A Sequel?

What do you do when you have one of the most popular computer games at the moment?  You make a sequel, of course!  Keen Dreams aside, the time was right for a true sequel to Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons.

id Software was located in the frozen tundra of the Madison Wisconsin area.  They worked on games for Softdisk, including Keen Dreams.  Keen Dreams was a startup for the new series of Commander Keen games they had in mind.  Work began on the sequel to Commander Keen in June of 1991.  Far larger in scope than the original, this new Keen was destined to become a greater extension of the popularity of the original.  However, unlike a lot of sequels, this one truly delivered.  The graphics for the sequel were vastly improved.  The second series of Commander Keen games had a lot more - one of which was sound card support (the original was PC Speaker only).  In another odd development, Keens 4-6 were also created as CGA versions.  All of the 7 Keen games out there are EGA titles, and Keens 4-6 also had a separate additional CGA version produced.  The game play was exactly the same, sounds were the same, it was just that the graphics were CGA.  At the time, this was a godsend, as a lot of people still only had CGA graphics, and couldn't play Keen.  If you'd like to see a comparison of the EGA vs. CGA graphics of Keen4, click here.  It's an ironic twist that the second Keen series was produced in CGA because it was the lack of CGA that kept Softdisk from using the original Keen's engine in the first place!

Tom Hall remembers some of the sequel's development:

Deciding on the tilted perspective made things look really cool, but the levels look a lot longer to make. I think the overall art design was a lot cooler, though I have a definite place in my heart for the original Keen development. We were in Wisconsin (my home state) for most of this development. We got convinced to make the third game a commercial game, which I think hurt sales of the first two a lot. Getting a trilogy seems great. Getting the second half doesn't seem as cool. They still did decently, though.

I had done most of the art in the original Keen trilogy. With Adrian working on this new set of Keen, his skills honed over many games, the art was looking awesome. We did Keen 4, then Keen 6 (Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter), and then Keen 5. We did Keen 5 in one month. That was an amazing amount of work, but it's probably my favorite Keen, even though it doesn't have a Dopefish!

The Keen series has spawned a lot of fan sites, and the Dopefish character from Keen 4 itself has spawned a tremendous "cult" following.  Joe Siegler has this to say about Dopefish.. "It's just a stupid green fish.  It swims and burps.  That's about it.  I don't know why I like it - perhaps it's just because it burps - who knows?".  For more on Dopefish, head over to the Official Dopefish site at (duh) http://www.dopefish.com - you can learn probably more than you wanted to know about this character.  Tom hall also had this to say about the Dopefish's origins:

The Dopefish, upon reflection, is pretty much based on one of two little faces my brother, sister, and I would draw on everything.  Except stuck on a fish. I guess they were sort of the emoticons of the seventies. And of course, he's inspired by the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That's why they're the SECOND dumbest creature in the universe.

Keen 5, (The Armageddon Machine) is considered by a lot of folks (Tom Hall as well) as the best episode of all the episodes produced for Keen.  It was also the last one produced, despite being not the last in the series numerically.  (Keens 4-6 were produced in the order of 4, 6, 5)  Was it the music?  The level design?  The gameplay?  Who knows what specifically Keen 5 has that holds most Keen player's imaginations, but this reviewer also agrees with Tom that Keen 5 is the best Keen episode (although Keen 3 is probably the most difficult).  Keen 5 also has one of the more maddening things in a Keen game - the way to finish the last level isn't quite obvious, and if you play the level wrong, you can find yourself stuck in there with no way to complete the game.  That frustrated some players, but ultimately lent the game a bit of a puzzle aspect.  Keen 5 also had an alternate ending.  In researching this article, I came across an animated GIF file which shows the alternate ending to the game.  Check it out.

The original Keen series was a trilogy of games.  Keens 1-3 were collectively called "Invasion of the Vorticons".  As Tom talks about above, the sequel was also to be a trilogy of games, but the id guys were convinced to break Keen 6 off and make it into an independent retail item.  To this, the sequel that was distributed through Apogee was only two games.  Episodes 4 & 5 were collectively called "Goodbye Galaxy", and Keen 6 was called "Aliens Ate My Babysitter".  Keen 6 was sold by FormGen in retail, and since it was in retail, FormGen convinced the id guys to put in some off disk copy protection for the game.  The fact that Keen 6 was broken off into it's own game, and the addition of the copy protection kind of made the "vibe" not the same as the original, but Keens 4-6 are awesome games, even if it's not a trilogy.

One last note about Keen 6.  At the moment, there is no legal way to obtain the game - it was a retail game by FormGen that Apogee merely resold the title.  As FormGen doesn't exist anymore, the game has been discontinued, and for now, there is no legal way to obtain Keen 6 (save for the 3 level demo which was created to promote Keen 6).