I couldn’t think of a better place to do this so I’m not sure if this is the appropriate place to ask this question. I’m a big fan of anachronox and wonder what would the possibility be of it maybe coming to xbox live arcade? I don’t know who officially owns the game or even if it could be ported over to that format but I personally think it would be a big success on their platform through the live arcade. Would that even be a possibility?
I wonder if Tom is the one from Milwaukee that played Guitar with a band on Milwaukees South Side, His father Royce Hall also played guitar,
and was a barber
So Tom, I sent you an email. It was from chad at neejean dot org. Could you maybe check on that and see what you think of it. I sort of think that you should get involved with a lot of the community to show id software just what they are missing by not releasing another Keen game!
Hey Tom, I was wondering about Commander Keen’s siblings. It is widely accepted by the community (although if you say otherwise that will be final) that Keen has an older brother and a younger sister. Does he have any other siblings? Also, I would like to know the names of all of his family members (although I have it that the dad’s name is Arthur and the mom’s name is Susan) if you would be so kind.
The names of Arthur and Susan are cited in that oft-repeated blurb from the official Wolfenstein 3D hint manual. Click my name to go to the relevant section of the Apogee FAQ.
I don’t recall any other names, would have to dig through my attic right now… but if the Keen community doesn’t know them, they were not likely named…..
You could always come up with some, although you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Oh, and anything you say will be considered cannon, at least by the community.
Okay, could you at least just make up a name for his older brother and younger sister that we can use until more official names come? This would be a great help, because it is hard to do what we are doing without names.
Hey so Tom, I was just wondering what you would think of the Original Keen Trilogy as well as the Galaxy Trilogy being released on the iPod Touch and iPhone? I noticed that they have developed and released classic versions of Doom and Wolfenstein for the platform, and they are currently releasing Keen through Steam using DOSBox.
You may or may not have heard of CloneKeenPlus (aka Commander Genius) which is an open source interpreter built to run the original keen games via the original data files. I joined that team a little while back and we currently have builds for Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and some portable thing called the Wiz. One of our Team members has also just within the last two days released an unofficial iPhone version that can be used on Jailbroken iPhones. I would also like to port it to Nintendo DS and Wii homebrew, and if possible PSP, and it will at some time be available for the Pandora.
Currently it only runs Keens 1-3 and we are going through a major overhaul of our internal engine, making it have much cleaner code and the such. Now, it adds multiplayer support (very rough, not a high priority to polish it up yet) support for better graphics as well as stretching without becoming blurry (something that happens with DOSBox) and a few other things. We will release a new version sometime soon that makes Keens 1-3 have most if not all of the features that Keens 4-5 have as well as more features new to both. We have already implemented ingame menus in the SVN version, as well as changing the controls to match Keens 4-5 and other things as well. We also hope to implement support for Keen Dreams, although that will be a little difficult because no one understands the compression format used on it. When we do add support for it, we will make sure that all of the discovered bugs within it would be fixed so that it would run as well as the rest of them.
You can look at it at http://clonekeenplus.sourceforge.net/ and if you feel like helping at all we would love to have you contribute. This could be your way of making some more Keen without actually doing it, like by helping us cement out the details of exactly how multiplayer would work. http://www.pckf.com/viewtopic.php?t=950 has the current ideas, and we would love to hear your thoughts on them.
Now, I’m wondering, if id decided they would like to use our engine to release Keen on the iPhone (which I’m not going to get my hopes up on, but I figure that if we have done most of the work and all they have to do is approve it and submit it to apple to be approved maybe they will) then I’m wondering what the price should be. If this happened before we implement Keens 4-6 support then there would obviously be a lite version with just Keen 1, and then when we would update it with Keen 4 once we got support within our interpreter.
But then, I think that the full version would cost about $3 and have the first three games (based on $5 for the first 5 on Steam) and then there would be an in app download of Galaxy available for $2 (and if the rights were ever received to sell Keen 6 and Keen Dreams, they would each be available for $1) which would allow people to not have to pay the full $5 to get all of them at once (and allow for the aforementioned way of getting 6 and Dreams should that become possible) and would help to increase the popularity of Keen once again.
I just wanted to know your opinion on the matter, and I am going to email id somehow to tell them about this.
Are you saying they would have released the source code of Keen like they did of Doom and Quake and such, or just that the only reason they haven’t ported it already is that they lost the source code?
December 13, 2008 at 6:35 pm
I couldn’t think of a better place to do this so I’m not sure if this is the appropriate place to ask this question. I’m a big fan of anachronox and wonder what would the possibility be of it maybe coming to xbox live arcade? I don’t know who officially owns the game or even if it could be ported over to that format but I personally think it would be a big success on their platform through the live arcade. Would that even be a possibility?
February 18, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I wonder if Tom is the one from Milwaukee that played Guitar with a band on Milwaukees South Side, His father Royce Hall also played guitar,
and was a barber
February 18, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Nope, sorry — my dad was a professional engineer.
