Episode 01 - Commander Keen

Released at the turn of the decade in 1990, Commander Keen was the culmination of a massive technical breakthrough for PC gaming. After John Carmack figured out how to replicate smooth console-style side-scrolling on a PC (a feat previously thought impossible), the team that would become id Software wanted to take a spin at the platforming formula. Enter Billy Blaze, an eight-year-old child genius who builds a rocket ship in his backyard, featuring many of the cornerstones of 90s platformer design, but with a distinctly PC flavor.

The game featured sprawling, non-linear levels, a secret alien language to decipher, an unpredictable pogo stick mechanic, and a unique shareware distribution model. No longer tied down to the rigid progression of traditional arcade games, Commander Keen gave players an open world map to explore at their own pace. And this extended to the tone as well, which embraced a quirky, saturday-morning-cartoon sci-fi aesthetic.

But for all its technical wizardry, does the gameplay hold up under modern scrutiny? Or is it just an awkward stepping stone, playing in the shadow of the console giants of its era and id Software's own blood-soaked future?

If you'd like to show your support for the show, please consider leaving us a review wherever you listen.

Find the hosts on Twitch:
Dave
Finny

Music:
"Your Name, Please" from EarthBound. Composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. © Nintendo

"Tornado Man" from Mega Man 9. Composed by Manami Matsumae and the Inti Creates sound team. © Capcom

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Before id software changed shooters forever, they had to solve a different problem. How do you make a fast, expressive platformer on hardware that wasn't suited to handle platformers at all? Can eight-year-old boy genius, Commander Keen, recover the missing parts of his spaceship, including critical components like mom's vacuum and dad's everclear, and return home before the babysitter wakes up. Today, we'll explore these questions and many more on Podcast the Video Game.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

See you you nailed it already. And you doubted yourself? Come on. So what are we even doing here?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

You wanna Yeah, good question. So welcome to the inaugural episode of Podcast The Video Game. I'm Perfect Finn, and I'm joined by my co-host junkyard Dave. We are retro gaming enthusiasts, speedrunners, and longtime students of game design who have essentially formed our own video game book club. So once a month, Dave and I agree on a game to play through, then we reconvene to dissect its design and discuss our experiences. So while we may occasionally retell video game history or indulge in some pure nostalgia, we're more interested in understanding why certain games still work decades later. You know, what technical limitations shape their design? What lessons can modern games still learn from them? And what, if anything, have we lost along the way? So for our first game, Dave and I are traveling back to 1990 and taking a look at Commander Keen, a game that sits at the intersection of technical innovation, PC gaming identity, and some surprisingly modern design ideas.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

I think you basically summed it up perfectly. Like if I tried to put it in my own words, I like the idea of like video game book club. I really like the idea of picking specifically, not necessarily like a random game, but like a game that we are either weak to experience in the sense that we don't have a whole lot of nostalgia for it, or we didn't play it, or in some cases, like one party didn't play it, and then expose, you know, the other person to that experience, or to talk about it in general. Because like I honestly think like with Commander Keen, it was really cool because at least for Commander Keene and like why we ended up picking up Commander Keen for my my side anyway, is uh my dad used to have like a work PC, and on the work PC he had three PC games he had Prince of Persia, Commander Keen, and Doom. And I would sometimes see him very rarely playing these computer games back, you know, like during the NES era. And to me, it was always like this mystical thing because like I was familiar with the NES controller, familiar with playing on the NES, like familiar with NES games, but like I didn't know anything about like PC gaming or like DOS gaming or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, me me either. I didn't really grow up with a PC, I didn't really have I mean we had a PC, but it was mostly like you know, a business machine, a work.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

Yeah, same year with my dad too. Like it was 100% like it was his work PC. And I have very, very like I could probably count them on like one hand amounted memories where I played like Commander Keem or Doom or whatever. Sure. And uh I still remember watching him uh play through Prince of Persia and the way that the prince dies on the spikes like lives so rent-free in my head because it terrified me as a kid.

