Commander Keen: Keen Dreams Source Code Released 72
New submitter ildon writes: Recently, the rights holder of former game publisher Softdisk's game library put the rights to some of their old titles up for sale, including Commander Keen: Keen Dreams, one of the few games in the series not to be published by Apogee. A group of fans created an Indiegogo campaign to purchase those rights. We are just now seeing the fruits of that effort with the full source code of the game being published to GitHub. About a year ago, Tom Hall found the sources to episodes 4-6, but it's not clear what, if any, progress has been made on getting Bethesda to allow that code to be released.
and also should be worth mentioning (Score:2)
Still not Keen 1-6 though!
and also should be worth mentioning (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a reason for that. Many years ago I tried to obtain the source code to Cmdr Keen 1-3, somewhat after their heyday (if there was such a thing). Both Carmack and Romero told me that the source code was lost during an office move - see the link to Tom Hall's post - but even if they did find it, it would be easier to code a compatible game engine from scratch in a clean(er) modern language. It might be nice to have for nostalgic reasons, but it would serve no practical purpose.
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You think Doom and Quake aren't cartoony?
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You think Doom and Quake aren't cartoony?
Compared to Commander Keen? Yes.
Re:and also should be worth mentioning (Score:5, Interesting)
It is weird, looking back from a time when they're so closely associated with another kind of game.
There are other good examples - such as The Lost Vikings, made by none other than Blizzard. And before Epic became all about shooters and engines they made Jazz Jackrabbit, Tyrian, One Must Fall 2097 and Epic Pinball.
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Those games' source codes should be released too. ;)
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One Must Fall 2097 had a great soundtrack composed by C.C.Catch AKA Kenny Chou of Renaissance fame. Jazz Jackrabbit was programmed by Arjan Brussee of Ultraforce.
It's great to see many of these former demoscene guys working on games still. Starbreeze, the developer behind The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was formed by a number of Triton members (who have subsequently left and formed MachineGames, the developer behind the new Wolfenstein game) and Remedy Entertainment, developer of Max Payn
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You know what never stops being weird for me? The fact that Ultima Underworld is older than Wolfenstein 3D.
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fundamentally different (Score:2)
They are fundamentally different.
On one side you have turn-by-turn games, that progress in fixed steps, and thus simply paint the game field by putting varied wall graphics at exact predefined places.
It's really the discrete position on the map and cardinal headings that are specific,
(That's what you get in most classical RPG).
Could very easily be done back then with a few lines of code. The biggest chunk of work came from the *art* to have a big enough choice of wall to draw to make an interesting world (b
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Right, ultra violent games might be too controversial. So their next game they went with something safe like Nazis.
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I would have been mighty pissed if they had picked the poor demons for w3d. but starting out with nazis made the transition pallable.
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Commander Keen started its development life as a proposed PC port of Super Mario 3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Software#History
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I think to a certain extent "Cartoony" is what you get when you have a small pallette of bright colors and a small number of pixels to work with.
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Re:and also should be worth mentioning (Score:5, Informative)
I actually did reverse engineer Keen 5 and put together a playable version for Win/Mac/Linux.
It was quite a lot of work, though the Commander Keen community had already done a lot of reverse engineering
and a few people pitched in, so it wasn't nearly as much work as I'd feared.
The source code for the original games, of course, has been found and (lawyers permitting) will be GPLed, so I've not put much more work into the reimplementation.
Binaries: http://davidgow.net/keen/omnis... [davidgow.net]
Code: https://github.com/sulix/omnis... [github.com]
(I've also started work on an updated port of Keen Dream based on the source release, though it isn't working yet: http://davidgow.net/keen/omnis... [davidgow.net] )
SMBDis (Score:2)
[Disassembling and documenting a game] would be enormous amount of work.
Fans have shown themselves more than willing to perform such an "enormous amount of work". See SMBDis [romhacking.net].
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
An article about something that nobody gives a shit about
Son, you're too young to understand.
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What's a "chuuch"?
