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Commander Keen: Keen Dreams Source Code Released
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to some of their old titles up for sale, including Commander Keen: Keen Dreams, one of the few games in the series not to be published by Apogee.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.
Catacomb, Catacomb 3D, and Hovertank
Still not Keen 1-6 though!
Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We hack some code
And then we'd hack some more
Code DOS and never fuss
We'd take the VESA bus
For we were young, and sure to have our way
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.
slashdot has always been a ddos platform, at least now they link to sites that can handle the traffic.
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?
A complete copyright notice states the owner of copyright in a work. If Mr. Chavez purchased the copyright from Softdisk, as "to purchase those rights" in the summary implies, then he owns the copyright.
Doesn't stop me from having that as my steam name though :)
really awesome games.
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.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
An article about something that nobody gives a shit about
Son, you're too young to understand.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I remember the Z80 and 6502 instruction sets just fine.
Then why do you see the source code release of a classic game to be unimportant?
Or, perhaps it was just a shitty platform game for the PC that was only noteworthy for its adaptive tile refresh method and not much else.
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.
[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.
that the new hotness is to say "F that GPU, I want to make a game with graphical parity to the late 80s!" :)
then perhaps you're just a fuckwit.
Also noteworthy for prominently featuring a pogo stick and Packers helmet. That alone takes it way out of 'shitty' territory.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Keen Dreams has been (legally) ported to Android in 2013 -- it's in the Play store.
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
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 (because it's mostly static, you'll be spending a lot of time at the same, and need something nice to look at).
Basically, the graphic engine has a fixed grid on screen and you put different sprites at said fixed grid positions.
On the other side you have game engines that try to have some actual notion of 3D built into them and allow smooth motion, with complete arbitrary position/headings.
(That's what you get in most FPS and real-time RPG like ultima).
There is really require more advanced coding. (With Origin more concentrating on making an imersive game, emphasis on beautiful graphics, and ID concentrating on make their engine fast and responsive, sacrificing any detail necessary for the sake of being able to make a fast paced game).
Basically, the graphic engine use geometric techniques like wolf's raycasting do determine what is visible where, and gives you total freedom (or at least tons more of freedom, as Carmack used limitation to beat Ultima in speed and fluidity).
From a basic visual composition, both categories have a first person perspective.
From a technical point of view, they are designed completely differently.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
All hail the dopefish!
Heh. Perhaps you're right.
What's a "chuuch"?
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 pronounces it "chooch" (it's actually pronounced more like "church" with the 'r' removed) with a very quizzical look on his face. "Uh, chooch? I don't know. That might mean ass." Priceless.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
EGA wasn't 16-bit, it was 4-bit. 16-bit colour didn't happen until high colour VGA.
You know who you are.
Whoops - he didn't say that it was 16-bit colour. Try reading again. He is talking about the CPU - which around that time were 16-bit 286's (or Amiga/ST 16-bit motorola's).
Keen Dreams is now on Greenlight too!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=315040793
Learn to read. He was referring to graphics. The CPU doesn't handle graphics.