Commander Keen
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Commander Keen is the main character in a series of computer games developed by id Software in the early 1990s, which were successful at replicating the side-scrolling action of the NES Super Mario Bros. games in DOS. The cartoon-style platformers are notable for their pioneering use of EGA graphics and shareware distribution, and because they were the first games by id Software, who went on to develop blockbusters like Doom and Quake. The games were also exciting to the PC gaming community of the time because of John Carmack's revolutionary smooth-scrolling graphics engine. Although developed by id, most of the Commander Keen games were published by Apogee Software, an already established PC shareware game publisher.
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History
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. Softdisk rejected the technology because they wanted to continue to support customers who only had 4-color CGA cards.
Carmack and several of his colleagues used their own time to put together a clone of the first level of Super Mario Bros. 3, except for the hero, which they replaced with Dangerous Dave, a character from some of their games for Softdisk. They called it Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement and approached Nintendo with the demo, but the latter declined to enter the PC market at that time.
The developers still thought their game technology had potential, so they left to form what would become id Software. The developers got in touch with Scott Miller of Apogee, who put up the money for Commander Keen's development, starting a profitable business relationship that would last until id self-published Doom.
Id's contract with Softdisk required them to write several more games for the company, one of which became Keen Dreams, called the "Lost Episode" of Commander Keen because it was not sold by Apogee as the others were.
The story
Billy Blaze is an eight-year-old boy genius (purported to have an IQ of 314) who has constructed a spaceship in his backyard from old soup cans and other household objects, called The Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket. When his parents are out and the baby sitter falls asleep, he dons his brother's Packers helmet and becomes Commander Keen, Defender of Earth.
At the end of the third game, his rival Mortimer McMire is revealed as the Grand Intellect, the mastermind behind the original game's Vorticon attempted attack on Earth. Mortimer is purported to have an IQ of 315, one point more than Billy's 314, and considers it his duty to kill and destroy all beings of lesser intelligence (e.g. the entire galaxy). He goes on to lead the Shikadi, a race of energy beings who name him the Gannalech. In episodes 4 and 5, he attempts to destroy the galaxy with the Shikadi Quantum Explosion Dynamo, but is yet again foiled by Keen. However, his true intentions are made clear - to destroy the universe, as he had his sister (Billy's babysitter) kidnapped by the Bloogs in order to distract him.
It is later revealed that Billy's full name is William Joseph Blazkowicz II, and that he is the grandson of William Joseph "B.J." Blazkowicz, the Allied war hero of Wolfenstein 3D. His father had changed his last name to Blaze for show biz.
The Keen games
Seven official Commander Keen games were released for the PC under MS-DOS. Many are considered "episodes" that were available separately. Under the shareware model, usually the first episode was available at no charge.
Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons
- 1. "Marooned on Mars" (first released as shareware on December 14 1990)
- While Commander Keen is exploring Mars, the Vorticons steal four vital components of his ship and hide them in Martian cities, each guarded by a Vorticon soldier. In this episode, Keen acquires his trademark pogo stick and meets a variety of Martian aliens and robots. One such alien, a green critter with an eye on a stalk (called a Yorp) sneaks into his spaceship and comes along home.
- 2. "The Earth Explodes"
- Keen returns to Earth only to find the Vorticon mothership hovering above, with its ray cannons locked on to eight of Earth's greatest wonders. Unlike the first game which had a happy and friendly atmosphere, almost everything in this game is hostile towards keen, from the floating machine gun robots to the electrified floors. The engine has a couple of extra features such as light switches and moving platforms, making this game the hardest of the trilogy.
- 3. "Keen Must Die!"
- Keen travels to the Vorticon homeworld in search of the mysterious Grand Intellect that has directed the Vorticons toward Earth. The game features the cities, parks and suburbs of the Vorticons, and their women, children, pets and mechanical toys make up the enemies. In the final level, Keen has to disable the 'mangling machine', a large apparatus with many crushing parts controlled by the Grand Intellect.
Interlude
- 3.5. "Keen Dreams" a.k.a. The "Lost Episode" (published by Softdisk, not Apogee)
- After refusing to eat his vegetables, Keen is sent to bed by his parents. He falls asleep, only to awaken in a strange vegetable kingdom led by the evil Boobus Tuber, who has imprisoned other sleeping children there. This game uses an early version of the 'slanted 3-d' graphics engine used in the following three games. In the dream world, Keen does not have his trademark raygun and pogo stick, but has to defend himself with 'flower power' seeds that temporarily turn enemies into flowers. All enemies are food-based, such as the Tomatooth, Broccolash, and Frenchy.
Commander Keen in Goodbye Galaxy!
- 4. "Secret of the Oracle" (first released as shareware on December 15 1991)
- Keen's newly finished homemade faster-than-light radio picks up a plot by the Shikadi to destroy the galaxy. He rushes to the planet Gnosticus IV to consult the Keepers of the Oracle, but discovers that they have been taken captive by monsters. This game is the first to use the full power of the slanted 3-d'ish perspective. It features huge levels and a wide variety of enemies, such as rocks that only move when your back is turned.
