Commander Keen

Commander Keen is an episodic video game developed by id Software in the early 1990s. The series focuses on the adventures of Billy Blaze, an 8-year-old boy who travels through space and assumes the secret identity of "Commander Keen". The series was successful at replicating the side-scrolling action of the Nintendo Entertainment System Super Mario Bros. games in DOS. The cartoon-style platform games are notable for their pioneering use of EGA graphics and shareware distribution, and they were some of the first games by id Software (who went on to later develop Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake). The games were also exciting to the PC gaming community of the time because of John D. Carmack's smooth-scrolling graphics game engine, which first allowed smooth side scrollers on PC by only redrawing the elements of the screen that actually changed frame to frame. Although developed by id, most of the Commander Keen games were published by Apogee Software, an already established DOS shareware game publisher. Tom Hall is Commander Keen's designer and the creator of its universe. Commander Keen Complete Pack, a collection of the official Commander Keen games (excluding Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter! and Keen Dreams) was made available on Steam on August 3, 2007.Keen Dreams was ported and released for Android enabled devices on June 10, 2013 on Google Play. On 23rd October in 2014, 3D Realms released 3D Realms Anthology, which included Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy and Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons in the collection.

Commander Keen (2001 video game)

Commander Keen is a 2001 video game in id Software's Commander Keen series. It was developed by David A. Palmer Productions and published by Activision for the Game Boy Color.

Development

David A. Palmer Productions initially approached Activision (id Software's publisher at the time) about developing a Game Boy Color (GBC) port of Doom, as Palmer had long been a fan of id's first person shooters. Palmer's company had specialized in bringing licensed properties to the GBC, such as Earthworm Jim, Pitfall, Men in Black: The Series and Gex.

Gameplay

In Commander Keen on the Game Boy Color, gameplay is somewhat different from the rest of the series. The levels are built in a more linear fashion than earlier games. All enemies need to be both shot and jumped on with a pogo stick on to be killed. The familiar enemies' behavior does not correspond with the earlier games, and perhaps partly due to the platform's limitation, some enemies do not resemble their original versions much. Keen uses a Neural Ray Blaster with unlimited ammo, although the game only allows for one bullet on the screen. To achieve points, Keen collects candy as well as other items somewhat related to the level they are in.