Achievements in Keen

All discussion about the Commander Genius project (a Keen interpreter + more).
pizza2004
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Achievements in Keen

Post by pizza2004 »

Building on zear's topic about level achievements, we could make various achievements available from each game.

Although this would be a bit more difficult to apply to mods, it could be done.

You would have various standard type of achievements, and if we ever implemented online play, then it could be tied to your profile and show how good a person is at Keen.
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

Well beating each game could be one. I don't think they have to feats of gaming either, they could be random. Like "lead a Vorticon commander into a pit without shooting him, in Keen 1".
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tulip
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Post by tulip »

Beating all the levels is a solid suggestion, as you never have to beat every level (well keen5 comes closest to that) to beat the game.

The second suggestion is running into difficulties fast, as we aim to support mods, and you know this idea is strictly limited to the original level. Even levelpacks wouldn't work with that one. So I vote for achievements that enhance gameplay possibilities on both original and custom episodes.

To sum up we have now 2 suggestions:

- Getting all points achievement
- Beating all levels achievement

I'd add these:

- Beating on easy, normal and hard (as a simple one)
- Playing without saving (inlevel/at all)
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zear
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Post by zear »

This is probably only relevant to keen1, but I had a lot of fun beating the game without using a pogo (except for that one moment in the final level where you have to use it to jump in to the last room.
Also I found it challenging to not use your gun thoughout the whole keen1. I haven't tested that on all the levels yet, but so far I was able to finish every level I tried without shooting (again you would be forced to use the gun to cut the rope in the last level).

As for the online stats, I never liked the idea of "leveling" to show others how cool you are. I think the achievements should stay for local games only. Just an impulse to motivate you to continue playing the game after you've beaten the main quest.

Edit:
This was in the trac ticket for my original idea, but how about adding a "devs' time" for every level, which would be some very tough (but not impossible) to beat level completion time one of the devs of cg scored.
This is present in a lot of games, Duke Nukem 3D for example.
After beating such a time a new achievement would be unlocked.
pizza2004
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Post by pizza2004 »

zear wrote:This was in the trac ticket for my original idea, but how about adding a "devs' time" for every level, which would be some very tough (but not impossible) to beat level completion time one of the devs of cg scored.
This is present in a lot of games, Duke Nukem 3D for example.
After beating such a time a new achievement would be unlocked.
Well, the problem with "dev" times, is that A) We are not the developers of Keen, we only made a clone, B) Those sorts of times are made by the developers, they aren't just high numbers put in.
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Post by zear »

pizza2004 wrote: Well, the problem with "dev" times, is that A) We are not the developers of Keen, we only made a clone,
Then call it "CG time", whatever :)
B) Those sorts of times are made by the developers, they aren't just high numbers put in.
Well yes, that's what I have in mind, actually scoring the good times, not just putting some random high values. I'm sure that would be a nice break from coding ;)
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Post by DaVince »

X-Moto has shortest time submission and trying to beat the best time, but that just results in nobody ever beating the best time at some point or another. It also means you would have to add networking and all that.
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DHeadshot
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Post by DHeadshot »

What could the achievements unlock? Would you get a new sprite for Keen or the ability to play as another character or something? Or new weapons or a higher pogo stick?
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Post by zear »

DHeadshot wrote:What could the achievements unlock? Would you get a new sprite for Keen or the ability to play as another character or something? Or new weapons or a higher pogo stick?
Haven't thought of this :) For me just the fact of being motivated to explore the game was worth it. But yeah, playing as a Spot could be a reward, as we use it's sprite as a 2nd player in CG already.
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Post by DaVince »

In Steam and XBox Live, achievements work because they measure your skills against other peoples' and friends' skills. If you're ever going to incorporate something similar in CG, it has to have an actual online experience to it, and then you have to wonder whether it's really worth it.
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tulip
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Post by tulip »

DHeadshot wrote:What could the achievements unlock? Would you get a new sprite for Keen or the ability to play as another character or something? Or new weapons or a higher pogo stick?
I would go with the "another character" take first, but maybe if we can incorporate it, some other kind of weapon could be funny (maybe one that overrides all invincibility of enemies and lets every foe vanish)
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Post by Fluiq »

I think achievements are a good idea, though I think they should be more about what secrets you have found/score you've made/and levels you've completed.

I don't like the idea for having achievements with finishing the levels fast or finishing the levels without gun/pogo.

It takes a lot more work to have online achievements.

But I think achievements are always useful to see what you've actually found/accomplished in the game. To see if you've beaten the game 100%.
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Post by StupidBunny »

Actually, I think it would be interesting for the achievements to accommodate all different gameplay styes, so that there would be achievements for item collection, speedrunning, pacifist runs, finding secrets, and so forth, as well as more basic achievements for things like finding secret levels, completing all the levels, etc.

Plus super badass achievement for finishing Keen 6 without getting a single point item. :D
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Fluiq
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Post by Fluiq »

StupidBunny wrote:Actually, I think it would be interesting for the achievements to accommodate all different gameplay styes, so that there would be achievements for item collection, speedrunning, pacifist runs, finding secrets, and so forth, as well as more basic achievements for things like finding secret levels, completing all the levels, etc.

Plus super badass achievement for finishing Keen 6 without getting a single point item. :D
You could actually make achievements like finish the game without saving once, or finish the game in * amount of time.

But it would be better if those achievements would be separate from "find all secrets" and "finish all levels".
I think those goals should be in a percentage, when you get all basic achievements you get 100% completion.

The other achievements are just extra's to keep you busy after completing the game.
"Collect all items in every map"
"Finish every map with every possible exit"
"Use less than * amount of ammo to beat the game"

Etc.

I think those need to be seperate from the game completion mechanism (if there ever will be one).
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Post by BlueGasMask »

I'm a good shopper, just gimme some dimensions, the achievement names and descriptions. it would also be great if you could give me the preferred file extension.

EDIT: this post is now my dump for my ideas.

ACHIEVEMENTS:

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ICONS:

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Last edited by BlueGasMask on Sat Jan 15, 2011 3:14, edited 3 times in total.
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