CCCC OOOO M M M M AA N N DDD EEEE RRRR CC OO OO MM MM MM MM AAAA NN N D D E R R C O O M M M M M M M M A A N N N D D E E R R C O O M M M M M M AAAAAA N N N D D EE E RRRR CC OO OO M M M M M A A N NN D D E R R CCCC OOOO M M M M A A N N DDD EEEE R R K K EEEE EEEE N N K K E E NN N KKK E E E E N N N K KK EE E EE E N N N K K E E N NN K K EEEE EEEE N N COMMANDER KEEN NEWSLETTER :) Issue-1: March 1, 2002 Working Title: First Issue (yeah real borring...) (C) 2002 by Joseph Burke all rights reserved. All trademarks are properties of their respective owners. Warning: This document may not be distributed without permission. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter Homepage: http://www.commanderkeen.net Newsletter Index: [1] Featured Articles [1.1] Changing the World [2] Fan Game Reviews [2.1] The Mystery of Isis II [Public Demo 2] [3] Website Reviews [3.1] Crazy Keen's Commander Keen Site [3.2] Commander Keen Infinity [4] Monthly Fiction [4.1] An unnamed story (First 650 words) [5] Keen Community News [5.1] Isis II Nearly Complete! [5.2] Latest Commander Keen Web Comic [5.3] A Commander Keen Encyclopedia! [5.4] New Commander Keen Tricks [6] Miscellaneous Stuff [6.1] Announcements [6.2] Credits -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Featured Articles (We aren’t looking for a permanent “Featured Article” writer at this time, but if you want us to publish an article for you, we’d be most obliged. Email “forge315@commanderkeen.net” about this.) [1.1] Changing the World / Editing Keen with TED From the early days of Commander Keen, avid fans have been excited by the idea of creating their own custom levels for the games. Over the course of time, various level editors were created for Invasion of the Vorticons, but no-one had made one that worked for Goodbye, Galaxy! or Aliens Ate My Baby-Sitter. Then for the first time, on the Rise of the Triad Special Edition CD-ROM, Apogee/3DRealms released TED 5, the last incarnation of John Romero's tile editor which had been used for many games since the birth of Id software, including Commander Keen. Suddenly the prospect of editing Keen levels came a lot closer. But all was not yet perfect: TED organised its data files in one way, but the released version of Keen did it in another. Even worse, some of the data required by TED was stored in the Keen executables, and would need to be patched back in for any new levels to work. This problem for a long time seemed practically insurmountable. In April 2001, progress was being made. A keen fan who goes by the name ChargingMoose released an all- new Keen 4 level which he had painstakingly made by hand with a hexeditor. This achievement got many people excited about the possibilities it adumbrated. The same month, theoddone33 and relnev wrote some utilities to extract data from the Keen executables for TED to use, though they had yet to work out a reliable method of patching homemade levels back in so they could be used. It was not until that December that this problem was solved. Admiral_Bob came up with the idea of using a little-known DOS function to patch the Keen executable in memory prior to running it, so that the hassle of modifying the program file was removed. Unlike theoddone33's quick-and-dirty utility, Admiral_Bob's was robust and well-documented, and worked with different versions of Keen. Its only drawback was that it could not patch the data that TED output without the user manually editing one file, a task which many non-technical fans shrank from doing. Now, this final snag has been removed. Now, a little more than ten years since the release of Goodbye, Galaxy!, we have put together a package so that for the first time anyone can easily create their own levels for Secret of the Oracle, The Armageddon Machine, and Aliens Ate My Baby-Sitter. Now you can find out how to use TED to its full potential, and realise the levels you've had in your mind for so long. Now there are no more excuses. GETTING A TED IN LIFE The first thing to do is to download our package: "http//www.commanderkeen.net/files/tededit.zip". It contains everything you need to start making your own custom levels right away. Installing the utilities is a simple process: 1. Unzip tededit.zip into a new folder; C:\TED is a good choice. 