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-7: September 30, 2002 Working Title: Be a MODER! (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/cknews Newsletter Index: [1] Featured Articles [1.1] Create Levels with KeenEdit [2] Fan Game Reviews [2.1] Norp the Yorp in, "Inside Mortimer's computer" [3] Website Reviews [3.1] Planet Rome.ro [3.2] Shadowlands - The Series [3.3] Commander Keen Domain [4] Monthly Fiction [4.1] [5] Keen Community News [5.1] Art for possible Keen Game [5.2] Buy Keen here! [5.3] New Fan Game [5.4] RKP3 for Windows [5.5] Adventure Keen Game [5.6] Keen Art Contest again [6] Miscellaneous Stuff [6.1] Fan Art [6.2] Announcements [6.3] 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 us at "info@commanderkeen.net" about this.) [1.1] Create Levels with KeenEdit INTRODUCTION What does it take to make a Keen MOD? A lot of little things, and in this article and other to follow you'll be shown exactly how to make one. The separate articles to come will each cover different aspects of Keen1-3 MOD making. Since levels are one of the more enjoyable parts of MOD making we'll talk about that first. You'll learn how to create custom tiles and edit other parts of the game later on. ARTICLE ONE - Create Levels with KeenEdit The first thing you need to do is get a copy of a level editor, I suggest KeenEdit/KeenWright since it's more compatible to our uses and it's what this article is about. Download this editor here, http://www.commanderkeen.net/files/app6.zip Once KeenEdit is unzipped go to your Keen1 folder and copy the first level, it's named "level01.ck1", to the editor's folder. Now run the program, a menu will appear; here's the definition of the ones you may not understand. Level statistics (shows the number of foes, points, and hazards ect. in a level) Change Tileset (if your making a keen2 or 3 MOD change the tileset with this) Select "new level" from the menu and press "Enter/Return". Now you'll be asked how wide and tall you want the level, you can't make it any bigger than 170x170, for now just pick the defaults. After the level dimensions are picked you'll enter the editing screen. There'll be a menu at the bottom, across the top of the menu are tiles. You can scroll through these tiles with the "+" and "-" keys. The selected tile has a blue square around it, to use the tile press "Spacebar". Pressing "T" brings up a big tiles box, use the "Z", "X", and "C" keys to select any three tiles. Select the three top tiles for the red tileset, press the "EXE" key to escape. There's a grid to use while making a level, just press "G" to turn it on or off. You've probably noticed that there's two default tiles around the level, these wont appear in the final level and your not supposed to use them. Use the arrow keys to scroll to the bottom of the screen, to the plain tile just above the two default edge tiles. Then pressing, "Z", "X", or "C" place the red walking tiles across the bottom of the screen. That was time consuming wasn't it? There's a little shortcut, though it will not always save you, use the plus or minus key to select a tile, choose one different than the red one. Then go where the red walkway you made earlier began and press the "L" key, (the pointer should look like an "L" now) and scroll to the end of the red walkway and press "Enter/Return". A new tile, the one you just selected now replaces the old one. You can use the line ability to draw lines in any direction, just pick the starting point with the "L" and end point with "Enter/Return". Above I talked about placing tiles and drawing lines with tiles, but what if you want to quickly replace the tile going across the bottom of the screen. To do that you'll need to use the "Flood-Fill" command, go to any place on the row of tiles you've made and select another tile with the plus and minus keys. Now press the "F" key to fill the similar tiles that are touching with the new tile. One other command exists to help you place tiles, the "Rectangle" command. Press "R" to start the rectangle and "Enter/Return" to end it. When you press "R" you start the rectangle in that spot, then head up however many spaces you want it to be tall and over the number of spaces you want it wide. Okay so now you know how to place tiles, so we'll move on to sprites. The most important sprite is Keen, to place Keen press the "K" key. Put Keen sprite in the lower left corner of the screen, Keen is two tiles tall so place him two tiles above the floor you made. To select a different sprite (such as a foe) press the "S" key, once selected press "Enter/Return" to choose that sprite. You place a selected sprite by pressing "A". Later on you might make a mistake and want to remove a sprite, to do this turn on "Cap locks" and press "A", or press "Shift+A". When placing an ice cannon you need to draw the cannon from the tiles on the tiles menu first, then place the sprite using the sprites menu. To place an exit door, open the tile menu again and select the tile 159, the tile number is registered in the lower left corner of the menu. Keen has to just walk into this tile to exit. Put this tile on the right side of the screen; you can draw the rest of the door in if you want. Other things in a Keen level include points, doors, hazards (fire, water), and items; these exist as tiles and are found in the tile menu. To save your level exit to the main menu by pressing the escape key, then select "Save level". If you don't want to save over the level you opened