How Commander Keen Changed the Face of DOS Gaming Forever

Part 2 here: • Commander Keen: The Go...
Commander Keen is a classic game from the shareware era of DOS games, but it was also the first DOS game to feature seamless smooth scrolling, which was actually a big challenge at the time.
From Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement through to Doom Eternal, Commander Keen is where id Software first started out.
In this video I look into what lead to the smooth-scrolling breakthrough and then take a look at the original Invasion of the Vorticons trilogy of Commander Keen games, including episode 1: Marooned on Mars, episode 2: The Earth Explodes and episode 3: Keen Must Die!
I also dust off some old forgotten fan games and talk about the mobile game that was cancelled.
In part 2 of this mini-series I'll be moving on to look at the next era of Keen games, with a new 2.5d style of gameplay. I'll talk about the "lost episode", Keen Dreams, then the Goodbye, Galaxy series; episode 4: Secret of the Oracle and episode 5: The Armageddon Machine.
Music:
dEd by The Andy Jamieson Project
Drum Beats by Mark Mauer
0:00 Intro
0:25 Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement
3:28 Marooned on Mars
11:05 Weird old Keen fan games
15:26 Mobile Game
16:40 The Earth Explodes
24:25 Keen Must Die!
40:23 Outro

[@ClassicEd]

I'm currently reading John Romero's book "Doom Guy" and it has quite a lot of space dedicated to Commander Keen development. Would definitely recommend it for anyone interested in the game. The audiobook is read by Romero himself.

[@Radiobush]

This was the best 40 mins of my life

[@roccobierman4985]

Learning that Dangerous Dave had a hand in creating ID Software which led to Keen and Doom is amazing.

[@laurisaarinen1126]

Thanks for the in-depth video! Commander Keen was the first video game i ever played as a kid in the 90s at our cousin's house when we didn't yet have a pc at home. Still great games, especially the later episodes 4-6. Right now playing Secret of the Oracle through, thank god for DOSbox!

[@AJPMUSIC_OFFICIAL]

What an excellent video. Can't wait for part 2!

[@steingar7820]

This is honestly fantastic. A dedicated video to a niche subject that doesn't have a lot of info online, so you went ahead and did it yourself. Very much the spirit of KZbin as it should be, my hats off to you sir.

[@Varil92]

That's right, I'm a legend.

[@laurisaarinen1126]

Ha, nice try "Varil" using image of Billy

[@Warutteri]

As someone who used to play these games a lot as a child (especially the first three episodes) watching the gameplay footage where the player is not collecting _every possible item_ is borderline physically painful 😂😅 I do have all the Keen games on my PC running through a dosbox BTW, I even have setup quick launch shortcut icons for all of the games 😊

[@Vilde321]

Been watching so many documentary videos about how revolutionary Wolfenstein 3D and Doom were (which they really were), so it's a nice change to see some Keen stuff. Keen is the best.

[@supersoundfrom70s]

hehe, these wolf-guys just stirred up a long forgotten childhood fear..

[@AdrienDittrick]

That was great! I learned some things :)

[@KageMorghulis]

Finally! A long retrospective on one of the games that created PC Gaming.

[@basicallysnake]

Good to see a recent video about this Edit: fun tidbit, the sequence at 5:03 is from an early prototype of keen 1 found on a 20 year old floppy disc

[@ClassicEd]

Good spot 😉 I recorded that video myself. Couldn't find a live link to the prototype version anywhere so I've uploaded it to the internet archive

[@nemtudom5074]

@@ClassicEd I cant find it, could you link it please?

[@ClassicEd]

@@nemtudom5074 here you go archive.org/details/keenbeta_restored

[@nemtudom5074]

@@ClassicEd Ah, thank you!

[@JohnSmith-yk2tn]

Great video! I particularly liked your narration

[@HarrisonPeloso]

came right from Cody watkins discord server

[@pheugo3664]

Great video

[@michaellong8812]

Awesome video, thanks for sharing.

[@ClassicEd]

Thanks for watching!

[@jasontheredfox]

Very nice video

[@andersdenkend]

I loved Commander Keen back then. It was the closest to a console style platformer one could get at that time. It's a shame that it kind of has been forgotten.

[@redmage777]

Go to the level with the 3 Ray Guns grab them and die. Go to the level with the 2nd Pogo Stick, Grab all the teddy bears guarded by the green monsters, then die again. Wash, Rinse, Repeat...

[@jessicaregina1956]

Yes, and congratulations, u now have hundreds of charges and lives, and what are u going to do with them? They dont have "new game plus" here😂

[@HazmanFTW]

I never played these ones as a kid, when they all got released on Steam I bought them and couldn't get past how bad they are compared to Goodbye Galaxy. Good to see I didn't really miss much

[@apeironbohemicus4283]

I can remember playing Keen3 in the 90's and I climbed up the cave of Oblivion right for the first time... I just wanted to know what was up there - and later, I never tried to beat the level inside the mountain, because it was terrible. Yeah, I just used cheats in order to explore it.

[@ClassicEd]

Nice. Tbf I probably would do the same, it kind of looks like a secret area when you start the level. I only had the freeware games, could just about beat Keen 1 but Keen 4 was too hard. Keen 3 would have probably made me cry from frustration. I tried to get through Caves of Oblivion without cheats for the video, it's absolutely horrible. Wouldn't recommend it.