2. Copy the Goodbye, Galaxy! or Aliens Ate My Baby-Sitter files into the same directory. You will need all the ck4, ck5, and ck6 files, and the exes. 3. Decompress the exe files. You can either do this from a command line, or double-click the Unlzexe shortcut and enter the names of the Keen exes. 4. Run tedsetup. This will process all the Keen exes, and set up TED to edit all of them. And that's it: TED is now ready for use. If you have any problems, check the end of the article to find a solution. To start TED, just run ted5. If you installed more than one Keen episode, you will be asked to choose which episode you wish to edit. TED will take a few seconds to load the graphics, then will present you with an introductory dialog. TED, being an in-house development tool, is not the most user-friendly program; its interface is trimmed to provide flexibility and efficiency, but does not take much effort to learn. Accessory Image: "http://www.commanderkeen.net/images/misc1_b.gif" A menu bar, containing commands for controlling TED, runs along the top of the screen. Along the bottom runs the status bar. From left to right are the currently selected background and foreground tiles and the currently selected icon, and their numbers. To the right of this is the layer indicator, showing which layers are visible and which are active (more on layers in a bit). Finally we have the cursor position in both decimal and hexadecimal. LEVELS AND PLAYING FIELDS The step in editing is to open an existing level or create a new one. By default, TED will load the world map from Keen. You can choose a different level to edit by choosing File, Edit New Map, or pressing Alt+O. To create a new map, you should first delete an existing map (File, Delete Map), then create a new map in its slot (File, Create Map). You will be prompted for a name and the level size. Note that there are two rows of tiles on each edge of the level that are not seen when playing Keen; also that the name you give here will not be used in the game, but is for reference only. You can now look around the map by using the arrow keys to scroll. Keen 4, 5, and 6 levels consist of three layers of tiles: the background, foreground, and info layers. The background is just there to add colour to the scene. The foreground layer contains tiles that Keen interacts with: platforms, point items, doors, secret passages, and so on (note that many tiles in the foreground layer actually appear behind Keen). Finally, the info layer contains information about sprites and special features such as switches, doors, bridges and so on. Any or all of the layers can be visible and/or active for editing—the 1, 2, and 3 keys make the layers active or inactive; the 4, 5, and 6 keys make the layers visible or invisible. You can check the layer indicator at any time to see which layers are visible or active. Editing a map primarily involves selecting the layers you want, choosing tiles, then clicking to place the tiles. To choose a tile, click on the left-hand side of the status bar or press space. The tile-selection window will appear. The three buttons, "Tiles", "Masked", and "Icons" will display tiles for the background, foreground, and info planes respectively. The icons are primarily used for placing sprites in the level; note that most sprites have different icons with a 1, 2, or 3, indicating that they are present in Easy, Medium, or Hard modes. Use the up and down arrows to scroll through all the tiles, and click them to select. You can also "pick up" a tile from the map by clicking the right mouse button on it. Go ahead and spend a few minutes making some modifications to a level., but keep it simple for now. Accessory Image: "http://www.commanderkeen.net/images/misc2_b.gif" To save your changes, just hit Alt+S or choose File, Save Map. But before you can test the level, you have to export the maps to the format that Keen will understand: choose File, Carmacize Maps. This may take a minute or two. When it asks to print a report, choose no, or TED may hang. At this point, you can either exit TED, or if you're running it under Windows, start a new DOS prompt to test the level in—this latter choice makes testing much quicker. If you were editing a Secret of the Oracle level, run GO4; if not, run GO5 or GO6 as appropriate. As soon as you're in the game, you can press F10+W to jump to your level. After testing your changes, you can make a quit exit by pressing Ctrl+Q. PLATFORMS AND BRIDGES AND DOORS (OH MY!) Once you have a basic level made, you'll want to add more advanced features like moving platforms, switches, bridges, doors, and so on. These are all done with links in the info layer. I'll start with the simplest: moving platforms. A simple moving platform in Secret of the Oracle can be placed by putting a moving platform icon with a red arrow in the desired spot. To stop the platform moving off the edge of the screen however, you'll need to put some blocking tiles in its path: these icons look like a "B" in a square. Put one blocking tile to each side (for a horizontally-moving platform) or above and below (for a vertically-moving platform). A collapsing platform (the one with a yellow triangle below) only needs a single blocking tile beneath it. In Keen 5 and Keen 6, the platforms with green arrows (known as Goplats) need a path made of the yellow arrow icons to follow. Often you want the player to have to turn a platform on with a switch. To do this, you need to place another blocking