Commander Keen (windows, data for Linux engines)

🗃️ Specifications

📰 Title:	Commander Keen (windows, data for Linux engines)	🕹️ / 🛠️ Type:	Game (Windows)
🗃️ Genre:	Arcade	🚦 Status:	05. Tested & Working (status)
🏷️ Category:	Arcade ➤ Platformer ➤ Puzzle Platformer ➤ Commander Keen	🌍️ Browser version:
🔖 Tags:	Action; Arcade; Platformer; Action Platformer; Commander Keen; Kid; Adventure; Episodic; 8-bit; Pixel Art; 1990s; Cult Classic; DOSBox; Difficult; Keyboard	📦️ Package Name:	PC compatibles - DOSBox
🐣️ Approx. start:	1990-12-14	📦️ Arch package:
🐓️ Latest:	2001-05-30	📦️ RPM package:
📍️ Version:	Latest: 20010530	📦️ Deb package:
🏛️ License type:	💰 Commercial	📦️ Flatpak package:
🏛️ License:	Commercial	📦️ AppImage package:
🏝️ Perspective:	Side view	📦️ Snap package:
👁️ Visual:	2D Scrolling	⚙️ Generic binary:
⏱️ Pacing:	Real Time	📄️ Source:
👫️ Played:	Single	📱️ PDA support:
🎖️ This record:		🕳️ Not used:
🎀️ Game design:		👫️ Contrib.:	goupildb & Louis
🎰️ ID:	10630	🐛️ Created:	2010-08-20
🐜️ Updated:	2023-04-10

📖️ Summary

[en]:	A series of platform games from the 1990s whose protagonist is a little genius of 8 years named 'Billy Blaze'. He built a spacecraft called the "Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket" from various items found at home which allows him, when his parents go out at night and the babysitter is asleep, to put on the big brother's football helmet and become ... "Commander Keen" the defender of the Earth (against the aliens).	[fr]:	Une série de jeux de plateforme des années 1990 dont le protagoniste est un petit génie de 8 ans nommé 'Billy Blaze'. Il a construit un vaisseau spatial nommé le "Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket" à partir de différents éléments récupérés à la maison ce qui lui permet, lorsque ses parents sortent le soir et que la baby-sitter est endormie, d'endosser le casque de football du grand-frère et de devenir ... "Commander Keen" le défenseur de la Terre (contre les extra-terrestres).

🎥️ Videos

🎮️ Showcase: Marooned On Mars, The Earth Explodes, Keen Must Die!, The Secret of the Oracle, The Armageddon Machine, Aliens Ate My Babysitter

🎮️ Showcase (Mods):

🕸️ Links

📕 Description [en]

🌍️ Wikipedia:

Commander Keen is a series of side-scrolling platform video games developed primarily by id Software. The series consists of six main episodes, a "lost" episode, and a final game; all but the final game were originally released for MS-DOS in 1990 and 1991, while the 2001 Commander Keen was released for the Game Boy Color. The series follows the eponymous Commander Keen, the secret identity of the eight-year-old genius Billy Blaze, as he defends the Earth and the galaxy from alien threats with his homemade spaceship, rayguns, and pogo stick. The first three episodes were developed by Ideas from the Deep, the precursor to id, and published by Apogee Software as the shareware title Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons; the "lost" episode 3.5 Commander Keen in Keen Dreams was developed by id and published as a retail title by Softdisk; episodes four and five were released by Apogee as the shareware Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy; and the simultaneously developed episode six was published in retail by FormGen as Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter. Ten years later, a homage and sequel to the series was developed by David A. Palmer Productions and published by Activision as Commander Keen.

Invasion of the Vorticons was the only game developed by Ideas from the Deep, and was based on programmer John Carmack's creation of adaptive tile refresh, a technique that allowed IBM-compatible general-purpose computers to replicate the smooth scrolling of video game consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game's success caused designer Tom Hall, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, and artist Adrian Carmack to found id Software. Their obligations to Softdisk, where they had worked during development of the game, led to the creation of Keen Dreams as a prototype for the second trilogy of episodes. The final episode was split off during development into a stand-alone retail title, and plans for a third trilogy were cancelled after the success of Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and development focus on 3D first-person shooters such as Doom (1993). The final Keen game ten years later had oversight but little development work from id.