unknown 3:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

I saw that the I saw the prince die, I was like, ah, ah uh yeah, it's kind of like weird to me because like I really feel that was kind of an interesting choice because I I threw out Commander Keen and you went with it. But to me, like this is like the epitome of a game where I don't have nostalgia for it. I don't have like a lot of knowledge behind it, I don't have experience with it. It's like the the very back of my brain, something I kind of remember seeing as a kid. It's not like there was like Commander Keen cartoons, at least I'm not aware of anyway, or you know, like some kind of like Commander Keen arcade that I saw if I went to the arcades. Like it's just like this very distant memory that it's like I just kind of remember it a little bit, and I was like, you know what, why not try that? You know, I've always thought, oh, I should go back one day and try it. And I was like, you know what? Fine. Like this month is that day. Like we're gonna do it. So we did it, and now I have a lot of regrets.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

Well, we can we can get to the regrets in a little bit, but to give people some context, Commander Keen is a game that was developed by id Software, uh, the same people who would later go on to make Doom. Uh it was released in 1990, published by Apogee Software, and it was released on PC. Commander Keen actually began development as a proof of concept for a Mario PC port, uh, where id Software wanted to attempt to become Nintendo's PC development partner. And I actually learned that through reading uh a book a couple of years back, a biography about id Software called Masters of Doom. If you haven't read it, I'd recommend it. I think it's something that you'd enjoy. It covers their whole history from the initial inception all the way to kind of where they disbanded and went their separate ways. But it offers a lot of neat insight, what was going on behind the scenes and some of the development, um, which is part of the reason why when you suggested Commander Keen, I was like, oh yeah, that'd be awesome. I want to learn more about the game that I read so much about when I read that book.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

That's very cool. I didn't know that there was a crossover and like I knew of course Commander Keen indirectly led to Doom, but yeah, I had no idea that there was like a particular crossover at that book for you. So that's that's actually kind of cool to know.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Yeah, yeah. Um, something else that I learned from reading the book was that they recreated the first level of Mario 3 as a prototype, which they actually referred to as dangerous Dave in copyright infringement. I thought that was kind of funny.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

It does make me wonder. Like, I know we'll get into that a little bit later, but the blocks in particular for Commander Keen, they look like they're straight up out of like Mario 3.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, and I think that's probably a holdover from like the initial prototyping.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

I wouldn't be surprised, no. Like I'd be shocked if that was wasn't the case. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

But I from from what I read, Nintendo was impressed, like from a like a technical standpoint, but ultimately the deal fell through because you know they wanted Mario to remain a Nintendo or a console exclusive.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

Well, kind of on the same topic, because I know Commander Keen was like the proof of concept for a platforming game being brought to like the DOS PC market. Right. Was there any attempt before at like platforming on DOS and it just sucked? Or was Commander Keen like the literal first, okay, like this is it? We we did it. We were we were the guys that put you know like DOS platforming on the map?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

That's a good question. I'm not sure to be honest with you. My suspicion is that there were attempts, but they weren't good. And I think that's primarily due to that lack of smooth scrolling. I think we talked about about this a little bit before, but at the time, PCs didn't have dedicated graphics cards really, or like what was in a Nintendo at the time, a picture processing unit, a PPU. So they didn't have dedicated graphics adapters that were like engineered to speak things like tile sets and sprite maps and things of that nature. So smooth scrolling wasn't really possible, which I think was the one of the contributing factors for a lot of PC games being slower, more menu driven, you know, point and click, text-based adventures, things like that. And so I think you know, John Carmack at idsoftware, he invented this new technology called adaptive tile refresh, which mitigated the technical limitation of not having uh a dedicated graphics card by only refreshing the pixels that have changed. So rather than like as the screen scrolls, constantly refreshing everything on the screen and redrawing it, they would only update anything that had changed as the screen scrolled, uh, which allowed PCs to actually kind of like emulate that same smooth screen scrolling that console titles at the time had.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

