Talk:Commander Keen

Keen 1 Release
Sarge Baldy: Commander Keen 1 was the first game released under the id Software name, in December 1990, as shown by their own site. The guys who formed id Software had of course made games before for different companies; I think this is made clear by the stuff about Softdisk in the article but feel free to add more elaboration if you want. Also, please don't mark substantive changes like that as minor. DopefishJustin 20:43, Mar 31, 2004 (UTC)

Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure
Where in Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure does Commander Keen or another Commander Keen item make a cameo? It's not in the Apogee FAQ and it's not in the Look back at Commander Keen article. 81.70.123.72 14:45, 7 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually I think the reference is a mistake, as I don't remember any Keen cameos in Cosmo myself, nor am I able to find any information about it online, except for mentionings it exists without any proof. --Retodon8 07:19, 8 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Duke Nukem makes a cameo there; maybe that was the mix-up.Sega381 12:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

EGA
"John Carmack, a game programmer at Softdisk, found a trick that would allow smooth-scrolling graphics in PC games, but only with the 16-color EGA graphics card."

I'm interested in "the trick" that allowed smooth-scrolling on PC's. What was it difficult before EGA cards? --Commander Keane 11:38, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Carmack called this "adaptive tile refresh": the computer was tricked into only redrawing those items that changed, instead of the entire screen. So for example if a white cloud has to pass by on a blue sky, using standard methods the entire screen would have to be rerendered to make the cloud drift to the left. Using Carmack's method, the engine was fooled into thinking the cloud was in the top left of the screen, and as soon as it was redrawn, and the old position overwritten, the engine ended the redraw. So for example if the cloud was at (15,3) and had to move to (14,3) Carmack's trick was equating (14,3) with (0,0) as far as the redraw was concerned. This was combined with a second trick were pixels were prerendered before they came into view, so the redraw appeared instantanious to the game player.
 * I've not really explained it well, the real info is in David Kushner's "Masters of Doom" which discusses this in high detail. I highly recommend getting this book (if you can still find it): ISBN 0375505245 . Jordi·✆ 12:16, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Just to make it clear: this trick was impossible in CGA cards. EGA was done in a software layer, allowing for tricks like these and the palette swapping which allowed EGA to have 64 colours (four palettes of 16 colours). CGA was done completely in hardware. Jordi·✆ 12:31, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks for great explanation Anárion. I'll check out the book.--Commander Keane 00:22, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * The explanation given in that book is extremely poor. EGA had several features that enabled the effect (simplifying some of the technical details): First, it allowed you to create a screen buffer that was a little bit wider than the screen, and as tall as you wanted (subject to video memory limitations). Second, it allowed you to offset the position in this buffer where the screen was drawn by 1 pixel increments, either horizontally or vertically, and the . Third, it had enough video memory to store two such screen buffers, and still have room left over for tiles and sprites. Carmack's smooth scrolling worked in the following manner: he created a buffer that was 64 pixels wider and taller than the screen, essentially leaving room for a row of tiles in the buffer that was not shown onscreen -- he used the offset capabilities of the card to move the screen area in the buffer, for smooth scrolling, which would then partially show the extra rows of tiles -- but that scrolling was limited to the buffer size, which was far too small for a decent level, and if you kept scrolling further, then the other side of the buffer would start becoming visible. So when the scrolling amounted to a whole tile's worth, Carmack's code would then draw the next row of tiles from the level into the buffer, just off the edge of the screen, ready to be displayed when the scrolling continued.


 * The only issue with this method was, since only the edges of the screen were being redrawn at any time, that sprites in the level would not get redrawn until they reached the edge of the screen. So to counteract that, whenever a sprite moved, the code would calculate which tiles it had covered before the move, redraw those tiles (to erase the old sprite image), then draw the new sprite image in place. This would allow the sprite to move independently of the scrolling. However, since moving a sprite involved first erasing it then redrawing it, you could see the screen flicker briefly as the image of the erased sprite was visible for a fraction of a second; but this was an old problem in graphics, and easily solved: instead of one buffer, you'd make two: one would be shown on screen and one would be hidden.  When you needed to update the display, you'd draw onto the hidden buffer, and when finished tell the graphics card to start drawing from the hidden buffer, making it visible and hiding the other.  Repeating this continuously produces smooth, flicker-free graphics.


 * I find all this information very interesting. Is it possible for someone to make an article out of this?


