And one more thing—this release took a LONG time. Like way longer than it should have. Let’s face it—this release took three years. I’d like to think that I’ve matured somewhat in that timespan. (I was 14 when I made releases one, two, and three, 15 when I made release four, and now 18 when I make release five.) For a year and a half of those three years, I abandoned the Keen community, and keened minimally. This past year, I’ve experienced a sort of “Keen rebirth” writing two IMHO nice Keen utilities, and one hack job utility (Ck456Tli, Mindbelt, and Instant Carma!). I’ve also gotten into and am now attending Dartmouth College, which I am very happy about. I’ve gotten drunk enough to black out once since the beginning of the school year. It’s almost Thanksgiving, when I’ll get to go home and see my parents and my highschool friends. Life is good. I’m content. Keep on keening.
Keen 5½ (or Keen 5.5, or CK55, or CK5.5, or CK5½, or the most fucled up [note] levels ever made, or whatever you want to call it) has everything you [n]ever wanted from a level pack! Excitement! Intrigue! Pain-in-the-ass-ness!
To install it, just unzip it into its own folder, and copy KEEN5E.EXE from Keen 5 version 1.4 (not version 1.4 by Goodtimes Software) into that directory. I can’t include KEEN5E.EXE in the .zip archive for copyright reasons—ie, it’d be illegal to do that and id Software is sure they still have millions of dollars still to be made selling Commander Keen. Now, to run the level pack, run CK55.BAT, not KEEN5E.EXE or CK5PATCH.EXE. Since of course you use DOS and not Windows, that’d be:
C:\WHEREVER\YOU\UNZIPPED\IT\TO\USING\PKUNZIP\OF\COURSE>ck55
(notice that all of those directory names have at most eight characters, all valid DOS filenames—none of this “Some Long Filename” -> SOMELO~1 crap) You will be presented with a fancy (?) splash screen. Press any key to load the level pack, as it says. See the next section for more specific information.
| This is the very first level. It has some switches that change where doors go, so don’t forget to go back through doors you’ve already gone through. | |||
| Don’t ask me where the name came from. It just popped into my head one day. Anyway, this was the first real Keen 5 level I had ever made. It contains the absolute #1 sneakiest secret passage idea ever! Well, maybe not the sneakiest, but it’s still pretty damn cool. I’m still waiting for people to say they found it. Maybe that means nobody has found it yet. | |||
| Yes, that door right near the beginning really is an exit. Be cool and do the level, or be cheap and use that exit. In future releases there may be certain, shall we say, repercussions for taking that exit. | |||
| NEW! Yes, that door right near the beginning really is the exit. Now, how are you going to get there? Hint: It's not brute force. If only you could align yourself somehow… | |||
| Part of it has the Korath III background tiles…that’s why it’s called The Atrium. Anyway, some nice things in it…oh, I almost forgot! This level contains the secret entrance to the secret level, which is not made yet. You do get transported over to a little re-done place at the bottom of the world map. | |||
| Notice the sneakiness with ONE switch toggling TWO bridges—sneaky sneakiness, huh? Anyway, this level is not on “two screens,” nor is there any one place that you can say divides the level into two parts, unlike the other levels. (why am I bothering talking about this?) | |||
| Lots of shelleys in this, as you could have probably guessed…For those of you farther along in the level—Yes, you can get that key at the end of the little doorway with the slicestar without getting killed. And no, it’s not by killing the slicestar. It’s not anything sneaky, you just have to time it right. | |||
| NEW! As the name suggests there are no enemies in this level. None. Just lots of twirly fire things, and obnoxious puzzle-like situations. (Good luck.) “Ghost Town is insane, it’s so complex.” —KeenRush, in betatesting evaluation. | |||
| Between old Gravitational Damping Hub and Quantum Explosion Dynamo. This level is very cool. It makes a little use of invisible block 1020. Don’t worry, it doesn’t use that block enough to annoy you—not too much, anyway. |
I’m not really sure yet what I’m going to do in release six. But here are the names of the placeholder levels—of course, some of these will probably change by the time there are filled in:
Thank you to the creators of the “Keen Asylum” Keen 5 level pack for inspiration and some great level ideas. These are the same guys who did the walkthrough for doing Keen 6 without getting any points. (No, they didn’t pay me to say this…well not much anyway.)
Also, thank you to the makers of DOSBox, which allowed my to run TED5 on my Windows XP computer, and now on my Windows Vista laptop. This release wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for DOSBox. If you have Windows XP/Vista and want to use TED5, or just are interested in DOSBox for any reason, visit their site.
Other programs used in making the level pack:
BIG thanks to KeenRush for making some new background tiles, and for betatesting this release!
There are three version of Keen 5 floating around out there: version 1.0, version 1.4, and version 1.4 by Goodtimes Software. This level pack requires version 1.4 not by Goodtimes Software. You can download all version of Keen 1, 4, and Dreams (they’re shareware) and patches from any version to any version for the other episodes from Xtraverse’s Beyond the Pogo website. Click on Downloads on the sidebar on the left, then click on Official Keen Games.
This brings you to a page with all of the downloads and patches. You want “Keen 5 any version to version 1.4”. Download that, and unzip it into your regular Keen 5 directory. Run the .BAT file (not the .EXE file), and follow the onscreen instructions. Once you have successfully patched to the correct version on Keen 5, then you can copy KEEN5E.EXE to you Keen 5½ directory.
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------|-- | (ck)
---| | O |------------------
| -----|--- | Association of
| | |-- Keenware
---| O | Professionals
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--------- KEENER
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’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish though he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy. ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. |
IKM MOD Version 3.14
(C)Copyright International Keening Machines Corp 1989-1992.
(C)Copyright Mortosoft Corp 1992-2007.
C:\>cd keen\ck55
C:\KEEN\CK55>ted5
-- The CK Guy
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