tile in the way of the platform between the other two. Make a note of the hexadecimal values of the location of the tile (the X and Y values beginning with $ at the right-hand side of the status bar). Now place a switch in an appropriate place, and link it to the blocking tile: Choose Misc, New INFOPLANE Value or press Enter, and type in a $ followed by the last two digits of the X and Y values you wrote down (see the picture for an example). Then click on the switch; this will place the link in the info plane, which will be shown as four digits. The switch will now turn the blocking tile off, to activate the platform. Accessory Image: "http://www.commanderkeen.net/images/misc3_b.gif" In the same way, you can link a switch to a bridge (link to the left-hand edge of the bridge), a gem-holder to a closed door (link to the top of the door), and a walk-in doorway to the place you walk out (link to where you want Keen's feet to end up after he enters the doorway). Note that if you create a link from a switch to a square with nothing in the info plane, that switch will turn a blocking tile on; also that you need to use a particular tile to make a walk-in door (find out by looking at an existing level). Another feature which makes Keen levels exciting is secret passages. Some foreground tiles allow Keen to walk behind them—these are suitable for secret passages. However, identifying which ones are like this and which ones are solid is difficult: I suggest examining some of the original levels and noting down the tile numbers of the "secret passage" tiles to keep track of them. When putting point items in a secret passage, you must use icons for them, rather than their foreground tiles. I suggest that you only place the "walk-behind" tiles in secret passages once the level is completed, so that while editing you can keep track of them more easily. Finally, some Keen levels have separate areas that act like independent mini-levels (the Pyramid of the Forbidden is a good example of this). You can place scroll blocks in the info layer to mark horizontal and vertical edges between these areas. The scroll blocks look like horizontal and vertical blue lines with small white stripes; I suggest examining existing levels to see how they are used before placing them in your own levels. ROBO TED TED contains several features which can ease some of the tedium and speed up the process of making complex levels. I'll cover some of them quickly here. Grid Mode toggles the showing of a grid on the current level. This can help with placing tiles in the right positions. Turn this on or off from the Mode menu or by pressing G. Block Fill mode quickly fills a rectangular area with the currently selected tiles. Choose it from the Mode menu or press B, and click the left mouse button on the desired top-left corner, and the right button on the bottom-right corner, then press Enter to fill the area. Flood Fill mode will fill an area of one tile with the currently selected tiles. Choose it from the Mode menu or press F, then click in the desired location to fill. Copy Mode (also on the Mode menu, or press C) lets you select a rectangular set of tiles to copy so that you can duplicate them in another region easily. Select the area as for Block Fill mode, then press Enter. Paste Mode (you know where to find it) allows you to paste one or more copies of the tiles chosen with Copy Mode. Click with the left mouse button to place a copy. You can use the Paste Overlay option (on the Mode menu, or press F3) to toggle pasting of empty tiles. The Snap-Paste option (press S) toggles pasting copies just anywhere, or in a tessellated pattern. This is especially useful for filling in the background of a level. The View Map & Goto option on the Misc menu shows you a small overview of the whole level; click an area to jump to it. You can change the size of a level with the "Change MAP Edges" option on the Edit menu. Select the edge you want to change, and enter a positive or negative number to add or remove rows from that edge. If the default screen size is too small, you can switch to a high-resolution mode by choosing ?, Video Mode Switch or by pressing F9. THE ROAD TO FAME Now that you've made some really great levels, you'll want to send them to your friends or upload them for others to try. The files you will need to distribute are as follows (an X stands for the episode number that you are editing; either 4, 5, or 6): · goX.bat (batch file to play the custom levels) · custmaps.ckX (contains the custom levels) · maphead.ckX (stores some more level data) · ckXpatch.exe (the patching program) · patchX.pat (the patching information) · unlzexe.exe (to uncompress Keen executables ready for patching) I recommend zipping these files up with WinZip or another utility, and distributing the zip file; this will make it simpler for users to download and set up