 * Another "trick" that Carmack used in his Adaptive Tile Refresh was was to never draw one tile over an identical tile when the screen scrolled by one row. As was previously mentioned, only complete, 16x16 pixel tiles were drawn into memory and the hardware was used to pan the screen in single pixel amounts, until the screen had panned an entire tile, at which point the tilemap in the buffer would essentially be redrawn, shifted by one tile.  Suppose there were two tiles on the same horizontal row, however.  If the screen was scrolling to the right, then the tile on the left would not need to be redrawn because the exact same tile was shifting into its position.  I think this is how the "Adaptive" moniker came about; only the tiles that were changed were redrawn, not every single tile on the screen.  In the first Keen game, for example, you can see large, grey backgrounds, which would have performed comparatively well.24.80.102.255 (talk) 04:14, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

The story
The story part of this article needs some work. I think that the stories of Keen 1-2 should be added, although those are already shortly described in the Keen games section. Teklund 14:18, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I tried to expand the story section, to put all the relevant information there.Sega381 12:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation page
I hate it when freaking pages don't have a disambiguation page like this. Commander Keen is not the only use of the word KEEN! 24.184.5.205 02:36, 11 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I assume you're talking about the Keen page. Why not just edit the that and add links to other "Keen" things? That should be an instant solution to your problem; more effective than complaining about it here. I can't think of anything but Commander Keen myself. Well, the meaning of the word, but no other real subjects. (Please type 4 ~s to add a sig to your edit.) Retodon8 12:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I did a "Search" for "Keen", "Kean", "Keene" and "Keane", and there are a LOT of entries to add if you want a complete DAB page. Linking to Keane (disambiguation), Keene, both DAB pages themselves would help. (Kean doesn't exist, and Keane is about a band.) I also found Keen Toons and a LOT of people with last names from the 4 words I mentioned above, so good luck creating a complete DAB page. :) Retodon8 19:34, 21 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, I went ahead and made "Keen" a DAB page after all. It's incomplete because Wikipedia's Search isn't working anymore... has been having problems for the past few days now. Besides completing (if that's even possible), descriptions should still be added for the items, probably especially for the persons. I also added a bunch of persons (and more) to the Keene DAB page. Retodon8 13:55, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Never announced?? How do we know?
* Monkeystone Games made plans to release Keen Chronicles'' through a Softek International April 2002. It would have consisted of all Keen games packaged together for Microsoft Windows and Pocket PC, but it never got out of the planning stages, and was never even announced. Industry Media's website features the logo that would have been used.''

How do we know of Keen Chronicles if it's never even been announced?? --Shultz III 00:10, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, what the article says it's pretty much it, the logo can be found on the Industry Media website. (Click: Work > Identity > Monkeystone > Next x3.) The "original" thread on CC314 no longer exists due to ezboard being hacked, but the same information can be found on 3DR's forum. However, the first site is Flash, doesn't allow for a direct link, and the second is a forum, which wouldn't exactly be perfect to use for reference. It was never announced, the fact that the logo was found was more or less a fluke, so I say the "citation needed" thingy should probably removed again. Retodon8 01:47, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Influenced by Megaman?
Anyone else think this game was heavily influenced by the Megaman games on the NES? 159.134.163.53 23:43, 23 April 2006


 * How so? They're both platformers, but the game series has no selectable weapons, no life bar, next to no bosses, a pogo stick... Sharing a genre is about as far as it goes, in my opinion. --Kizor 00:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * (First of all, original and anonymous poster, please sign your posts with 4 tildes; it makes discussions much easier to follow. Thanks.) I have to agree with Kizor. I only played Mega Man on the Game Boy (I think) for a few minutes, but the only thing they have in common, that I can think of, is that they are both platform games. Either game probably has more in common with random other platform games than they do with each other. You didn't elaborate, so please explain what you are referring to exactly. Retodon8 01:22, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think that Commander Keen was influenced by Mega Man at all. --SeizureDog 04:27, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Deleted "Billy Blaze" article
A while ago Nintendude moved Commander Keen to Commander Keen series. I think the original name was better, since nobody will look for "whatever series", but always just "whatever". Of course technically the article is about the the series, so it's not really wrong either. The original article now just redirects here again, so it's still a shame.

Also, he made an article Billy Blaze, which contained no new information, just a few lines of text already in here. In other words, not something deserving its own article. Later Drat (please add a summary next time for easier reference) added that that and this article should be merged. I just removed that line, since I deleted the Billy Blaze article, and redirected it here as well. I figured I'd document it here in case someone was wondering. Retodon8 01:22, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it should be kept as Commander Keen series though.--SeizureDog 04:29, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Easter Egg
Relating to the temple of the moons eastrer egg, I took out "Secret" because this level is not a secret level and is required to finish the game.216.222.255.11320:41, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Also: The paddle war is a clone of pong, not tennis for two. It is shown from the top, not the side.216.222.255.113 21:01, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Pong is a tabletop tennis simulator, so it's not technically incorrect Email: Killah20000@hotmail.com