[@funnyrockangry]

i like the video so far, but as a note of criticism: dont use fading to black and fading back into the clip as transitions, rather, make hard cuts (instantly switching from one clip to the next), since its much nicer on the eyes

[@Roobar_Plays]

I actually want to say a few things. In my keen opinion, I think Keen 2 is harder than Keen 3. Yes, some levels in Keen 3 are really hard, but at least they're optional. As you mentioned, you could beat the game within minutes. While from today's point of view, the levels (design) in Keen 3 are terrible, I still love it and I still find it charming. Keen 2 levels, on the other hand, feel more bland/boring. As for the cave of oblivion in Keen 3, when I played it as a kid for the first time, I didn't managed to make it to the exit, but the next thing I did was to jump and took the upper route. I didn't knew about SGA at that time as well. So it wasn't that confusing. More confusing to me was actually figuring out the teleports. Another interesting thing you point was about the penis/fucl. Since you mention it, as a kid I didn't knew about these, but as an adult I find it amusing how these things went into a kid's game. I guess they were well hidden or pretty harmless for kids. You could mention the swastika and the mooning in your next vid. One more interesting thing is that Keen 3 through adults eyes can actually look really dark, if you think about the (ending) story. Or the fact that you can kill those little flying things in the school. I also want to mention that despite the weird physics of the game, players can get really good at it. If you have played it only 1 or 2 times, I can understand your frustration with Keen 3. As a kid, I felt the same way, ignoring the hardest levels. But since then I've played many Keen mods and I got used to the gameplay mechanics. You can play Keen very precise, even pixel perfect, if you gain enough experience. It's still hard, yes, but wait until you try some of the fan made mods! Keen 3 will look like a walk in the park. But I guess mastering the game is a love/hate relationship. You either challenge yourself to get good or move on to other things. Anyway, I'm also looking forward to your next Keen video. My advise is to give the Goodbye Galaxy trilogy (plus KD) a fair chance because despite these being superior, they still are pretty hard and require a lot of skills and learning. And don't forget to try some of the Galaxy mods.

[@ClassicEd]

Interesting to hear first hand experiences about the Caves of Oblivion. I'm pretty sure I already knew about the alternative path before trying, but also I think the first thing I would've done would be to go over the top to explore what I thought was a secret area. I agree that Keen 2 is quite bland, all the levels are pretty much the same. It's pretty tricky at times but it can't compare to the onslaught of enemies in Keen 3 for me. I even found the mangling machine really difficult, although suppose that one make more sense being the final boss of the series. And yeah the ending is kind of dark, Keen just wiped out half of an innocent alien race. King Vorticon even makes a joke about it! I've been browsing the wiki, forums and mods quite a lot while writing for the videos, definitely intending on checking out the "Keen 3: levels you can actually beat" level pack 😆 Had a go at the Goodbye, Galaxy version of Marooned on Mars too which is very cool. I've already played through Keen Dreams, 4, 5 and 6 for gameplay video now. I really liked all of them and think they actually hold up really well today. Funny as a kid I always preferred Marooned on Mars to Secret of the Oracle because I could only beat the first game, Secret of the Oracle was too hard for me. I think I eventually did most of it but I was scared of the Berkoloid and the Well of Wishes for some reason

[@blakeytv]

I too found Keen 2 to be both difficult and boring compared to 1 and 3, which is probably the reason I never technically beat it unlike the others. Love me some id and Apogee games, I used to play Keen and Mystic Towers all the time as a kid in the 90s. plus Dark Forces and Lemmings/Oh No More Lemmings,.

[@rbpgamemaster]

Deep

[@stephenvanbellinghen933]

Someone showed the mario game on youtube. It makes so much more sense as mario

[@nemtudom5074]

39:37 Isnt the whole point of the keen games is that Mortimer is pissed that keen has an IQ one point higher, which is why he goes on a rampage mind controlling the vorticons, and all that? That would make his IQ 313, or he's the one with 314 and keen has 315

[@rbpgamemaster]

No, his whole point was gloating that he was 1 point higher than keen, and destroying everything because everyone else was "too stupid" for him.

[@GAG091186]

I play the Commander Keen games through the Commander Genius source port, which also adds support for user made tilesets (more than 16 colors). I'm the author of the custom vga 256 color Keen 4, 5 & 6 tilesets in the high quality pack 2.7 found on the Commander Genius website, which is compatible with the Commander Genius source port. Personally Keen 3 is my least favorite Keen MS-DOS game by far, and I even enjoy Keen Dreams. Keen 3 is the only Keen game I've never completed, the game itself seems fairly rushed compared to the two prior games in my opinion.

[@LouigiVerona]

I think Vorticons require 4 shots, not 3. You can even see it on the video several times

[@ClassicEd]

Yeah I checked Shikadi wiki and you're right

[@dalielsalvador6548]

Commander Keen was freeware? I paid for the floppy disk it was on in a top1toys store.

[@ClassicEd]

It was shareware. Episode 1 was free and episodes 2 and 3 were the paid episodes.

[@mrmadmight266]

i want to like these games, but the cheap deaths and one hit kills turn me off

[@svartmetall48]

The first Keen chapter was amazing. Second was okay. Third was just dire on so many levels. A grave disappointment.

[@RobinsVoyage]

Haaach?!!!

[@nemtudom5074]

16:40 Good riddance.

[@stephenvanbellinghen933]

Worst keen fan game ever looks like this one I played callled Keen 2000. But more broken

[@vksasdgaming9472]

If I remember right smooth scrolling was achieved by only changing those pixels that would actually change with screen scrolling instead of redrawing whole screen. Streaming video nowadays uses similar method to reduce needed bandwidth. I'm no expert so my expression may be flawed.