your levels. HELP! I'M GOING MAD! Nothing on a computer ever works for everyone. Here are some solutions to the most common problems you might encounter while creating your own levels. I get an error message: "Couldn't identify KEEN*.EXE" or "Unrecognised version of KEEN*.EXE" If you get one of these errors, either you forgot to use UNLZEXE to decompress your Keen executables, or your version of Keen is incompatible with the utilities. TEDSETUP and CK*PATCH.EXE will only work with the different versions of Keen that we had, as these were the only ones we could get information on. The following versions should be compatible: Secret of the Oracle version 1.4; The Armageddon Machine version 1.4; Aliens Ate My Baby-Sitter versions 1.0, 1.4. Note also that TEDSETUP currently will not work with CGA editions of Keen. I get an error message running GO*.BAT: "Error: cannot open CK*HEAD.OBJ" This error message will appear if you forgot to Carmacize your maps before trying to test them. I cannot see any icons in the tile selector in TED For some reason, only version 1.4 of Keen includes the icon graphics; if you have an earlier version, you should get hold of version 1.4. Keen gives me an error: "Map too tall!" Most likely your level is too large. You should use the Change Map Edges option to make it smaller. Keen gives me an error: "No free spots in spritearray!" Your level contains too many sprites or point items. You should remove some and try again. Keen gives me an error: "Too many scroll blocks" Your level contains too many scroll blocks; you need to redesign your level to contain fewer separate areas. I have a problem not listed here If you have any other problems, feel free to email me: adurdin@yahoo.com. While I cannot guarantee a solution, I will do my best to help you out. Please be aware that the utilities may not perform correctly under Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I am working on this problem, but do not know whether a solution is possible or not. That's all! Now go and make some great levels! - Andrew -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [2] Fan Game Reviews (For the time being if you want your game reviewed please email "forge315@commanderKeen.net".) Rating System Horrible (1-2) Bad (3-4) Okay (5-6) Good (7-8) Excellent! (9-10) [2.1] The Mystery of Isis II [Public Demo 2] Game Rating Excellent! (9/10) Quality - 10/10 Originality - 10/10 Keenishness - 8/10 Overall - 9/10 This game is probably one of the most famous CK fangames out there. Currently, it is one of the very few fangames that are actually being developed in a conventional programming language. The originality of this game is off the charts! The storyline is fantastic, the enemies are creative, there’s almost nothing about this game that isn’t good! There has quite obviously been a lot of time, thought and effort put into developing this game, and not just graphics and flashy effects. Superb quality! The graphics are in full 256 colour making for a rich experience when playing through the forests, under water, etc. The game-play is being heavily worked on to make it feel like the original games. For th t part, it’s been successful. Most of the old Keen’s movement is there; Pogoing and ledge-hanging are both there. This demo doesn’t have any poles in it to climb, but I’m positive that they are being or have been developed. My only complaint about the game, is its “realism”. It seems to have lost some of its cartoonish feel (“Keenishness”). For example, when you get hit by an enemy, you don’t die right away like in the original games – you lose health from your health meter. I think that the 256-colors also take away from the Keenishness. I think Keen has always been, and always will be made for EGA. That’s where he was meant to be. Other than those two things, this game is great! Overall, this game just blew me away when I first saw it. Although there are only two levels, it’s enough to explore and get the feel for the game. Also, each of the levels has its own set of hidden stuff, so that’s an added bonus. Get it now!!! - VolteFace -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3] Website Reviews (If you want your website reviewed, please email "yorpy@commanderkeen.net") [3.1] Crazy Keen's Commander Keen Site http://skyscraper.fortunecity.com/null/816/index.html I found that this site was incredibly well layed out. First it offers up the choice of frames or no frames which is a good idea because there are people who can't stand frames. The site is divided into organized sections. This site is very original. All the graphics look like they are custom made. The downloads section also includes things made by the owner of the website. Even in the sections that are under construction there are amusing graphics of Keen building something. The content of this site is very good. The downloads section