 * The Pyramid of the Moon is NOT required to complete the game, as there is no Councilman to rescue. Twicemost 19:36, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Keen Dreams Release Date
I am not 100% sure of the year Keen Dreams was released. However, it is certain it was developed before episodes 4-6 (see link to article "A look back at Commander Keen"), and both Moby Games and Gamespot put its release date as 1991. So, unless there is further proof saying otherwise, I think we should keep its release date as 1991.Sega381 12:38, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Roller Coaster Tycoon
I don't think the screen shot of the pinball LED thing looks like a kid wearing a helmet, but more like a kid with parted hair... is there anything supporting that other than guessing; like an official FAQ, or interview with the designers/artists or something? --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 09:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It doesn't seem as a helmet to me either; and if it were, the colors would be wrong. Unless there is a more official evidence presented, I think the reference should be removed.Sega381 04:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

New World Order References
probably doesnt have a place in the main article but there a number of conspiracy paraphernalia, themes and allusions in the games. Anyone else notice this

Transition of ID from good to evil
At their very beginning, ID Software created good, non-satanic games such as Commander Keen series. But since Dangerous Dave series (introduction of satanic zombies), through Wolfenstein/Spear Of Destiny, Doom (innocent Commander Keen hanged on gallows) and up to Quake and beyond, ID software began to insert satanic motives into their games. Which event could trigger this transition of ID software from good to evil? 83.19.52.107 10:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this same conversation is taking place at the Talk:Id Software page, which is more appropiate, so I guess any comments should go there.Sega381 13:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

End of Episode 3
At the end of episode 3, there's a note in the strange alphabet which comes on the screen. I actually took the time to decode it once, thought the wiki could use it, but I'll let you guys put it where it belongs in the article.

Dear Billy, You Fell for my android dupolicate ploy in the mangling machine and now you've fallen for it again I'm blowing up the universe not the stupid galaxy this was just a big distraction dodo tag youre it

mortimer

ps gannalech is how these dumb shikadi pronounce grand intellect or didnt you notice that mister three fourteen

The interesting thing is that the computer sound actually does say "gannalech", and i don't know anyone that picked it up. Oh well, i hope the wiki can put it to good use. Yours, Andrew 202.155.162.22 (talk) 00:39, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

if you go into the edit screen it's in the proper format the way i wrote it (as in, the format that it shows on the screen - sorry don't know how to edit the wiki properly.202.155.162.22 (talk) 00:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's actually the end of episode 5, but check the Keen Wiki at . All the detailed information, such as that message, can be found there, and it even has its own article. Sega381 (talk) 12:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Future Stuff
Joe Siegler from Apogee here. There's two things I plan on adding here - I'd do it now, except I'd have to dig the materials out of my archives at work. One is a copy of an old piece of paper Tom Hall used to have hanging above his desk when Keen was being made. It was his original SGA document. It shows the entire alphabet as originally created.

Additionally, not all 26 letters have been used in the Keen games. At the moment, I forget which were not, I'd have to look it up.

Heh. Right after I posted this, I found the SGA scan document on the 3DR website. As I'm the webmaster there, I uploaded it here for the SGA page.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dopefish (talk • contribs).

C & S
Are the SGA equivalents really the same, or it just my eyes?

Great article!

EVOCATIVEINTRIGUE TALKTOME | EMAILME | IMPROVEME 17:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Look at the large version of the document. It's quite clear they're not the same thing!  --Dopefish 04:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

About the level in Rise Of The Triad
I found the secret message while playing the game through. I have planned a long time playing this game through and about now I have reached the secret level in episode three: E3 A8 "Eight Ways to Hell". The message is displayed in the secret area at the bottom of the map. The secret is accessible in the beginning of the long corridoor with the round rolling stones. It really says "Dopefish lives" in Standard Galactic Alphabet. I had'nt read about this, but I accidentally found the secret and as I have played the Commander Keen series many years ago (and found the SGA in Keen3 and Keen6), I recognised the letters as "Vorticon" and took immediate action to find the alphabet once again to figure the message out...

Should I say: This is neat? :D

Finnish Machine Enthusiasth         22.02.2006 (day,month,year) 21:23 (Finish time)

Glyph substitutions in other games and media
It occurs to me that the Daedra script from Morrowind and the Dinotopian script from Dinotopia are just as fun to descipher, also include messages scattered throughout, and should be grouped together in a category. --BlueNight (talk) 22:53, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge with Commander Keen?
I was being bored on Wikipedia today and I noticed the tag at the top of the page that basically said the page was worth nothing. I highly disagree; I think the page is awesome. But maybe it would be better if it were merged with the Commander Keen article. Just a thought.