That's really cool. I actually didn't know that, but that they basically took like the NES then and put it in a PC form. Because I know that the NES was that's basically how it like refreshed, you know, like the picture on an NES.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

I was gonna ask you about your personal history with the game, but I think we talked about that a little bit already. I didn't have any prior experience with the game. I've not played the game. Like I said, I didn't really have a PC uh growing up outside of you know, like my mom's PC that she used for word processing processing, so I don't really have any uh nostalgia or any like preconceptions. But to be honest with you, my expectations weren't high coming into this.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Um that I set such an incredibly low bar.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Well, like I tried to keep an open mind, but like I just my expectations were low, to be honest with you. And I don't want to spoil too much, but I will say that I was like pretty pleasantly surprised.

SPEAKER_03 8:55

I equally like I I didn't have nostalgia for it as I said, right? So to me, like this was an incredibly sort of out there choice where like I threw a dart and it just happened to hit the dartboard, and I was surprised after. I was like, oh wow. Um but yeah, no, I think walking away from a tier until we get into it, I was also pretty pleasantly surprised.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Cool. So you want to start with a deep dive on Commander Keen when we talk about things like the presentation, the design and gameplay, and like what's aged well versus what hasn't aged well. You can start off with the presentation. So, Commander Keen, you play as eight-year-old Billy Blaze. He's like a boy genius, you know, he lives with his parents, obviously, but he's built a spaceship in his backyard out of spare parts and uh kind of moonlights as a a space explorer who's gonna save the world from the evil Vorticon alien scum, which I think are like dog aliens, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

I'm not I'm not entirely sure.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

I don't it's like a werewolf something.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Like I don't know exactly what it is, but yeah, they had like a dog-shaped spaceship, which I thought was rad as hell, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Yeah, no, I I liked it. I actually think because I'm putting this in a different context, right? When I remember seeing Commander Keen specifically as a kid, the appeal to me and the way that I remember it so many years later, and not knowing anything, I didn't know anything about the story specifically as a kid because like I only got to play it for like a very small amount of time. But years later, hearing you kind of go over like the lore and the story, what appealed to me as a kid is the fact that it kind of looked like a Saturday morning cartoon. Imagine on my dad's PC, for example, like Prince of Persia and Doom, but then Commander Keene. It's a very distinct art style, it's very cartoony. I think it's very appealing to specifically being a kid, and you're just like, oh man, it's like a Saturday morning cartoon or something. And then if you have this story that you kind of just talked about, where he has to run around, he has to collect, you know, like bootleg spaceship parts to get back, and the spaceship parts like mom's vacuum and stuff like that. This is deeply appealing to a kid. Oh, and I think it strikes your imagination too, right? Because maybe after you play Commander Keen, you run into your mom's cleaning closet or something like that. You rip out the vacuum, you're like, yeah, and you're your mom's like, what are you doing? But it's like that kind of level of like you miss that stuff. I think honestly, companies now, developers now, are extremely afraid to write goofy kind of off-the-cuff storylines like that or plots like that. Everything needs to be kind of like grounded or based or emotionally driven, or you're appealing to ethos or something like that. This is none of that. This is just okay, we're goofy, we set aside everything. And they tried to write it. I think, you know, like what happens if you were five or whatever, seven playing this. Would you like it? And I think they really did a good job, actually. I think presentation-wise, specifically from like how it looked in the story. I really did like it. Uh but more so I think that's like you know, examining it, you know, almost like 35 years later.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

But no, I I agree. I think uh I think things like that age better, if that makes sense. Things that are goofy or quirky or irreverent, like don't take themselves too seriously. I think if it's really serious, especially like if things like the graphics and the sound and you know the the writing can't really match that level of tone, I feel like it's easy for things to age really poorly, right? Now you might go back and you might replay something like the original Prince of Persia, and it might not really hit the same way because it looks so dated. So the fact that it's taking itself so seriously, it's a little more difficult to like buy into, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

