I'm going to make a Keen fangame.

You can discuss anything about fan-made Commander Keen games here.
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What concept should I work on?

Keen: The Roguelike
0
No votes
Mars RPG
9
47%
Chungella Diaries
6
32%
The Universe is Toast!
4
21%
 
Total votes: 19

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Deltamatic
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I'm going to make a Keen fangame.

Post by Deltamatic »

The difference between Keen mods and Keen fangames is that while mods can do anything the Keen engines can do fangames can do anything any engine can do. And besides that, I'm lazy and don't want to learn modding. :P So since I've had ideas frolicking about in my head and I want to turn them into working games, Keen Day 2011 just got a little more interesting.
There's a problem, though--the ideas are conflicting. So here they are, and you the people who are going to play one of them get to decide which wins out.

Keen: The Roguelike
EGA-level top-down graphics. Unsure of story, probably would involve retrieving a McGuffin and getting out. Would have several dungeon branches themed after different species besides the main branch. I'd have more time to hone the gameplay on this one since it would be simpler to code than a platformer, hopefully resulting in better overall polish and quality.
Mars RPG
True-color cartoonish sidescrolling graphics. The sidescrolling part works in an RPG environment because it's a web of 1D paths represented in a 2D medium. Story depends on race (Yorp, Garg, Vorticon, or robot), class, allegiance, and of course the player's decisions. Rather open-ended/sandbox. Lots of political intrigue, wars, unexplored territory, etc.
Chungella Diaries
True-color medium-realistic sidescrolling graphics. A platformer (finally ;)). Keen is assigned to keep a diary for a week, going on nature walks and recording his thoughts. So of course he blasts off in his Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket and explores alien worlds for his nature walks. Each level ends with a philosophical diary screen. The Chungella system has four planets, each coinciding with a medieval element. One of them is the home of a famed sandwich. Another one is the home of a famed princess. All of them are accessible.
The Universe is Toast!
VGA-level sidescrolling graphics. Story too long to put down here, heavy use of cutscenes. It would be a trilogy: Sonata (focusing on Lindsey), Escapade (focusing on guess who), and Nemesis (focusing on guess who else). Note that I'm saying the plot would focus on them, not that they would be the PC.
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Post by tulip »

I voted for MarsRPG because it sounds fun.
I'm afraid the Toast project might be too huge, so it'd either turn out buggy or never be finished.
And I'm also afraid you might spike Chungella with religious content, and I'm overall not so sure how you want this to work.
The Roguelike might also be fun and doable.

Either way I'm thrilled if we will see a fangame 2011.
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Post by Roobar »

Mars RPG becasue there are some really good rpg makers around and you won't have to start from scratch.

Chungella Diaries sounds really good too, though it doesn't sound quite keenish.
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Post by Deltamatic »

tulip wrote:And I'm also afraid you might spike Chungella with religious content, and I'm overall not so sure how you want this to work.
I decided almost right off that if I was going to make it, it wouldn't have religious stuff to avoid the baggage it carries. And it would be a normal platformer, but when you get to the exit a full-screen image comes up showing Keen's diary entry for that level.
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

Chungella diaries sounds like it would lend itself well to the Keen1 engine. But that's clearly not what you're going to do with it 8)
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Post by Genius314 »

Chungella Diaries sounds a lot like Pikmin (maybe just Pikmin 2?)... exploring an alien world and then reading a journal entry about it.

I voted for Mars RPG. I've been waiting to see a Keen RPG for a while.
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Post by Deltamatic »

Seems that Mars RPG is winning by a landslide.
I was originally going to make it from scratch in Game Maker, but this mention of RPG makers has me curious. Do any of them support realtime combat and/or sidescrolling motion?
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Post by Shilor »

Universe Is Toast sounds the best to me but also sounds like a big project. I would vote for Chungella Diaries second
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Post by Roobar »

As far as I know, http://www.rpgmakervx.com/ is one of the easiest, yet powerful rpg makers on the market. Even if it claims to be easiest, it takes a lot of time to make a good rpg game. I don't know if it supports real time combat though.
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Post by TerminILL »

I've never used an RPG maker, but as far as I understand they're good for fairly traditional RPGs and not much else. I'd rather code my own solution in Game Maker, even if it takes a month.
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Post by Deltamatic »

^Point. And besides, the RPG maker asks for money, so Game Maker it is.
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Post by DaVince »

Draik wrote:I've never used an RPG maker, but as far as I understand they're good for fairly traditional RPGs and not much else. I'd rather code my own solution in Game Maker, even if it takes a month.
Not all of em, though. Sphere for example is an open-source cross-platform solution good at making a lot of different kinds of 2D games, even though it was intended as an RPG engine from the start.
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Post by KeenRush »

Mars RPG. I'm not saying I'd play it as it's a fan game but it sounds different. And I think still unseen, there has been a Keen RPG in the works but I don't know if was ever finished. And it sounds less ambitious than the others; I've seen quite a lot people declaring they're going to make a huge fan game with a thousand features but they never made it as far as alpha beta. :dopekeen
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Post by Roobar »

I'm wondering if RPG maker is not good enough for you, what kind of RPG are you trying to make exactly? Mass Effect-like one? Final Fantasy XIII-like one?
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Post by Deltamatic »

One with sidescrolling action sequences tied to hotkeys. There wouldn't be any top-down or isometric stuff in the game, but rather a bunch of 1D paths linking to each other at nodes and viewable as a web of threads looking thing on the overworld map.
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