CrayZsaaron (talk) 02:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a very good idea; I'll see if I have the time to do it later... Sega381 (talk) 12:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Merged.--Sega381 (talk) 17:25, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Assessment as of 2008-12-14
The article is going to remain start class for now: there's a decisive lack of structure for the article. Try to reorganize into an encyclopedic sense and bring forth more references. Look at how similar articles are structured.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 14:11, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Gannalech
I always wondered if "Gannalech" is supposed to sound like Scots or Scottish Gaelic. It would certainly correspond with the tartan-clad and bushy red mustached enemies in the secret level of Episode 5. The level's background music is also an original march for the bagpipes written by the iD's musician of the era, Bobby Prince. This is arguably original research and probably doesn't belong in the article, but I'm posting it here to see if anyone thought along the same lines. D Boland (talk) 23:38, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

External Links and Downloads
I noticed that there isn't really a good link to download the shareware games for free. I own DOSome Games, which hosts free downloads for all of the shareware games along with windows installer scripts for each (DOSome Games: Commander Keen). I think that a link to that page as well as to another site featuring the raw files for non-windows users, like RGB Classic Games would be a great addition.

Furthermore, I think there are enough links here that some subheadings would be helpful, like in the Doom (video game) article. I can make go ahead and make these changes if nobody disagrees. Lmaxsmith (talk) 05:43, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Subheadings may be good, try them out. About the shareware downloads, the links to the 3D Realms pages have the raw, original sharware games, so I think there is no need for another link. About the Windows scripts, it may be nice, but it may sound to some editors as linkspam, so I'm not sure it will stay...--Sega381 (talk) 01:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ok, I stuck on a couple of subheadings. I'll wait a few more days for somebody to object before linking to the windows download.

Lmaxsmith (talk) 06:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Keen Dreams
"All enemies are based on fruit or vegetables, such as: Tomatooth, Broccolash, and Frenchy; whereas the collectible score items are sweets." Since when were french fries fruit or vegetables? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.134.246.171 (talk) 02:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Though the wording may not be the best, I guess it's refering to potatoes?--Sega381 (talk) 04:05, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Martians
The yorps are not enemies to Keen (though occasionally they can get in the way). AnonMoos (talk) 05:21, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Link now leads to malware, needs to be fixed/removed
Where it says :

Fan website Keen.Retodon8.net features the logo that would have been used.

The logo word links to a malware website (reforward) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.135.100.194 (talk) 17:05, 27 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Indented line

I can confirm this. This should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JosephSzymborski (talk • contribs) 19:51, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Programming language
What language were games like this and Crystal Caves coded in? Credulity (talk) 19:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Many of the critical display routines must have been encoded in assembly language; no idea about the rest... AnonMoos (talk) 06:48, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

The Universe Isn't Toast
Under the heading Other Releases And cancelled games, the sentence with citation 10 ("The final trilogy was released as a fan-made mod, requiring the original games to function") is arguably inaccurate and misleading, as to my knowledge Tom Hall neither directly contributed to uTUIT nor has he as of yet endorsed it as canonical. I figured I'd bring this up on the talk page before committing an edit in case there's information I'm lacking. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.97.70.96 (talk) 15:52, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The way how I read the passage is that it was created and released by fans, therefore making the fans have created the "fan-made" mod, but, if you find the sentence to constitute weasel words, please do so! Gamingforfun 3 6 5 ( talk ) 22:53, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * You can stop worrying about it now; I have already taken care of the problem. The content also seemed to be trivial when that stuff should have been under the "Legacy" section. Gamingforfun 3 6 5 ( talk ) 02:32, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

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Parallax scrolling?
This article and the articles for Galaxy, Vorticons and Babysitter all refer to parallax scrolling as something that was in these games, referencing Masters of Doom. This appears to be a mistake -- Masters of Doom discusses Carmack's experiments with parallax scrolling around this time, and indeed there exists a "Keen 7 tech demo" which was a basic test of the Galaxy engine extended to 256-color VGA and with parallax scrolling, but none of ID's Keen games had parallax scrolling. tgies (talk) 23:36, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It depends on how technical you're being. Does the game arbitrarily scroll the background layer separate from the foreground and then calculate on the fly what that looks like on the screen? No. The calculations are done in advance and then the game picks the merged layer image without having to work it out in real time. Commander Keen in Keen Dreams goes into it since it was developed for that game, but for the rest of them, it's a small technical detail that has little to do with the reader's understanding of the game, just like how articles on 90s/2000s games like Unreal Tournament don't usually discuss that they use a skybox to make the playable area seem arbitrarily large but you're actually inside of a box, they just say that a level is where it appears to be. -- Pres N  02:58, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

"Megarocket" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Megarocket. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 November 26 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Soumya-8974 (he) talk contribs subpages 07:25, 26 November 2020 (UTC)