I I think it does because like I think as we get older and naturally kind of age to me anyway, there's always kind of a penchant for re-examining, I think, like what I was previously nostalgic for. And going back in time and checking out something like Commander Keen, especially I think I I wouldn't say it like fills a void because it's not the right word for it, but I think it fills two different perspectives because it fills a perspective of what I didn't experience as a kid, but also now a perspective of what I can appreciate as an adult so many years later. And I think going back and checking out Commander Keen, specifically not really playing it as a kid, gives me a different perspective of like, oh, I would have really enjoyed this as a kid, I think. You know, had I unlimited access or something to Commander Keen, I would have loved that. Like I would have genuinely liked it. And you know, maybe I would have had like a different perspective. But I think it's almost like a weird reversal, right? Because like if you overplayed Commander Keen to death and then you came back years later as an adult and you tried it, you'd be like, man, this is like weird shit or something. Maybe it doesn't hold up. But now as an old person, you know, you go back to Commander Key and you're like, oh man, this is really cute. I missed out on a lot. But I think you just have a different way of analyzing that so many years later.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess you want to kind of pivot and we'll talk about the the sound really quickly, or mostly mostly the lack, mostly the lack thereof.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Um, do you want to read verbatim? What are the sound notes?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Sure. They uh the the show notes just say, dear god, the fucking sound.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Okay, so I'm a little bit conflicted here. I like the beeps and boops. Really? I didn't I actually didn't mind how Commander Keen basically had footsteps. I thought that was kind of like a cheese. Okay, here we go. There there is a limit to this, right? So I like I like that. Like it create because imagine imagine the opposite for a second, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:28

You create you mean if it was just silent or yeah, how weird would that be? So I don't know, it might have been better. It was so so grading after a while.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

Well, the the thing, like the okay, the bad sound effects was whatever that ice machine that shot like ice blocks was.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Oh my god, the ice machine, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

I will I'll try to replicate that.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, go ahead. I'm sure the listeners will love it. It was like but it's have you seen Home Alone 2?

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

You know, at the end when Harry and Marv are fighting Kevin and his uncle's abandoned house or whatever, and they get squished on the staircase by a tool chest. Yeah, yeah. And then Marv looks at Harry and he's like, that was the sound of a tool chest falling down the stairs. Yeah, that's what Commander Keen sounds like.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Yeah, no, I completely agree. That ice machine was bad to the point that I literally lowered the entire game volume and I was like, okay, somebody was very proud of that. But outside of that one sound, I I didn't think they were good, but I at least thought that they created a sense of existence in this world, right? Just to hear Commander Keen walk must have been mind-blowing as a kid back then.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

That's fair, that's fair.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Like, I just I really like that. But yeah, I wouldn't say that they were great, but considering I don't know if it was technically impossible spec-wise to play music.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

I I think it was, yeah. So I guess for those who are unaware, Commander Keen doesn't have any music. Actually, the the entire first trilogy doesn't have any music. I don't think they had music until Keen 4. I guess I didn't realize until playing Keen how much of the experience is tied to the music for me. I actually pretty deeply enjoy uh like VGM or chiptune stuff. I don't listen to it all the time, you know, in my spare time outside of gaming, but I'll go through phases where I do. And I think retro gaming, like part of the experience for me is like it's almost like an interactive album, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I'm enjoying playing Mega Man 2, but also I'm really enjoying just listening to the the score the whole time. So I I I did deeply miss music. I actually ended up putting on some some other yeah, some other retro game scores that I thought would be like kind of fitting. Did you just did you just raw dog it the whole time?

