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Keen in Sonic

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by coder12, Jul 16, 2011.

  1. coder12

    coder12

    Member
    Hey all! I got my wisdom teeth ripped out this weekend, so I've been doing a lot of cleaning. During my searches I came across an old project I was working on that I haven't really touched in 3 years or so. I was always afraid to post 'cuz I'm a trial member.

    Introducing ... Commander Keen in Sonic the Hedgehog.

    It features partially finished (and horribly buggy):
    new physics for running
    modified ASM
    modified graphics
    mostly awful music, with the exception of one or two songs
    broken palettes!
    New levels/level art


    No screens for now, sorry! The painkillers are starting to kick in and I'm gonna be out soon. I realize it's nothing great, but heck, may as well release it.

    Oh, and here's the download:
    Right here.

    Lemme know whatcha think! I'm gonna start working on an entirely new version of it now that my new laptop is here.

    Oh God the painkillers....

    edit: Just woke up from nausea, and as requested...


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    (I warned you that this is old and broken =P)

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    This is where a bug occurs that activates debug mode.

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    I almost got background art working in this level set. Almost.

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    The music in this set of levels was almost bearable...

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    To make dying more pleasurable, the theme from Ghostbusters plays.
     
  2. Arctides

    Arctides

    I am a bloated bag of hate. Oldbie
    Screenshots would've been nice. Also, that was horrific.
     
  3. I always hope one day someone will properly put Keen in Sonic 1.

    This is not that day.
     
  4. It's a decent first effort, although it probably should be restarted, as you said. It entertained me for a few minutes.

    Note that id Software made Keen. Apogee published Keen 1-5. FormGen published Keen 6. Softdisk published Keen Dreams.

    I love the use of Lee Jackson's Fish Polka from Rise of the Triad as the level end theme. It's perfect, with the Dopefish and all.
     
  5. TomoAlien

    TomoAlien

    Member
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    Poland
    I must say for your first ASM hack that's pretty good, but it shows that in a lot of places you were screwing around to see if you can do something.

    I see that you're ambitious but don't go out into deep waters just yet, because you're gonna find yourself with no air bubbles in sight.

    The physics are good so far, but they're not perfect. Also, you need to add the pogo in, because the pogo is pretty much the trademark of the Commander Keen series, like the speed of Sonic. Without the pogo it's pretty much like Sonic without speed, so you gotta do that if you want to put in the total Keen experience.

    The sprite porting is alright, but could use some work. You forgot to replace Sonic in some places, like in the Powerup Monitor and in the HUD. Also don't change anything in the levels, unless you know what you're doing. Remember to fix up the sprites that use Sonic's palettes, else you'll end up with these crabs covered in vomit :v:.

    Well, this is pretty much what everyone does when they lay their hands on the disassemblies for the first time. Experimenting with sprite porting, modifying some stuff everywhere, but if you wanna make a serious hack, focus on single things instead of doing a lot of things at once. That always ends up bad.

    PS:What did you do to the title screen? Why when you take the upper route, debug mode activates and after a while the game starts playing itself?
     
  6. coder12

    coder12

    Member
    Fixed, and you pretty much phrase it perfectly haha.


    I realized that like a year ago, but was never sure on it. Thank you for confirming it, I'll fix it when the project is restarted and chugging along.
    Also, glad you liked the fish polka, I'd completely forgotten that it was in there to be honest. (Hahaha now that I actually listened to it, I think it's pretty funny.)

    Thanks for your feedback! You're exactly spot on with the references you make. One of the things I've learned since three years ago is that focusing is important. (I read Leo Babauta's book Focus.
    I'm going to create entirely new sprites, along with new physics. No more of this porting Keen to the genesis verbatim stuff. My new thought is, "What if id had actually made their own Keen game for this system?" I want to create that.
    On a different note, I corrupted the title screen pretty badly iirc trying to modify the art. The bug in level 1 comes from an object I created in ASM, when I put it into SonEd and built a level, that's what came out.

    Thanks for all of your feedback! I'm back and forth between doing this project and another one, so I'll post back when there is something worthy of posting. This is a great site, full of information, I can't wait to get started again!
     
  7. Mad Echidna

    Mad Echidna

    Gone Oldbie
    5,219
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    I love this hack. Please keep working on it :P