Commander Keen 2.5D is - you guessed it - a game starring Commander Keen using the GZDoom source port!
I had the concept down for a while, but when Doombuilder II was released a couple weeks ago is when I really got cracking. This game promises all the same gameplay features of the Commander Keen games but in a first-person, immersive 2.5D environment (If you don't like the first-person view, you can just put it in chase mode). Jump high, shoot lasers, pogo-it-up, collect points, but don't get hit or you're an instant goner! Dead And in lieu of multiplayer (which was a feature never seen in the official keen games) a new hero hits the scene in the form of Billy's annoying and over-excitable neighbor Marta! She has a pink stunner, moon shoes, and an IQ of 313.





I just uploaded this to the idgames database a few minutes ago (called CK25Da.zip) and am waiting for review for it to be officially archived. This is just an alpha release of the first few levels (one of which is really more of a placeholder than an actual level at the moment), but this includes a fully playable map to give you a good taste of how this mod plays. If ID software ever made The Universe Is Toast during the time they were shifting to Wolfenstein and Doom, I'm guessing this is probably what it would have been like =)

EDIT: For now you can grab it here:
http://www.wadhost.fathax.com/files/CK25Da.zip

As I said on the Keen forum...this makes me a very happy person. :) The screenshots are amazing. I really can't wait to play the demo.

Would it be possible to host the download somewhere else until it appears in newstuff? I'm actually rather curious about this.

Yeah sure. I just went ahead and took 5 minutes (it literally took that long) to upload it somewhere else for your convenience. Refer to my edit above for the download ;)

NOTE: As stated in the included text file, this only works with GZDOOM (and probably only newer, unofficial builds). Zdoom or otherwise will not run properly (I'm assuming)

After playing this for a bit, I have some suggestions and criticisms. First off, I love the idea very much.

That said, there are a few problems I've noticed. If you are going to use a hub, it's best to remove the intermission and score tally screen for a better transition between hub levels. Also, make sure to setup your hubs properly. Items shouldn't respawn when you move between levels. It can make things very frustrating when you realize all the enemies you killed have respawned.

The gameplay is a bit too hard using Keen's one-hit death mechanic. This worked well for an old school, life based platformer, but can be very frustrating in first person. In my opinion, it would be better to use a hit counter instead, with hits being replenished by eating fruit or with a powerup. It might be better if projectile shooting enemies fired larger, slower moving projectiles that are easier to see and dodge, too. The tickle weed should also be easier to spot, and perhaps shouldn't kill the player, but temporarily stun them instead.

The helmet hud is pretty cool, but seems to create a graphical bug at the bottom of the screen. The tiny level between Maps 1 and 3 should either be removed or added to one of the two maps, otherwise it doesn't seem to serve much purpose. The blaster is a bit large, obstructing quite a bit of the screen. A smaller one might work better.

The graphics are pretty good. They could be better, but they do capture some of Keen's original charm. This is more of a suggestion than a criticism, but have you thought about using Keen's original EGA palette? I know EGA is primitive and outdated, but some of Keen's charm came from its retro visuals. It would also lend an interesting appearance to your mod.

I have to admit I didn't get very far in this, as I couldn't figure out how to raise the bars in the green cave in the third map. Still, I like what I'm seeing so far.

Edit:
I noticed a few other random problems:
-Firing Marta's blaster in the water under the bridge in the first map causes the game to crash more often than not. This might be true for Keen as well, but when I tried doing this as him, the game didn't crash.
-The pickup message for the sunglasses and Gameboy is the same as the other edible pickups. I don't think Keen should be eating sunglasses or Gameboys. :p
-You can no longer pickup items if you max out your score.

I was planning on making a world map similar to the old keen games where you go in between levels (I still don't have much of a clue how to implement it yet). Maybe I should have just sent the player from map1 to map3 directly for this thing.

Having the enemies respawn every time you load the level is intentional as I want to try to have a lives system that sends you back to Map02 and you have to re-enter to try again. It's also a method to make the stunner ammo replenishable (though I really want to make a melee attack of some sort to nullify this. Maybe a taser on the stunner that activates when there's no ammo). The level stats thing, however, is really something I wanted to avoid, even though I went through the trouble of making an intermission screen for it.

I'm not sure whether to remake the gun to be smaller in girth, or just lower it on the HUD to keep it from being obstructive (but then you might not see Billy's hand! =0 )

As for the random crashing, I really have no idea how to fix it. I know it must have something to do with the way the gun and pogo is operating. There's an item that's given to the player by pressing altfire that, when checked for in the spawn state, goes into a "pogo state." When the player presses altfire again or fire, that item is taken away. I don't have a clue what that item's doing to make the game crash occasionally X_X

This is amazing! I thought about attempting this... always wanted to... but never got around to it. I am so glad to see this! I really hope you can take this all the way...

I have not even downloaded it yet and I am already all giddy with excitement! ^_^ unfortunately I have to go to bed and get up for work tomorrow but I cannot wait to try this out! Thank you for posting this here!