press, "Save Level As", to save to wherever you want. Now select "Quite" from the menu and copy your new level back to your Keen1 folder. Run the game and test the level. We're not done yet though, copy the level named "level80.ck1" to the KeenEdit folder and open it using KeenEdit. This is the map level, and you need to learn how to place links to levels in it. Scroll down to where Keen starts his adventure in Keen1. You'll see yellow squares around the first level, Keen's ship, and where Keen begins. Press the "M" key to change the yellow squares into something more useful, they'll turn into numbers and sprites. To learn how to link to levels, lets start by making another ship for Keen. (You'll find the tiles for the ship in the tiles menu.) Draw Keen's ship somewhere between level one and the first ship. Then press "S" for the sprite menu, and go down till custom is selected enter the number "20". Now place it using the "A" key over the ship, you can place it again but it's just the "20" that brings up the menu in the game. You can delete these links the same way you delete sprites, and you'll even find you have a bit of flexibility when making links. One area of lenience is, you can link to the first level with just one Yorp, but the done tile is the smaller one; so experimenting is required. Well that was the last thing needed for making levels with KeenEdit. - Forge315 ----------------------------------------------- [2] Fan Game Reviews (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] Norp the Yorp in, "Inside Mortimer's computer" Game Rating Good (7/10) Quality - 7/10 Originality - 8/10 Keenishness - 7/10 Overall - 7/10 Beginning where all reviews begin, lets talk about the plot in this MOD. In this MOD it isn't Keen who must save the day but his pet yorp Spot/Norp. This little yorp when all the way to mars, and there he found a factory controlled by Mortimer. The factory was busy pushing lethal mind controlling fumes into the atmosphere, fumes that were turning the inhabitants of mars into mind controlled mutants of Mort! Once converted they'd work to death building robots and war machines, all to serve Mort's evil purpose. Norp wasn't gonna stand for this, so he tried to disable to the factory via a computer; but it was booby trapped! He was shrunk to one million his original size and placed into the computer. Here he faced a murky doom, horribly mutated yorps and gargs marched the silicon here. He would have to face them all down by himself, but at least he had Keen's pogo stick and an uncanny ability to shoot eyeballs. (Don't you find that eyeball thing weird?) The atmosphere created by this game in the levels was one of extreme difficulty, and you probably wont be able to beat it in one sitting. Keenishness in the levels was okay, though the levels seemed to suffer a little by being too big or too difficult. A level being to big isn't really a problem but more problems will occur the bigger a level gets. You'll probably find some areas boring or monotonous since you'll have to play them over and over again to win. Perhaps a lighter side of the levels is that the little messages or taunts you get from Mort throughout the game have a Star Wars twist to them, such as, "Norp… I am your father. Join me and we can rule the universe together!". Green tiles predominantly rule the levels in this game, that annoyed me at first but it's really is a part of the plot! Still the game failed to shrink me as Norp and breath a lifelike atmosphere of the computer into my imagination. However the game's tiles are original and there are various circuit or computer related backgrounds to help it along. Also if I'm to be completely honest the only killer that destroyed the atmosphere was the levels. So what were the highs of the game? Original graphics, good plot, and okay levels. Lows? Hard levels and not perfect graphics. (Could have used completely new ending screen.) - Forge315 ----------------------------------------------- [3] Website Reviews (If you want your website reviewed, please email "yorpy@commanderkeen.net") Rating System Horrible (1-2) Bad (3-4) Okay (5-6) Good (7-8) Excellent! (9-10) [3.1] Planet Rome.ro Site Rating: Excellent Quality - 10/10 Originality - 10/10 Keenishness 9/10 Overall - 10/10 http://rome.ro This is John Romero's website. The legendary co-creator of our favorite sidescroller has created this website for his fans. Design-wise the site is appealing. The colors used work well together. The graphics on the site are also used well. Features include a Random Pic from the Archives, articles written by Romero himself, an extensive list of games that he has worked on, interesting news stories, comics, and best of all a forum where you can talk to him yourself. The forum is also a good environment in which you can discuss games with others. The site is definately worth a visit. There is a lot to see and some of it is very amusing. The pic under the Aug 4 update made me chuckle. - Yorpy ---------------------- [3.2] Shadowlands - The Series Site Rating: Good Quality - 7/10 Originality - 10/10 Keenishness 9/10 Overall - 8/10 http://www.angelfire.com/emo/shadowlands/ This is the homepage for the popular animated series "Shadowlands" that details the events of a civil war on Gnosticus IV before Commander Keen ever heard of the planet. You can view the first episode of it on the site. It seems that info will be added to the site as the series progresses. Right now there is character descriptions that can