The Ian Burton Adventure: It's back!

You can discuss anything about fan-made Commander Keen games here.
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Zero X. Diamond
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Post by Zero X. Diamond »

What tiles can't be used in the tileset? I'm thinking it's possible that I may have to expand into the black space at the bottom of the image, if possible.
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StupidBunny
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Post by StupidBunny »

When modding Keen 1 I often replace all the useless black space with tiles, and then use TILEINFO to make those tiles more productive. If you don't want to use TILEINFO for one reason or another, then I'm pretty sure those black tiles are just inert background tiles. The funny grid-looking ones block, though...at least some of them do. I haven't had the opportunity to test that very thoroughly. In any case, if I understand you correctly then yes, you can use everything in the tileset bitmap.

(If, however, you were talking about actually EXPANDING the bitmap itself, then I don't know if that's possible or not.)
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Zero X. Diamond
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Post by Zero X. Diamond »

Oh man, for real? I thought that the black area and that griddy stuff was unusable. That's awesome.
"I know what I am doing here with my collection of papers, for crying out loud. It isn't worth a nickel to two guys like you or me, but to a collector it is worth a fortune; it is priceless." - Dutch Schultz
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entropicdecay
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Post by entropicdecay »

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you can use that space for new tiles. I've put different tiles in that space in a mod before and I didn't see any adverse effects.
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Commander Spleen
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Post by Commander Spleen »

Yep, the entire tileset is usable, you just need to use Tileinfo if you want the empty ones to do anything interesting. As for extending the tileset, it's not practical due to the way the tileinfo data is stored in the EXE. I believe Levellord made some progress on doing this with Keen 3 somehow, but I don't remember how that experiment ended.
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Post by KeenRush »

Not with much success, if I remember correct. It's best to keep the tileset dimensions as they are, otherwise there'll be problems. And to repeat what has been said a few times already, yes, indeed, all the tileset is usable, it seems they just made a bit too big set and later had no need to fill it all, and just left it there. Keen 2 has a larger set and it's all filled. All that mono-colour can likely be compressed into few bytes, anyways, in the game files.
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
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Zero X. Diamond
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Post by Zero X. Diamond »

My intention was never to expand the size of the tileset graphic, just wondering if the unused space was usable. Glad to know it is, as it's looking like I just might have to use it!
"I know what I am doing here with my collection of papers, for crying out loud. It isn't worth a nickel to two guys like you or me, but to a collector it is worth a fortune; it is priceless." - Dutch Schultz
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Post by KeenRush »

Zero X. Diamond wrote:My intention was never to expand the size of the tileset graphic, just wondering if the unused space was usable.
Yeah, I just said it before you even start to think about it. :) Good that you find use for all the space, if you look at the tilesets of my mods you'll notice most of the tileset isn't used. :o
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
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Zero X. Diamond
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Post by Zero X. Diamond »

No more promises.

If there's one thing I've learned working on projects like this over the years, it's not to make any promises. No projections, no estimates, nothing like that. The fact of the matter is that you don't know when things are going to get done because you're doing it in your spare time, and your spare time can come or go at the drop of a hat. That and a terrible lack of attention have prevented this mod from being completed for over five years now.

Going through some of my old files while recovering stuff after a major hard drive crash, I stumbled upon my old data folder for the graphics of this project and it got me reminiscing, thinking about how this project was something that a lot of people around here were looking forward to and how much thought I put into it. Hell, I even did my usual fare of biting off way more than I can chew by thinking out the entire story arc of a 5 part series based off of the premise.

Then I came back and started poking around in secret and I realized something amazing: the game's been completely changed at this point. The tileset can be expanded to ludicrous size now, sloped tiles can be implemented, new enemies can be added, a TSR's been coded that can play music... and I've realized that this project is about six years behind the times.

Would I like to finish this? Yes. But to do so in a way that I'd be truly proud of would probably require a complete engine overhaul at this point. There are so many hacky patches in this that have since been made obsolete by much nicer code. The menu, for example. So many workarounds implemented for such a simple task...

If I do get back around to this, I'd like to maybe assemble a small team, a couple extra hands to help keep me in line and assure a quality product in the end on all ends. Particularly I'd be interested in somebody to help me redo the engine patches and maybe a person or two to assist with graphics and mapping. Who knows? It's not the biggest thing on my plate right now, but I'd like to finally finish something that I've been working on since I was in high school.

To punctuate my post, here is the thing that sparked me to say all this in the first place: the work in progress version of the trees to be used in levels.

Image
"I know what I am doing here with my collection of papers, for crying out loud. It isn't worth a nickel to two guys like you or me, but to a collector it is worth a fortune; it is priceless." - Dutch Schultz
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

YES!!!! I thought this was dead forever! :dead2
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tulip
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Post by tulip »

haha, woo. I love this community. And yeah I'd thought this was definetly dead, but i'm glad to be proven wrong, and I'm glad your keening again.
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Post by Dynamo »

Looking really cool here.

BUT WHAT ABOUT DAT RIPS.
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Zero X. Diamond
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Post by Zero X. Diamond »

CKeen wrote:Looking really cool here.

BUT WHAT ABOUT DAT RIPS.
WRONG COMMUNITY
"I know what I am doing here with my collection of papers, for crying out loud. It isn't worth a nickel to two guys like you or me, but to a collector it is worth a fortune; it is priceless." - Dutch Schultz
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