includes the shareware versions of the original keen games and also includes numerous fan games and miscellaneous items. Original downloads include a screensaver about a bloog family visiting a slug monument and several cool keen icons (could be useful if you are making a keen game for windows). I did find some incorrect information like in the cheats section it talks about using a pogo stick in Keen Dreams. Overall, this site was a good read. Even if you know everything about Keen there is probably stuff on it that would interest you. The author of the website does talk about doing stuff in the future but there is no last updated date on the site and the state of the message board link leads me to believe it has been awhile since anything has been done with this site. - Yorpy [3.2] Commander Keen Infinity http://www.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/joystick/56/index.htm This website is of high quality. There is a site map to find what you want pretty fast. The design is good making it easy to navigate the site. There are grammatical and spelling errors but there are few enough that they are easy to overlook. This site is probably not very original when compared to CC314 but it does contain a lot of information. It gives enemy names and pictures, item names and pictures, the endings and stories for the games, and various and assorted other tidbits of information. If you are just starting to get into Keen then this site might be a good read for you. If you already know everything about Keen there are still fun things to read. The author of the site wrote a fake interview between him and Keen and told how he got his first Keen game. The site also has the box art for Keens 4-6 and Keen Dreams (which people always seem to be asking for). The site has been updated somewhat recently but is still missing some things. There are no enemy listings for the later Keens. Overall, it seems like the writer of the site has spent a lot of time on it and it is worth a visit. - Yorpy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [3] Monthly Fiction [4.1] An unnamed story (First 650 words) At two AM in Billy Blazes backyard, Spot stands next to a tree; he rubs his collar back and forth on the bark. A small pile of broken bark lies beneath him; he’s sweating slightly, but slowly shaving away his encaging leash. Spot thinks, *Eh…things were never this difficult on mars;* he smiles, *the worst thing that ever happened was Billy pogoing on my head.* he laughs. *SNAP!* “Aha! I’m free!” he screams quietly. He looks at the clubhouse and thinks, *There’s my goal.* Then he quickly walks over to the clubhouse, and pushes the wooden door, but it doesn’t budge, *Drat it’s jammed!* thought spot. He looks at the door, then steps back and swings his body weight against the door. It whimpers open. Spot runs in and jumps on the wooden stool; then he jumps up onto the worktable along the wall and with his teeth turns on a little lamp. It casts a small radius of light that only covers the worktable. But that’s all he needs; he steps over to the transceiver faster than light radio and nudges a little switch, activating it. It buzzes and burps, then quiets down. Then he pushes the frequency to the setting marked standard communication; generally used for low level broadcast to communicate with local spaceships. --------- A research and cargo vessel floats over a tropical rain forest; it’s sophisticated hull invisiblely transparent, except for the slight glistening of the cloaking energy wave. From the ships belly shines a light blue tractor beam, sucking up vegetation and small wildlife. The rustle of leafs, vines, and branches breaking, as well as animals scampering across the ground can be heard. In the ships comfortably big cockpit, Teddy a humanoid alien sits leaning over the tractor beam controls. His face is a whitish blue color; that seemingly depicts life, and his hair is a dark curly green. Over at the cockpit window stands Lewis; he has light green hair that hangs naturally around his face. They are both very young each only being 8, but their eyes of black and white look like water-stained windows. A luminescent purple light blinks in front of Teddy, warning him that the tractor beam is becoming unstable. He quickly changes the frequency to a stable level; he has to do this occasionally because, a stabilizer for it hasn’t been invented. “Those scientist have no tact, these new technologies hardly work.” Said Teddy. Lewis looks at the swaying trees and responds, “In what world do new technologies work?” he raises his hand a little and says, “It’s a general, that everything new can be improved.” *Zizzzz!