SPEAKER_03 16:43

I did, yeah, absolutely. No, there's no music in the background. We we had the exact commander keen experience.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

I guess you wanna you wanna switch gears and talk about design and gameplay for a little while.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

I sure I think it was interesting going through it because like I obviously said I didn't have like any expectations, but it's also not like I had any knowledge of what Commander Keen would be like because I just again didn't really play it as a kid. But having played a bunch of random stuff when as adult, one thing I actually did look up after I beat it, DuckTales by Capcom on the NES, I think it came out in like 1990 or something, or like 1991, and that had the pogo stick mechanic. And then Commander Keen, or no, I think it was 89, sorry, and Commander Keen came out in like 90. So considering that you know Commander Keen was trying really hard to basically be like Super Mario Bros. 3, I was like, hmm, how inspired were you from DockTales that all of a sudden Commander Keen has like this pogo mechanic? And uh I thought that was kind of interesting in terms of I guess like the mechanics or whatever. Yeah, I think the movement overall was pretty good. I actually found it pretty responsive. I'd be curious and like what you were playing because I know you bought the Steam version.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, so you you play through the Steam version.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

No, I ended up buying it on GOG, but it is effectively the same version.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Did you play with uh keyboard or did you use it?

SPEAKER_03 18:02

No, I mapped through Joity Key controller inputs through a PlayStation 4 controller. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

I also used uh DualShock 4 actually. I thought the controls, like the movement feel, I thought it was okay. He's a little slippery in a way that's hard to articulate. He's got some some weird acceleration and deceleration, if that makes sense. The pogo is awkward in the way that you would expect a pogo stick to be, but I actually think the way that it feels for 1990 is pretty impressive. It's not as like agile as the pogo and duck tails. I think the pogo and ducktails you have better like fine control, but but I I thought that it it handled reasonably well.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

Yeah, and I think the difference between both is the resistance, right? Because if you pogo forward with Keen and then you try to turn around, it's really bad. But that's exactly what it would be like in real life.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

Or a Scrooge, he can just go left and right and left and right no matter what he's doing with the pogo.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

That's the that's the billionaire class privilege, baby.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Keen's just he's an eight-year-old. He probably got his pogo second hand or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Yeah, uh hundred percent the reason.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Uh physics. It's just what'd you think about because you don't start off with the pogo, right? And the level selection is nonlinear, like you get to kind of pick. I and I don't think you actually need the pogo until the very final stage when they give you the pogo again at the beginning of that stage. So I'm assuming you like got it pretty early on and used it through your whole playthrough.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Pretty much, yeah. It was the second or third level in the the main level, and then I got the pogo. But like I I feel that's kind of a weird choice too, because I like the idea that the level select, you know, was not linear for the most part. Like you could kind of go out of order. But I also think that even though you had options there, it didn't really matter based on the pogo. It didn't matter at all, actually, what level that you went into. Right. Because the pogo didn't change anything other than I guess some jumps were a little bit more accessible.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

But I think you could probably take some slightly different routes through a stage, or may it might have let you grab some collectibles that you couldn't otherwise.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

Yeah, like the teddy bear that was in like the second level or whatever. If you ignored the second level and you got the pogo after the third level, and then you went back, you could get that weird teddy bear in the corner. But like other than that, like I feel the overall design wasn't necessarily I guess built around the pogo mechanic. It was almost an afterthought or something.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

I think two is a lot more intentionally designed around the pogo. And like you start off with the pogo and two.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Yeah, and I would agree with that. I think by that point they're like, okay, like this is kind of more of a main staple mechanic, opposed to okay, we can code a pogo because we can go to pogo. But yeah, I I found myself using it sparingly. It wasn't like a necessity, it was more like okay, like I'll farm points or whatever, but it wasn't like I need the pogo for this jump.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

I probably used it too much just because I was I wasn't I didn't feel like I was playing the game very well, if that makes sense. But I did like that you could activate it mid-air. Did you notice that you could like initiate a normal jump and then just pull out the pogo? I thought that was pretty slick.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

No, that was a nice little feature, and you could do that pretty low to the ground too. I was really surprised because there was a lot of times I activated it because of like I barely jumped and then I would just go flying off the pogo.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Yeah, and in the same way, you could also deactivate it early, so you could like initiate a jump with your pogo and then like cut all your jump height, you know what I mean? I don't know. I thought all that stuff was pretty impressive for 1990.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