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To me, that means to have God in everything you do. For example, "I'm trying to holla at these dizzles fo' shizzle, chuuch"
Amusingly, in that same segment (I remember watching this on television many years ago), Marylin Manson is asked what he thinks is meant by "chuuch". The above link lists his response as "I don't know. That might mean ass.", but the actual segment was much funnier in video form. Apparrently he was only shown the word in writing, so he pronounc
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I remember the Z80 and 6502 instruction sets just fine.
Do you remember how to program a smooth-as-silk side-scrolling platform game for an MSDOS PC with 16 bit EGA graphics but no dedicated hardware support for animation?
Adaptive tile refresh [wikipedia.org]
Copyright seems weird (Score:2)
It struck me that almost all files start with:
However, I wonder if this man worked at ID Software or SoftDisk when the code was written and thus can reasonably claim any copyright on it?
Work has a new owner (Score:4, Insightful)
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It probably does but it's released under GPL so it doesn't matter. This is why we should release everything under GPL/CC-type licenses.
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First publication (Score:2)
But why (c) 2014? I hope that does not mean that the 75+ year long copyright length restarts from then, does it?
For a work made for hire, the clock starts at the first publication of a particular work. Whether the 2014 is appropriate depends on whether the changes are not substantial enough to form a new work. If the alleged infringer can prove not, then the clock starts from the old copyright date.
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Not that I'm aware of, I think it says that because he's the one who owns the copyright. The whole point of giving him money on indiegogo seems to be to allow him to purchase the copyright which he apparently did. Hence, he is now the copyright holder. As owner of the copyright he has decided to release the source under the GPL.
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Re:Copyright seems weird (Score:4, Informative)
IANAL but just to complete a minor lesson in authorship and copyright in the US. By default copyright is assigned to the original author of something...except is the work is done "for hire" in which case the hiring individual or company will own the copyright independent of whomever wrote the work. At any point the owner of a copyright (which is really a set of rights they are allowed) can sell some or all of those rights (or otherwise license the work) on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis. If the copyright is sold wholesale than the new copyright owner would typically change the copyright notices to indicate that. To further complicate things with game franchises such as this there are additional trademark issues and rights issues surrounding the character, spin-off (derivative) works, etc. which may or may not have been included in the sale which is why the binary files (presumably containing the art) may not be licensed under the GPL.
Bottom line is the IP rights are a messy thing.
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He is the person who bought the copyright from the company that got it from Softdisk. He still has the right to produce non-GPL works from the source and the right to sell copies of the game that include the game assets, much the way Zenimax still has the right to do the same for Doom, Quake, Quake 2, etc.
If only Tim Sweeney could find the ZZT source! (Score:2)
Forget Commander Keen... if only Tim Sweeney could find the ZZT source code! I first learned practical programming doing my own ZZT-OOP dungeons... much more fun that my CS class exercises.
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The holders of the Keen IP are stupid.... (Score:4, Interesting)
These games should have been released for android/IOS years ago.. they would have made a buttload of money off of that old IP.
If they are just going to sit on it they need to release it and let people that are not lazy make it come back to life.
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If they are just going to sit on it
They aren't [steampowered.com]. And if there exists a DOS emulator for Android/iOS, you can play your Steam copies on Android/iOS, as Steam is just using DOSBox.
Android Dos Box Emu's & Mangers exist. https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
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Re:The holders of the Keen IP are stupid.... (Score:5, Funny)
Officially licensed NFL team helmets, 1.99 each
Sugar rush boosters, 5 for 99 cents
Tag your friends on facebook to send Keen a free life!!
You are out of lives, please wait 15 minutes for a new one to generate
You're right... Commander Keen would be great on mobile.
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You know, I actually have no problem with these two
* Bean with bacon megarocket paint-job DLC
* Officially licensed NFL team helmets, 1.99 each
If people want to spend money on cosmetic stuff without affecting gameplay, go right ahead. I quite enjoy Dota2/TF/etc. People who care about such things can spend a bunch of money playing dress-up (or make money selling items acquired from drops). Those that do not can play generally unaffected by those that do (I say generally because I have at times had a "WTF is t
This should come in handy considering ... (Score:2)
that the new hotness is to say "F that GPU, I want to make a game with graphical parity to the late 80s!" :)
I put on my football helmet and pogo stick... (Score:1)
All hail the dopefish!