Critical reception and the series' legacy has focused on the two main trilogies of episodes, with Vorticons having large success as a shareware game and impacting the success of Apogee (now 3D Realms) and its shareware model. The second trilogy sold fewer copies, which was blamed by id and Apogee on its split into two parts, and the 2001 game received mixed reviews. The MS-DOS games have been re-released in several compilation packages, and all but the sixth episode are still sold through modern emulation releases on platforms such as Steam. References to the series have been made by dozens of other games, especially to the Dopefish, an enemy in the fourth episode, which has been termed one of the video game industry's biggest in-jokes. An active modding community has grown around the series, producing editing tools and unofficial sequels.

Titles

Games

• Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons is the first game in the series, released on December 14, 1990 for MS-DOS. It is divided into three episodes: "Marooned on Mars", "The Earth Explodes", and "Keen Must Die!", and the game was published through a shareware model whereby "Marooned on Mars" was released for free, and the other two episodes were available for purchase. It was developed by a team calling themselves Ideas from the Deep (or sometimes IFD Software), consisting of programmers John Carmack and John Romero, designer Tom Hall, artist Adrian Carmack, and manager Jay Wilbur, and published by Apogee Software. The game, like the rest of the series, is a side-scrolling platform video game.
• Commander Keen in Keen Dreams is the second game of the series, released in 1991 as a single episode; it is sometimes referred to as episode 3.5 of the series. It was developed for MS-DOS by id Software, which had been founded by the Ideas from the Deep team after the success of the first game, and published through Softdisk as part of an agreement between the companies as the founders of id had been employees of Softdisk when they developed Vorticons. Id used the game, which stands outside of the general continuity of the series as a "dream" episode, as a prototype to test ideas they wanted to use in future games, such as a more advanced art style, parallax scrolling, and gameplay changes. In 2013 a port was developed by Super Fighter Team for Android devices, and a 2014 Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign led to the original source code being released and a release by Hard Disk Publishing through Steam for Microsoft Windows and Linux in 2015, and OS X in 2016. A Nintendo Switch version was released by Lone Wolf Technology in 2019.
• Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy was released for MS-DOS on December 15, 1991 as the second main game in the series. Consisting of episodes four and five of the series, "Secret of the Oracle" and "The Armageddon Machine", and stylized as Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy!, it was developed by id and published through Apogee. Like the first trilogy of episodes, "Oracle" was released for free, and the other episode sold by Apogee. The game incorporates a more polished version of the graphical updates in Keen Dreams, along with further gameplay changes and additions.
• Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter is the final id-developed game, released in December 1991 for MS-DOS. Originally planned to be the third episode of Goodbye, Galaxy and sixth episode overall, it was changed before development began to be a stand-alone game—stylized as Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter!—published as a retail title through FormGen. Due to differing timelines between FormGen and Apogee, despite being numbered as the sixth episode it was developed in between the fourth and fifth; it also features a modified engine from Goodbye, Galaxy.
• Commander Keen is the final game in the series, released on May 30, 2001 for the Game Boy Color. Developed by David A. Palmer Productions and published by Activision, it was created as both a sequel and homage to the series as a whole, and does not have an episode number. Id was not a major partner in development, though it retained editorial control over the game, and Adrian Carmack contributed some artwork. The idea for a Game Boy Color Keen game came from John Carmack and id, who approached Activision, which in turn proposed Palmer as the developer.

Cancelled and compilation releases

After the release of Goodbye, Galaxy and Aliens Ate My Babysitter in 1991, id Software planned to make a third set of episodes for the following December, titled Commander Keen in The Universe is Toast!. Beyond the proposed title and release date, shown in the epilogue of the two games, no design work was completed before the game was cancelled due to the success of id's Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and development focus on 3D first-person shooters such as Doom (1993). John Carmack noted in 1999, when referencing the project that became the Game Boy Color game, that the original developers of Keen were unlikely to ever work together again on another game.

In addition to the initial releases of the games, several compilation releases have been published: the id Anthology compilation in 1996, which includes all seven episodes developed by id or Ideas from the Deep; a compilation release by Apogee in 1998 of the five episodes of Invasion of the Vorticons and Goodbye, Galaxy; and the 3D Realms Anthology in 2014, which also includes Vorticons and Galaxy. The Apogee-published episodes have also been released for modern computers through a DOS emulator, and sold through Steam since 2007 as the Commander Keen Complete Pack.