It was pretty impressive, but coincidentally, Scrooge McDuck could also do that.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

That's true. Maybe, maybe it was just copying everyone's homework at the time. Speaking of the teddy bears, so something that I kind of want to talk about briefly the collectibles. I really liked that the collectibles, there were different kinds of collectibles, first of all. There was like soda cans, candy bars, lollipops or suckers, which I thought were balloons, by the way, until Dave until Dave corrected me.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

I was like, everything else is food. Like, why is he eating balloons?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah, why is he eating balloons? That's a good question. But I really enjoyed that they were worth varying amounts of points, and I didn't really recognize how much I appreciated that until we played Keen because I feel like so many platformers from this era have collectibles, and like they're generally pretty throwaway, right? Mario has coins, and every 100 coins you get a one up. Great. Mega Man has points. Fun fact, they don't do anything. I really liked how Keen's collectibles were worth a varying amount of points because it kind of like actually motivated the way I played through some of the levels. If there was a collectible that was worth a lot more points, say like a teddy bear, I was actually a lot more incentivized to like play risky. You know what I mean? I was like, oh, I I want to go for that, which I think is a cool way to guide players through the levels because these levels are so much like kind of like wide open play spaces in comparison to like left to right obstacle course in Mario. And I feel like that was a cool way to guide or dictate where where players went. Did you like feel like you saw a teddy bear and you're like, all right, there's all these enemies in the way, but I'm going for it?

SPEAKER_03 23:08

No, and it did. It did kind of like sway, okay. What do I do here? And I don't know what level it was, but towards the end, there was specifically, I think it was one of those werewolf guys, and you had to open a door. So you shot the werewolf, you killed the werewolf, you opened the door, and the exit is right there. But above the exit, there's like a little like block thing going to the left, and there's like a teddy bear up on the left part, and you have an immediate choice as a player there. You could be like, Oh, I could just exit the level, or I could jump on top of this thing and go left and grab the teddy bear. And there was quite a few times where I did that also, not necessarily well, for no other reason. Like, I was just trying to farm lives. So at that point, I immediately took the weird side alley. I was like, Okay, I guess we're going down here. But I did that because they have varying points, like you're 100% correct. And I also found myself noticing, you know, like sometimes there was like a big giant kind of like area of lollipops that I was like, I don't want to go down there for like 300. Like, give me more.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

I guess one more thing I want to touch on really quickly in regards to the like level design before, or I guess let's move into level design. We'll we'll start off with how did you feel about like the key card progression system? Not a fan, not a fan, really, because that's something I think that id kind of like pioneered at the time, and it became kind of a trademark of their design for a long time and actually started to crop up in other like similar titles from the era, like you saw it in you know, Duke Nukem, and I'm sure there's some other games that I'm forgetting, but not a fan of the key card progression, huh?

SPEAKER_03 24:37

No, no, that was one of the negatives for me. I think it was definitely one of those things that they added because like they could, but should you have? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Like, and I guess did you not enjoy like getting to the corner of a level and then like finding out, oh my god, I need to like backtrack and you know replay and look for this?

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Or I think it was more so you know what? Like, I I think there's something that this game did not have that, despite the key card system, probably would have made it better, but it didn't have checkpoints. And yeah, that one level in particular where you have to collect like those four different colored key cards. I probably spent the most time in that level because I would randomly die to an alien or werewolf after collecting like two or three, and then you play the entire level again because you have to collect all the key cards again. But not only that, like the key cards themselves were in innocuous places where they were almost like a game of hide and seek. There's a lot of them where they're like shoved in a corner somewhere, and the openness of the level doesn't necessarily land itself in any kind of way, like, okay, go here, player.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

This is no like flow that guides you to that.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

You're you're finding like a needle in a haystack, and I liked the overall platforming, but when you add in elements of K, like where's Waldo? Like, dude, I don't want to find Waldo, much less Waldo four times in the level.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

