Commander Keen

Commander Keen is the main character in a series of computer games developed by id Software in the early 1990s, which were successful at replicating the side-scrolling action of the NES Super Mario Bros. games in DOS. The cartoon-style platformers are notable for their pioneering use of EGA graphics and shareware distribution, and because they were the first games by id Software, who went on to develop blockbusters like Doom and Quake. The games were also exciting to the PC gaming community of the time because of John Carmack's revolutionary smooth-scrolling graphics engine. Although developed by id, most of the Commander Keen games were published by Apogee Software, an already established PC shareware game publisher.

Fan-made Keen games

A number of fan-made Commander Keen games of varying quality have been created, mostly using Klik & Play, Click & Create, and similar game construction software. The Public Commander Keen Forum has a forum devoted to the announcement and discussion of these unofficial Keen games.

Related Topics:
Klik & Play - Click & Create

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In the years since the release in early 2002 of utilities to modify the levels and graphics in the original Keen series, more than fifty mods have been made. Most of these have Commander Keen as the protagonist, but a few merely use the Commander Keen engine to develop an entirely new game.

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While most of the fangames are of poor quality, having problems dealing with clipping interface and playability, several of the mods are of similar or higher quality to the original games. The tools and utilities used to modify the games, as well as a body of accumulated knowledge of the Keen code, are constantly being updated and improved.

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Much of this work has been done by Andy Durdin, who has written utilities for the editing of Keen graphics and levels. He has also done much in determining the inner-workings of the Keen engine, allowing many mods to be even more different than the Commander Keen episode they were created from.

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