be viewed. The "Did You Notice?" section sounds like it will be very interesting. It was hard to judge the content of this site because there isn't much yet but as more information is added and as the series progresses along I think this site will become an excellent resource for fans of this fantastic series. - Yorpy ---------------------- [3.3] Commander Keen Domain Site Rating: Okay Quality - 7/10 Originality - 5/10 Keenishness 7/10 Overall - 6/10 http://keendomain.cjb.net/ This is your basic run of the mill Commander Keen site. Its has enemies, items, screenshots, cheat codes, and downloads for all the original games. There are also practically nonexistant sections on fanart, fangames, and high score competitions. The site also has a forum that doesn't see much activity. The creator of the site has posted indicating that he can't update the site anymore but tells of his new fan game. The site hasn't been updated for a year so has no current information. It is just a resource for basic information. - Yorpy ----------------------------------------------- [4] Monthly Fiction [4.1] We're working on getting a more stable monthly fiction or something equivalent. ----------------------------------------------- [5] Keen Community News This month KeenRush was busy with school and wasn't able to do the news, so here's what I (Forge315) put together in the last minute. Sorry if I didn't get much, never was great at it. He'll be back next month and may cover what I missed this month. [5.1] Art for possible Keen Game Okay so there's this guy named Djaser, and he's created a new garg sprite for a fan game he may make. Check it out here, (warning the pic is big about 900K) http://members.lycos.nl/djaser/GArg%20spirir.bmp ---------------------- [5.2] Buy Keen here! We should all thanks Andrew for pointing out whenever a Keen game becomes available on ebay. Go see his post, http://pub128.ezboard.com/fpubliccommanderkeenforumtheoriginalcommanderkeenga.sh owMessage?topicID=451.topic ---------------------- [5.3] New Fan Game (and I didn't think it was gonna happen again) A new fan game is being made by Keen fan sinistercreature *pictures big teeth and wonder if he flosses*, anyway here's what he's said about it, QUOTE - I am using the Games Factory to create this unofficial game, but since it is the unregistered version, I can't save it as a stand alone game. Oh, yeah, and I am not going to make a title screen and call that a demo. Will anybody let me download their Games Factory of Klick and Play?...Please? I've already made the first level, which is basically a shoot 'em up with the NEW bean with Bacon Megarocket; but don't worry, the whole game isn't going to be a shoot 'em up with the rocket. ---------------------- [5.4] RKP3 for Windows The fan game Real Keen player 3 is going to have a windows version. What a great thing! Read about that here, http://pub128.ezboard.com/fpimentogamedevelopment.showMessage?topicID=528.topic You can also check out some new screens for it here, http://www.geocities.com/pieterjordaan.geo/index.html ---------------------- [5.5] Adventure Keen Game There's a Keen adventure thanks to, "dasTOBI AS". I don't know much about it but if you play it, an important control is the right mouse button, it changes what Keen's doing, grabbing, walking, talking etc.. Download it here, http://www.commanderkeen.net/files/game54_1.zip And read about it here, http://pub128.ezboard.com/fpimentogamedevelopment.showMessage?topicID=552.topic ---------------------- [5.6] Keen Art Contest again Check out the Keen art contest topic again, and you'll find some art. (People are creative.) http://pub128.ezboard.com/fpubliccommanderkeenforumothercommanderkeenstuff.showM essage?topicID=435.topic ----------------------------------------------- [6] Miscellaneous Stuff [6.1] Fan Art This month we don't exactly bring you any fan art but we'll be getting some; you see I waited till the last minute to ask a Keen fan Manboy about letting the newsletter use some art he made. So we don't have it yet, but we're hoping, however we do have links to the art. Wallpaper by Manboy 1 - An interesting 3D yorp http://pub128.ezboard.com/fpubliccommanderkeenforumothercommanderkeenstuff.showM essage?topicID=454.topic 2 - The same yorp but laying against a tree in Keen's backyard http://pub128.ezboard.com/fpubliccommanderkeenforumothercommanderkeenstuff.showM essage?topicID=460.topic Next month we'll bring you some scans of the Keen manuals and box art. Probably only for the GBC Keen game, but the other will come later. - Forge315 (I think this is my section, or it's feeling that way) ---------------------- [6.2] Announcements Not much to say this month, but surprisingly Shikadi (the guy who left the newsletter team), wants to rejoin. Wish him luck in the voting booth. If you happen to be a frequenter to the Newsletter's webpage then you've noticed we don't update anything, no working links, no HTML version of the newsletter, nothing, we're just plain lazy. Well that's not right (not completely), there's just no need to update something that's gonna change with the new design. - Forge315 ---------------------- [6.3] Credits Too Much Spare Time: Proofreading KeenRush: Busy with School MRCMarky/AEWorld: His art doth call Yorpy: Website reviews Forge315: Newsletter composition Other thanks: John Romero for agreeing to do an interview with us, just wait till next month! ----------------------------------------------- "Swim swim hungry, swim swim hungry." Burp!