Will there ever be another Commander Keen?

[joe-ilya]

There's a fairly active community for that, if you wanna play more commander keen levels.

Keen 4 and 1 are freeware.

[Megalyth]

joe-ilya said:

There's a fairly active community for that, if you wanna play more commander keen levels.

Keen 4 and 1 are freeware.

I have all of the original games and I've played every level pack and mod worth playing. I was talking about the apparent rarity of, for lack of a better term, "classic" platformers in the modern age, though they do exist, of course.

Games of that era had their game-play gimmicks as well, but they were integral elements, where in many games today, they feel like gimmicks for the sake of saying "look at our gimmick, it's more gimmicky than the other gimmicks".

Commander Keen has his pogo stick, Cosmo has suction cups for hands, etc., but these elements never interfered with the simplicity of the game.

I swear I'm not someone who hates new things, I have played quite a few enjoyable modern games. I've also never said the word "gimmick" so many times in my life. :v

[Jaxxoon R]

It's possible that id simply isn't of the desire to make a traditional 2D or 3D platformer (even though there's bound to be a market for it, anyone see the reaction to Sonic Mania and the Crash Remasters?). Though, do you think Keen could work as a 3rd-person shooter?

[DeathevokatioN]

Megalyth said:

I have all of the original games and I've played every level pack and mod worth playing. I was talking about the apparent rarity of, for lack of a better term, "classic" platformers in the modern age, though they do exist, of course.

If you haven't already, I highly recommend you play Shovel Knight... it's a gem among a sea of soulless platformers...

[Wild Dog]

Megalyth said:

I have all of the original games and I've played every level pack and mod worth playing. I was talking about the apparent rarity of, for lack of a better term, "classic" platformers in the modern age, though they do exist, of course.

Games of that era had their game-play gimmicks as well, but they were integral elements, where in many games today, they feel like gimmicks for the sake of saying "look at our gimmick, it's more gimmicky than the other gimmicks".

Commander Keen has his pogo stick, Cosmo has suction cups for hands, etc., but these elements never interfered with the simplicity of the game.

I swear I'm not someone who hates new things, I have played quite a few enjoyable modern games. I've also never said the word "gimmick" so many times in my life. :v

You post and the mention of cosmo bring back a lot of memories.
During the early 90s in my country we had a magazine for Kids, that was meant to teach them the basic about the World of computers. Every few magazines they would give you a shareware game, cosmos was one of my favs... Even they teach you how to build your own "CLONE!!". Even they were saying that we should avoid the New Pentium CPU because it was just a few months old.
Good old times.

[Koko Ricky]

I have a lot of fond memories of Cosmo. It was proof that solid art direction and an interesting gameplay mechanic was enough to keep you invested. It wasn't particularly innovative, it was just a really solid and memorable experience. Bobby Prince of course handled the music, which the game's credits attribute to id Software.

[DeathevokatioN]

So... a new game got released yesterday, maybe some Commander Keen fans might enjoy it.

The asking price is fairly decent as well.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/510830/

[Doominator2]

I hope they reboot Hovertank :P

[roadworx]

DeathevokatioN said:

So... a new game got released yesterday, maybe some Commander Keen fans might enjoy it.

The asking price is fairly decent as well.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/510830/

"The Citadel. Built in 1986 by a lunatic and left undiscovered, decomposing for 30 long years. You are its first victim."

yep, that's a commander keen plot alright /s

[luke11685]

On 8/8/2016 at 12:43 AM, Aquanet said:

https://worldsofwander.wordpress.com/

Not technically dead, but not technically living, either, after a failed Kickstarter

Well did you try change.org petition instead of Kickstarter as one of crowdfunding platforms? I shouldn't move old topics according to rules, but I want to say something interesting.I want to discuss only on this old thread.Well I heard in early 90's when Bethesda Softworks involved was in Home Alone 1 for NES they could bankrupt if they could be focused on 2d platform sidescrollers back then.Well my reason of bumping this old thread is that Activision(they were publishers of Commander Keen Gameboy Color remake) is capable to make child friendly games like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot they rebooted trilogy of these games.

[FractalBeast]

I just remembered that my Commander Keen 4 diskette came with a DONOTOPEN.bat that revealed a bunch of explicit ASCII images of women.

[TheUltimateDoomer666]

I read the two posts above multiple times and I still don't understand them:

* A Change.org petition would likely be just as unsuccessful as the Worlds of Wander Kickstarter.

* Bethesda had nothing to do with Commander Keen in the 90s.

* Activision currently has nothing to do with Commander Keen.

 

* I presume that Commander Keen 4 floppy was borrowed from a friend?  Although to be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if some warez group actually released a disk with that kind of content on it as a joke.

 

Anyway, while Bethesda does currently own the rights to Keen, it is very unlikely that they would make another game.  They haven't completely forgotten about the character, however; one of their 2016 Vinyl Mystery Mini figures is Billy Blaze.

 

Edited November 19, 2018 by TheUltimateDoomer666

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Stranger revivals have happened, but I have my doubts that a new Keen would be worth it to either the developers or the fans.  As I recall, Tom Hall once said he'd wanted a new Commander Keen game to be a 3D game something like Mario 64.  I suppose taking the franchise in that direction could possibly work if it were to ever happen.  But if it were just some fake-retro imitation to cater to the niche audience that remembers and is nostalgic for the original Keen series... eh, I'd rather stick with the modding community for that.

[FractalBeast]

@TheUltimateDoomer666 Well, it was a diskette I found among a huge pile of official games, warez CD's and copied games. It certainly wasn't the original diskette.

 

[luke11685]

Don't you think Gunstar Super Heroes was also a failure?

[[McD] James]

I don't see it as necessary. There's enough user-created content to last a lifetime. 

[elend]

Uhm, you guys keep talking about a modding community for Commander Keen. Don‘t tell me there are also user created levels for Keen? Where would be a good place to start looking for something like this?

[taufan99]

Commander Keen but it's a GZDOOM mod officially made and endorsed by the official team.

Make it happen pwease.

 

On 8/19/2016 at 1:24 AM, Doominator2 said:

I hope they reboot Hovertank :P

 

Oh, also, why does nobody bother with its source code? I don't see people making at least one source port out of that one, really.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

10 hours ago, elend said:

Uhm, you guys keep talking about a modding community for Commander Keen. Don‘t tell me there are also user created levels for Keen? Where would be a good place to start looking for something like this?

http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Main_Page