* “Hey, it’s the communications board!” exclaimed Teddy. “There are no other ships in this region; who could possibly have access to this frequency?” wondered Lewis. He heads toward the Command Council. Teddy suggests, “Perhaps it’s some local who stumbled upon our wavelength.” Lewis who is now at the council disagrees in saying “They can’t do that, the dimensional precept is beyond current earth science.” he turns the council on and asks, “Who is this?” “WAHOO!” yells an exhilarated voice. “My name is Norp-or Spot, and I need your help.” “Can you be clearer?” asked Lewis. “I’m a yorp from mars, and I want to leave my master; who ties me up to a tree.” “A yorp?” he breathes, “What are you doing here?” but then Teddy barges in and exclaims, “Ties you up to a tree!” “Yeah.” Responds the yorp. Lewis frowns, “There’s no way we can help you right now, but we can help you off earth in the morning.” “Okay, great!” “Don’t hang up yet though.” said Teddy, “We need to trace you first.” “What are you guys doing anyway?” asked Norp. Lewis leans forward and says, “We’re collecting vegetation from across the galaxy to engineer superior plants for our planet.” “All done.” said Teddy. “We’ll see you in four hours Mr. Yorp.” “Okay, goodbye.” To be continued.... Written by Forge315 (c) by Joseph Burke -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [5] Keen Community News (Got something to announce email forge315@commanderkeen.net) [5.1] Isis II Nearly Complete! Given a couple more months and the first half of Isis will be completed. There should be an official Isis website at that time, but eK (project leader) didn’t confirm this. For some screen shots and an 'old' demo of Isis go to our Isis webpage: "http://www.commanderkeen.net/game1.html”. If you want to read exactly what's new go to this post: "http://pub7.ezboard.com/fpimentogamedevelopment.showMessage?topicID=405.topic". [5.2] Latest Commander Keen Web Comic Last year, a Keen fan calling himself “To Much Spare Time” joined the Keen community, and has taken up the habit of making Keen web comics. His latest web-comic was called “Commander Keen: 10 Years On” surely his best yet, it ended up getting hosted at 3DRealms; here is the link: “http://www.3drealms.com/fanstuff/keenstory/index.html”. Also make sure to check out TMST’s website, “The Chasm Of Chills”: “http://www.geocities.com/chasm_of_chills/index.html”. [5.3] New Website "The Commander Keen Encyclopedia" About a week ago a new and innovative website made by “Dope Fish 9” appeared. What does it do? It collects tons of Keen information, and puts it in an A-Z index. The website only covers official Keen information right now, but plan are in to collect information for fan games too, and to keep stats on all Keen fans. You will find this website here: “http://keencyclo.b0x.com”. [5.4] New Commander Keen Tricks There a some pretty good tricks for Keen6 at Keen fans KeenCommander’s website. These tricks are really cool, so you have to see them! Here’s the link: “http://cosmicoding.tripod.com/misc/kdl.html”. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [6] Miscellaneous Stuff [6.1] Announcements (These announcements are from the website.) ............................................... Friday, March 1, 2002 The first issue has now been released, and at this second you can only view the TXT version; but the HTML version should be done soon. One thing was missing from the first issue, an article that I was supposed to write. But trust me it was for the best, it sucked. Also, I wont always be the one to make these updates; you might get something from Yorpy or VolteFace this month. - Forge315 ............................................... ............................................... Thursday, February 28, 2002 The newsletter will be released tomorrow. This delay has been for the better of the newsletter, and because of some small problems. There is a new member on our team, his name is Andrew; and he will be writing technical related articles for the newsletter. You will see his first article in this issue, and it's very good. Also this website had been updated slightly. The program Screen Thief has been added to the Game Devises section, and the Fan Art page has been divided into four sections; with three new peaces of fan art. The art isn’t brand new though. - Forge315 ............................................... ............................................... Monday, February 18, 2002 Well here we are, now officially opened for business. :) There were a few bugs when I uploaded this website half an hour ago, but they should all be fixed now. Take a look around and please report any bugs to me. - Forge315 ............................................... [6.2] Credits Too Much Spare Time: Did some proofreading; the reviews Andrew: Wrote a featured article VolteFace: Did Isis II, review Yorpy: Website reviews Forge315: Monthly story, news, and newsletter composition Other thanks: AEWorld, cause he did the website graphics. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Swim swim hungry, swim swim hungry." Burp!