Gameplay

All of the games in the Commander Keen series are side-scrolling platform video games: the majority of the game features the player-controlled Commander Keen viewed from the side while moving on a two-dimensional plane. The player can move left and right and can jump; in every episode besides Keen Dreams they can also use a pogo stick to bounce continuously and jump higher than they can normally with the correct timing. The levels are composed of platforms on which Keen can stand, and some platforms allow Keen to jump up through them from below. Beginning with episode two, "The Earth Explodes", there are also moving platforms as well as switches which extend bridges over gaps in the floor. Keen Dreams and later games add fireman's poles that Keen can climb up or down, and with the exception of the 2001 Commander Keen also show the platforms viewed from slightly above so as to give a pseudo-3D effect. Throughout the series, once entered, the only way to exit a level is to reach the end, though for Keen Dreams and episodes four through six the player can save and return to the middle of a level, rather than only between levels like the other games. In between levels the player travels on a two-dimensional map, viewed from above; from the map the player can enter levels by approaching the entrance. Some levels are optional and can be bypassed, while others are secret and can only be reached by following specific procedures.

The episodes all contain a different set of enemies in their levels, which the player must kill, stun, or avoid. These enemies are typically aliens or robots. Levels can also include hazards, such as electricity or spikes; touching a hazard or most enemies causes Keen to lose a life, and the game is ended if all of Keen's lives are lost. Invasion of the Vorticons features a raygun that Keen can use ammo for to kill enemies; Keen Dreams exchanges this for flower power pellets that temporarily stun enemies when thrown, episodes four through six use a stun gun that permanently stuns enemies, and the 2001 Commander Keen has a stun gun that temporarily stuns enemies unless they are then killed with a pogo jump. The player can also find food items throughout the levels which grant points, with an extra life awarded with enough points. There are also colored keycards which grant access to locked parts of levels, collectable items that award an extra life beginning with episode four, and items that grant an instant extra life.

Plot

In the first episode, "Marooned on Mars", eight-year-old Billy Blaze, a child genius, builds a spaceship (the "Beans with Bacon Megarocket") and puts on his older brother's football helmet to become Commander Keen. One night while his parents are out of the house he flies to Mars to explore; while away from the ship the Vorticons steal four vital components and hide them in Martian cities. Keen journeys through Martian cities and outposts to find the components, despite the efforts of Martians and robots; the final component is guarded by a Vorticon. Keen returns to Earth—discovering a Vorticon mothership in orbit—and beats his parents home. In "The Earth Explodes" he travels through the mothership and disables its weapons, at the end discovering that the Vorticons are being mind-controlled by the mysterious Grand Intellect, who is actually behind the attack on Earth. In "Keen Must Die" he fights through the cities and outposts of the Vorticon home planet to reach the Grand Intellect, who is revealed to be his school rival Mortimer McMire, who he then defeats.

In Keen Dreams, which is set outside of the main continuity, Keen falls asleep after dinner and wakes up in his pajamas in bed on top of a hill. After being told by potato soldiers that he is now the slave of King Boobus Toober, and being asked by another child to save them, he journeys through the vegetable-themed land to defeat the King, waking up in his bed at home afterwards. The main series of games continues in "Secret of the Oracle", where Keen builds a faster-than-light radio and overhears plans by a race of aliens known as the Shikadi to destroy the galaxy. He flies off to the Oracle on the planet of Gnosticus IV, only to discover that the Gnosticenes that run the Oracle have been kidnapped by the Shikadi. Keen fights through the outposts and temples of the Shadowlands, rescuing the Gnosticenes, and the Oracle then tells Keen that the Shikadi are "shadow beings from the far side of the galaxy" who are building an Armageddon Machine at Korath III to blow up the galaxy and rebuild it as they wish afterwards.

In "The Armageddon Machine", Keen infiltrates the titular space station to disable it, destroying the subsystems of the machine located in each level. When he finishes, he finds that the "Gannalech" that was leading the Shikadi was the Grand Intellect McMire, who had escaped Keen in Vorticons by leaving behind an android in his place. A note left behind for Keen tells him that McMire plans to instead destroy the Universe. Aliens Ate My Babysitter is set around the same time, though it is unclear whether it is actually after the events of Goodbye, Galaxy; in it, the alien Bloogs of Fribbulus Xax kidnap Keen's babysitter and plan to eat her. Keen finds his way to her, and she reveals that she is McMire's sister, and that McMire was behind her kidnapping as a way to distract Keen while he plotted to destroy the universe. While the planned trilogy that would cover that plot, The Universe is Toast, was never developed, the Game Boy Color Commander Keen has a sub-space anomaly disrupting life on Earth as an effect of a plot by the Bloogs, Shikadi, and Droidicus, led by McMire, to destroy the universe. Keen fights his way through the three races' planets to find the plasma crystals powering the Omegamatic station, only for McMire to escape after taunting Keen a final time.

Development

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📕 Description [fr]

Une série de jeux de plateforme des années 1990, par id Software (publié par Apogee Software, fondée en 1994 par 3D Realms).
Il utilise l'émulateur (DOS) DOSBox.