That's fair. I I agree. I don't really I prefer kind of like the more Nintendo style of level design for like platformers, like very like left to right obstacle course. I don't, I'm not really a fan of like what I would call you know, more Sega platformers or like European developed platformers, where there are these enormous squares that you're just kind of like let loose in and you're not really given any direction or like guided where to go in any way. I give the key card system a little more grace just because I feel like it gives you you know a non-zero amount of guidance on like how to approach the level. But I I think to your credit, you're right. Like it's still it's still pretty like not necessarily obtuse or unintuitive, but it's just like it's not very elegant. You know what I mean? It's not very elegant to like, like you said, kind of crawl to all four corners of the map playing hide and seek, looking, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

So I I do think again, if there was like a checkpoint system, it wouldn't be that bad, you know, if you retained some progression dying, but some of the later levels had a lot to do, like they were pretty spacious, and collecting you know, three key cards and then dying, I was like, man, like I'm so glad that I get to do this again.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

So right, yeah. So game has no checkpoints, it has a standard, you know, lives and continues system. Actually, it doesn't have any continues. Once you run out of lives, you're gonna get it. You did, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

I was actually gonna ask you when I heard that, like, how many times did you game over?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

That's a good question. I don't recall. I mean, definitely, you know, a couple. I'm interested. So apparently there was a save feature. You can you can save scum. I did not know this during my playthrough, so I did not leverage it at all a single time. I just kind of raw dog the whole thing. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

I I game over, I think like four or five times. I did not save scum, and that's probably why I hate the key card system.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Sure. Yeah, I I do think to your credit, and I think it's it gets worse as the series goes on, but it it's frustrating, you know, to because you don't have any hit points in this game. It's just everything is a one-hit kill. And I think that Keen mostly does a good job of keeping the level short enough to where it's not too frustrating if you die, but to your credit, as you get towards the end of the game and a couple of the stages get a little longer, feels especially because your movement is like it's pretty slow, especially like when you're pogoing around and stuff. So it can be pretty frustrating to get to the end of the level, have like three or four key cards, and then you know, suddenly die and have to do it all over again.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

And I'll get I'll give Keen a little bit of fairness there because like I actually agree with what you said there, where like the majority of the levels are short enough that I don't think you needed a checkpoint system. But the ones that aren't short, like not only do you feel it pretty badly, but also I found myself dying in a lot of ways that I don't want to say that it wasn't my fault, but I it's pretty close to that, where there was like an alien that just like fell on top of me. And I was like, oh, okay. And the one thing that I really didn't like kind of about the overall level design is the like I guess like the field of view that you have when you're playing the level is very good, actually. So like when you're when you're like kind of like panning left to right, but as soon as you need to go up, there was times where I just like jumped into like those like weird like slime things and I died. As soon as you need to go down, sometimes it just fell into a pit or spikes, and you have like no way to save yourself. So there's a lot of blind faith going up or down, or it's like, please, game, don't kill me. And the game doesn't always say, you know what, I will listen to you, player. So that's I found myself dying a lot to like weird stuff where I just like pogoed and then it's like, oh, there's the thing there, and I'm just like, okay, well, nice.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Yeah, especially because the levels are so big and so open, it's really easy to like either take a huge jump with your pogo or like accidentally miss a jump with your pogo, and then you're just in free fall, right? Down this like enormous level. And a lot of the time there's not platforms underneath that are gonna catch you, at least not not immediately. So yeah, you're just kind of in free fall, and like you don't really have a lot of you know character control in that moment. So if there are spikes or some slime or some aliens below you, you're you're probably gonna hit them, you're probably gonna die. I guess really quickly, while we're still on the topic of like lives and uh saving, how do you feel about save states in general when you're playing through retro games?

