Campaign to get the lost Keen episode

[doomgargoyle]

EDIT BY MOD: This looks like a scam. Please don't contribute to this campaign.

Found this interesting:

http://igg.me/at/keen

It's a campaign to get the lost episode of Keen added legally to Steam.

[Blastfrog]

I don't get it. Why do I have to throw money at the screen to get something on a service that it doesn't really need to be on? Where's the money supposed to go? Zenimax? Valve?

[Tylerisepic1]

Why do we need to spend money anyway? It should just be a petition.

[doomgargoyle]

Tylerisepic1 said:

Why do we need to spend money anyway? It should just be a petition.

Yes, because we all know how effective petitions are.

[doomgargoyle]

Sodaholic said:

I don't get it. Why do I have to throw money at the screen to get something on a service that it doesn't really need to be on? Where's the money supposed to go? Zenimax? Valve?

It goes to the current rights holders of the episode which wont release it commercially at present. Then it can be released legally online. Remember, this game did not belong to id, and was not bought to by Zenimax either.

[GreyGhost]

Sodaholic said:

Where's the money supposed to go? Zenimax? Valve?

Most likely either Softdisk or Flat Rock Software.

[doomgargoyle]

GreyGhost said:

Most likely either Softdisk or Flat Rock Software.

Yep, both in fact.

[Joshua Schäferhund]

Isn't Keen Dreams shareware?

[doomgargoyle]

Patch93 said:

Isn't Keen Dreams shareware?

There's both a shareware release and a registered one. The registered one was a commercial release and it's not free to download, at least not legally.

[Blzut3]

Well this didn't take long to find...

I've been in contact with the guy who started this campaign. He's trying to purchase the rights to Keen Dreams and other Softdisk games from Flat Rock Software. Once he does so he plans on trying to get them released on digital distribution stores. Flat Rock Software says that acquiring the rights will come with the source code to the games in question, so he will release those under the GPL.

His plan is if funding for Keen Dreams is exceeded to go after the other id games owned by them and do the same.

[Jaxxoon R]

I've always wanted to try the Keen games, so it'd be interesting to see this come to fruition.

[doomgargoyle]

Jaxxoon R said:

I've always wanted to try the Keen games, so it'd be interesting to see this come to fruition.

Me too, i'll contribute to see it become a reality. :)

[Patrol1985]

Jaxxoon R said:

I've always wanted to try the Keen games, so it'd be interesting to see this come to fruition.

Remember that the other 5 episodes are available on Steam.

[Varis Alpha]

Patrol1985 said:

Remember that the other 5 episodes are available on Steam.

and it's pretty cheap, too. plus, aren't there shareware versions of the game, as well? though i doubt they'd work in a 64-bit environment, there's always DOSBox.

[fraggle]

I'd happily contribute if this was on Kickstarter, or another site that only gives the funding if the target is met.

[Aliotroph?]

The wording of the description sounds like he's going to fund it even if he doesn't raise enough money. So, this is more like "donate and get your name in the project credits" than raising capital for a business plan.

Carmack used to use third-party libraries for sound in his engines. Was that the case with the Keen games? If it is then does the fee paid to the current rights holders cover a clean release that complies with the GPL?

[Devalaous]

So, whats this second lost episode mentioned in the link?

[Blzut3]

Aliotroph? said:

The wording of the description sounds like he's going to fund it even if he doesn't raise enough money.

This, although I will forward the concerns on to him. I'm not sure if he can change it now, but indiegogo does do fixed goals like Kickstarter. He didn't use Kickstarter since he's not a resident of any of the supported countries.

Aliotroph? said:

Carmack used to use third-party libraries for sound in his engines. Was that the case with the Keen games? If it is then does the fee paid to the current rights holders cover a clean release that complies with the GPL?

Being unfamiliar with the games, I can't say for sure. But Wolf3D didn't use any third party code that couldn't be distributed so I would find it a little odd if the older games did. I thought it was just Doom that they tried that and had nothing but problems? In any case, stubbed code is better than no code.

Ragnor said:

So, whats this second lost episode mentioned in the link?

The formgen release "Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter!" Not sure who owns that now.

[Waffenak]

Fascinating

[doomgargoyle]

just got an email from the current rights owner, he's given his blessing to this campaign.

[Blzut3]

Hey, btw, tell the people in the thread on dw that yea, i should have probably done fixed instead of flexible campaign, and that all the funds will go to putting the game on other stores, if it doesnt reach the goal, i havent entered any payment information, i wont get anything.

[doomgargoyle]

Update posted ! :)

[geekmarine]

Random aside - do any good source ports of Commander Keen exist? I've had it sitting in my Steam library for a while now but have never actually, in all these years, gotten around to playing it. Obviously there's Dosbox, but I was just kinda curious about actual source ports.

[doomgargoyle]

geekmarine said:

Random aside - do any good source ports of Commander Keen exist? I've had it sitting in my Steam library for a while now but have never actually, in all these years, gotten around to playing it. Obviously there's Dosbox, but I was just kinda curious about actual source ports.

Since the Keen source code hasnt been released, there isnt any actual source ports, only dosbox. This campaign aims at getting Keen's re-released, both the game itself, and its source code, which will make modern source ports possible. :)

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

There is this, though, even if it's not built off the original source.

[doomgargoyle]

Yes, thats right, there's also commander genius, which is fairly new.

[Lunick]

This is a scam, sorry guys. I'm going to copy and paste what I wrote on the Public Commander Keen Forums here http://www.pckf.com/viewtopic.php?p=71699#71699

ABORT ABORT ABORT

The person running this project is a known scammer.

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/strife/id430142043?mt=12 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FXG4T26
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IA4ZG34

These are some of his released projects that are up illegally on those storefronts and he has more. He illegally uses source ports for games and does not provide the source code for any of them. He also routinely harasses developers on Twitter including Apogee, 3D Realms, Interceptor and even myself:

https://twitter.com/steedsoftware/status/423575234633953281
https://twitter.com/steedsoftware/status/422698662481780736
https://twitter.com/steedsoftware/status/422711898887294976
https://twitter.com/steedsoftware/status/422388895838248963
https://twitter.com/steedsoftware/status/417608248233955328
https://twitter.com/steedsoftware/status/415647207421775872

Harasses developers on Steam (I'm a moderator on these forums):
https://i.imgur.com/0lrPblR.png
https://i.imgur.com/stpv5W5.png
https://i.imgur.com/iB6R2No.png

Another developer who was almost conned before has now just alerted me about the guy's name again and his name was only recently added to the project.

Be warned. I also suggest contacting IndieGoGo about the project.

[Phml]

Heh. That dopefishing guy is very obviously Javier Chavez too. Join date 2 days before starting that topic, the flipped apostrophe typical of Spanish keyboards, and the whole "guys you should all spend your money on this campaign that is obviously not run by me even though I have realtime info, we just trade emails, pinky swear" act.

Plus, come on, most appropriate username ever.

[Rebdamon]

Wow i'd love to see this be a success!

[Blastfrog]

Yeah, I thought this was fishy from day one. Welp, we can scratch this one off the list.

@Rebdamon
Since text can't convey tone of voice, sarcasm can be somewhat hard to detect at times, even with the context. So, I hope that was indeed sarcasm; because if it wasn't, you clearly didn't read the two posts above you before posting.