I’m from the Milwaukee area, never played in a band. My brother and sister got all the music talent from my folks, heh.
February 18, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Was Toms Fathers name Royce Hall
February 18, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Nope. This IS Tom, btw.
April 21, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Ну ты Том молодчик здравый, знаю тебя по игре Deus Ex
July 8, 2009 at 7:19 pm
So Tom, I sent you an email. It was from chad at neejean dot org. Could you maybe check on that and see what you think of it. I sort of think that you should get involved with a lot of the community to show id software just what they are missing by not releasing another Keen game!
July 8, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Okay, will check, I get SO much spam……
Well, who knows what getting bought out will mean at id?
July 10, 2009 at 2:37 am
Hey Tom, I was wondering about Commander Keen’s siblings. It is widely accepted by the community (although if you say otherwise that will be final) that Keen has an older brother and a younger sister. Does he have any other siblings? Also, I would like to know the names of all of his family members (although I have it that the dad’s name is Arthur and the mom’s name is Susan) if you would be so kind.
July 11, 2009 at 12:59 am
The names of Arthur and Susan are cited in that oft-repeated blurb from the official Wolfenstein 3D hint manual. Click my name to go to the relevant section of the Apogee FAQ.
July 15, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Am I not going to get a response to this question? If not then please tell me, and I won’t worry about it.
July 15, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I don’t recall any other names, would have to dig through my attic right now… but if the Keen community doesn’t know them, they were not likely named…..
July 16, 2009 at 1:01 am
You could always come up with some, although you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Oh, and anything you say will be considered cannon, at least by the community.
July 23, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Okay, could you at least just make up a name for his older brother and younger sister that we can use until more official names come? This would be a great help, because it is hard to do what we are doing without names.
November 17, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Hey so Tom, I was just wondering what you would think of the Original Keen Trilogy as well as the Galaxy Trilogy being released on the iPod Touch and iPhone? I noticed that they have developed and released classic versions of Doom and Wolfenstein for the platform, and they are currently releasing Keen through Steam using DOSBox.
You may or may not have heard of CloneKeenPlus (aka Commander Genius) which is an open source interpreter built to run the original keen games via the original data files. I joined that team a little while back and we currently have builds for Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, and some portable thing called the Wiz. One of our Team members has also just within the last two days released an unofficial iPhone version that can be used on Jailbroken iPhones. I would also like to port it to Nintendo DS and Wii homebrew, and if possible PSP, and it will at some time be available for the Pandora.
Currently it only runs Keens 1-3 and we are going through a major overhaul of our internal engine, making it have much cleaner code and the such. Now, it adds multiplayer support (very rough, not a high priority to polish it up yet) support for better graphics as well as stretching without becoming blurry (something that happens with DOSBox) and a few other things. We will release a new version sometime soon that makes Keens 1-3 have most if not all of the features that Keens 4-5 have as well as more features new to both. We have already implemented ingame menus in the SVN version, as well as changing the controls to match Keens 4-5 and other things as well. We also hope to implement support for Keen Dreams, although that will be a little difficult because no one understands the compression format used on it. When we do add support for it, we will make sure that all of the discovered bugs within it would be fixed so that it would run as well as the rest of them.
You can look at it at http://clonekeenplus.sourceforge.net/ and if you feel like helping at all we would love to have you contribute. This could be your way of making some more Keen without actually doing it, like by helping us cement out the details of exactly how multiplayer would work. http://www.pckf.com/viewtopic.php?t=950 has the current ideas, and we would love to hear your thoughts on them.
Now, I’m wondering, if id decided they would like to use our engine to release Keen on the iPhone (which I’m not going to get my hopes up on, but I figure that if we have done most of the work and all they have to do is approve it and submit it to apple to be approved maybe they will) then I’m wondering what the price should be. If this happened before we implement Keens 4-6 support then there would obviously be a lite version with just Keen 1, and then when we would update it with Keen 4 once we got support within our interpreter.
But then, I think that the full version would cost about $3 and have the first three games (based on $5 for the first 5 on Steam) and then there would be an in app download of Galaxy available for $2 (and if the rights were ever received to sell Keen 6 and Keen Dreams, they would each be available for $1) which would allow people to not have to pay the full $5 to get all of them at once (and allow for the aforementioned way of getting 6 and Dreams should that become possible) and would help to increase the popularity of Keen once again.
I just wanted to know your opinion on the matter, and I am going to email id somehow to tell them about this.
November 17, 2009 at 11:33 pm
The only reason they haven’t been released is they lost the source code.
No idea on price.
But it would be cool if new folks could play it….
November 17, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Are you saying they would have released the source code of Keen like they did of Doom and Quake and such, or just that the only reason they haven’t ported it already is that they lost the source code?
November 18, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Yes, they would have released the source code if it was still around. Keen porting isn’t a focus of the company anymore.
Have to ask them if they have bandwidth to spare for it.