Commander Keen est une série de jeux de plateforme des années 1990 dont le protagoniste est un petit génie de 8 ans nommé 'Billy Blaze'. Il a construit un vaisseau spatial nommé le "Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket" à partir de différents éléments récupérés à la maison ce qui lui permet, lorsque ses parents sortent le soir et que la baby-sitter est endormie, d'endosser le casque de football du grand-frère et de devenir ... "Commander Keen" le défenseur de la Terre (contre les extra-terrestres).

Voir aussi / See also (Commander Keen): Chocolate Keen (CK1-3), CloneKeen (CK1-3), Commander Genius (all episodes+Mods), Commander Keen (original for DOS), Commander Keen Clone (alpha), Omnispeak (CK4-6),

🌍️ Wikipedia:

Commander Keen est une série de jeux vidéo de type jeu de plateforme, réalisée par id Software et publiée par Apogee Software au début des années 1990. Ces jeux étaient surtout connus pour l'utilisation du système de couleurs EGA et pour leur distribution en tant que shareware. Commander Keen est également le nom du personnage principal de la série.

Le jeu

L'histoire

Le joueur incarne le personnage de Billy Blaze, un enfant génie de huit ans au quotient intellectuel de 314. Billy Blaze a construit, à partir de différents éléments récupérés dans sa maison, un vaisseau spatial qu'il nomme le Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket (littéralement la « super fusée bacon aux haricots ») ; lorsque ses parents sortent le soir et que sa baby-sitter s'endort, il chausse le casque de football de son grand-frère et devient Commander Keen, le défenseur de la Terre.

Dans le premier épisode, alors que Billy est en train de visiter la planète Mars, il se fait voler 4 éléments de son vaisseau, qu'il devra retrouver pour pouvoir rentrer chez lui.
Alors qu'il est sur le chemin du retour, il découvre le vaisseau-mère des Vorticons prêt à attaquer la planète Terre ; durant les deux épisodes qui suivent le premier, Commander Keen devra repousser l'invasion des Vorticons. Il finira par découvrir que le chef des Vorticons n'est autre que Mortimer McMire, son vieux rival à l'école.

Le principe

Commander Keen est un jeu de plateforme reprenant les principaux éléments qui ont fait le succès de Super Mario et en les transposant sur PC, le joueur se déplace donc de gauche à droite au sein des niveaux, en sautant de bloc en bloc, attrapant bonus ou sucettes et neutralisant ses ennemis en tirant sur eux avec un rayon laser.

La série

Sept versions officielles sont sorties pour PC :

• Commander Keen dans Invasion of the Vorticons
⚬ Marooned on Mars (publié en shareware le 14 décembre 1990)
⚬ The Earth Explodes
⚬ Keen Must Die!
• Keen Dreams, The Lost Episode
• Commander Keen dans Goodbye Galaxy!
⚬ The Secret of the Oracle (publié en shareware le 15 décembre 1991)
⚬ The Armageddon Machine
• Commander Keen Special Edition
⚬ Aliens Ate My Babysitter

En 2001, Activision reprit le personnage pour la Game Boy Color dans un jeu tout simplement nommé Commander Keen.

Il apparaît aussi dans le niveau secret (lvl 32) de Doom II, dans Crystal Caves, Bio Menace ou Paganitzu, tous des productions d'id Software.

Projets abandonnés

Une trilogie supplémentaire, The Universe Is Toast!, était prévue pour Noël 1992 ; mais Id Software s'étant tourné vers le développement de Wolfenstein 3D, de Spear of Destiny puis de Doom, la suite ne vit jamais le jour. Tom Hall a annoncé son intention de réaliser une suite s'il parvenait à acquérir les droits nécessaires.

🚧️ Installation [fr]

🔧️ INSTALLATION:

⚙️ Installation à partir du binaire du jeu :

Ces jeux peuvent être joués dans leur version originale via l'émulateur DOSBox, DOSBox-X ou Wine, et nativement sous Linux en utilisant l'un des moteurs (référencés dans le Bottin) suivants :
Chocolate Keen (CK1 à CK3), ~~CloneKeen~~ (dead & compilation don't work), Commander Genius (all levels), ~~Commander Keen Clone~~ (dead & alpha), Omnispeak (CK4, CK5, ~~CK6~~),

🔍️ Test [fr]

🕵️ Test :
Il a pris quelques rides, le son est assez simpliste, le graphisme est mimi, les idées très bonnes, des heures d'un excellent gameplay.
Un jeu mythique et magique ! Génial.