- 5. "The Armageddon Machine"
- After getting information from the Oracle, Keen lands on a massive Shikadi space station, the Armageddon Machine (a.k.a the Omegamatic), and seeks out the mysterious Gannalech.
Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter
- 6. Aliens Ate My Babysitter (published by FormGen, who resold it to Apogee; now discontinued)
- When Keen's baby sitter Molly is abducted by the Bloogs, Keen must come to her rescue by fighting his way through the inhabitants of the planet Fribbulus Xax.
An additional installment, tentatively titled The Universe is Toast!, was planned, but it never got off the ground as id moved on to Wolfenstein 3D and then Doom.
In 2001, Activision published a completely new Commander Keen game for the Game Boy Color, simply titled Commander Keen. The game, although developed with id's permission, did not involve any of the original Keen developers.
Keen in other games
Commander Keen made a cameo appearance in level 32 (a secret level) of Doom II, a later id game. He was displayed as hanged with a noose and the player could shoot him, making him explode in blood. This has been interpreted as id pronouncing Keen "dead": in other words, it is presumed that they do not intend to continue producing Keen games.
Keen also appeared as a hostage in Apogee's Bio Menace. Other elements from Keen can be found in the Apogee games Paganitzu, Crystal Caves, Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, and Secret Agent. The first Duke Nukem game includes an offhand reference to Keen, and numerous other Apogee games have Keen on their default high score lists.
Apogee arch-rival Epic Games' Jill of the Jungle includes a news bulletin taking a swipe at Keen, who it claims has been forced into retirement by "those cool Epic heros" (sic).
The Dopefish, an enemy character from Secret of the Oracle, has appeared in many games over the years (such as in Quake) and continues to make hidden appearances in modern titles.
Fan-made Keen games
A number of fan-made Commander Keen games of varying quality have been created, mostly using Klik & Play, Click & Create, and similar game construction software. The Public Commander Keen Forum has a forum devoted to the announcement and discussion of these unofficial Keen games.
In the years since the release in early 2002 of utilities to modify the levels and graphics in the original Keen series, more than forty mods have been made. Most of these have Commander Keen as the protagonist, but a few merely use the Commander Keen engine to develop an entirely new game.
While most of the fangames are of poor quality, having problems dealing with clipping interface and playability, several of the mods are of similar or higher quality to the original games. The tools and utilities used to modify the games, as well as a body of accumulated knowledge of the Keen code, are constantly being updated and improved.
Much of this work has been done by Andy Durdin, who has written utilities for the editing of Keen graphics and levels. He has also done much in determining the inner-workings of the Keen engine, allowing many mods to be even more different than the Commander Keen episode they were created from.
External links
- MobyGames' entry on the Commander Keen series (http://www.mobygames.com/game_group/sheet/gameGroupId,32/)
- Public Commander Keen Forum (http://p072.ezboard.com/bpubliccommanderkeenforum) - Central forum of the Keen community.
- Keen:Modding (http://andy.durdin.net/keen/modding) - Forum dedicated to making Keen mods.
- Beyond the Pogo (http://spatang.com/ck) - Large Commander Keen site containing most of the content created by the Keen community (fanart, fangames, programs, mods etc). Also hosts the Keencyclopedia and Commander Keen Newsletter.
- Cerebral Cortex 314 (http://www.classicgaming.com/cc314/) - Popular Commander Keen website. No longer regularly updated.
- Keencyclopedia (http://www.spatang.com/ck/keen.php) - An A through Z interpretation of all eight Commander Keen games, including the Game Boy Color edition.
- Commander Keen Fan Site (http://www.commander-keen.com) - Contains reviews and downloads of the games.
- Commander Keen Newsletter (http://www.spatang.com/cknews/) - (Usually) monthly e-publication featuring news from the Keen community (e.g. new mods, fanart).
- A Look Back at Commander Keen (http://www.3drealms.com/keenhistory/) - "This article tells the story of Commander Keen - how it was made, what the people behind it felt, and some things you may never have known before about the game."
- Keen Galaxy (http://www.keengalaxy.com/) - Keen Fansite. Mods, play Keen online, level maps, fan games, SGA generator, installation guide and other Keen stuff.
- The Garg's Mod Maze (http://www.keengrid.net/ckgalaxy/tgmm.php) - An exhaustive list of Keen mods.
- The Standard Galactic Alphabet (http://omniglot.com/writing/sga.htm) - A substitution cipher used to hide text such as hints and warnings in the games.
- Gnosticus VII (http://www.spatang.com/gnosticus) - A review site for Commander Keen modifications.
- NicksSoft's Keen Fan Games (http://www.nickssoft.cjb.net) - A site which includes many CK fan games including Commander Keen 2004de:Commander Keen