SPEAKER_03 30:08

I want to hear your opinion first and then you know well, this is where we expose myself as an old man. Yeah. Uh I don't like them. I I like the idea of okay, you know what? Like I understand everybody's getting older and understand not everybody has, you know, an infinite amount of time. But I do like the idea of okay, whatever weird shit that your game had in it, you just deal with it. And if it's bad, it's you know what? That's it. Like you just have to experience that. And I like the idea of experiencing whatever horribleness is in that game, sure, whatever unfairness is in that game. Because to me, I think safe states are almost like an afterthing, right? Like if I beat the game the first time and it's horrible, it's like, okay, like this is how everybody did it back then. This is what it would have been like. And then you know what? Afterwards, I don't care. Like, if I want to get through a section, fine, like I'll skip over it. But I want that initial experience where it's like, okay, like how bad was this? How weird was this, how great was this? But to me, I guess like TLDR, safe states are almost like a way to bypass something that you haven't experienced yet. You wouldn't want to read everything in chronological order and kind of experience it as it is. And I guess that's the mentality in my brain.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah, no, I I think that's fair. And I think that I would describe you as a first of all, a little sicko. And uh like just kind of like a purist, right? And I can appreciate that because I used to be very similar, and it wasn't really until recently, like the past few years, where you know, my opinion kind of started to change. And and to be clear, like I don't care how other people choose to experience their playthroughs. Like if people, you know, want to save state the entire way or whatever, more power to you, whatever gets you, you know, playing games, having fun with games. But I agree with you, you know, I used to be a a purist just because I wanted, I think, like you said, to kind of like experience it as it was intended at the time. And also, like, I don't know, I'm stubborn. I want the challenge. I don't wanna I don't want to admit defeat. So I want to, you know, kind of kind of see it through and persevere and you know, overcome. But I think in more recent years, I just have less appetite for that, just you know, less time overall, not as much, you know, patience. Uh, I want games, you know, more and more to like respect my time. I will say I try not to use save states as a mechanism to like, you know, bypass difficulty or like accomplishment. It's more so if there's a game that has like a tedious run back. Like, I don't know, recently I was playing through Heberecke and there's like you know some pretty tedious runbacks in that. Or if it's like uh a Mega Man game and you have to do a bunch of farming right before the boss refights, something like that, like I might just save state and not have to, you know, save myself the trouble of having to do this this farm over and over and over again. So I think those are the way that I primarily like to leverage them now. And I think part of that's probably honestly because of streaming, because most of my gaming is done on stream, and so like I feel like I have less tolerance like to be frustrated on stream in front of people, and also I don't want to like bore anyone. I don't want you know, it's not interesting to watch me fill these e-tanks or you know, run back to this boss or whatever. I I it's not interesting to me, it's certainly not gonna be interesting to use. I think we talked about most of the design and gameplay elements that I wanted to talk through. At this point, I kind of want to transition into what like at least for this first episode, I'm gonna call the aged well audit. Maybe it's a segment that we you know keep in the future, maybe we don't, maybe we rename it, who knows? But for now I'm gonna call it the aged well audit. So I'm interested to get your thoughts on like what core mechanics, if any, you thought like still felt satisfying through the lens of today. What elements cause you any unexpected frustration? And then finally, like how you felt about like the difficulty curve, you know, does the game respect your time? That kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Uh the thing that aged well was the ice fishing baby, like, oh yeah. You're sick. No, I don't know. Like a very objective answer. I think you could probably leave Commander Keen in the past for the most part. One thing that I did think was like a massive after effect is specifically on the pogo. Actually, with Commander Keen, like in general, like Keen's jump, there's almost like a hard commit where once you jump, like especially from ledge to ledge, yeah, you know, like you're you're really committing to that jump and you just like you have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

But yeah, it's kind of like uh Castlevania in that regard. Like Castlevania is totally fixed, Keen isn't totally fixed, but it it almost feels totally fixed due to how like rigid and bad it is.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

See, the thought that I had wasn't even like that adjacent to you know, like the NES, but like Jump King, if you ever played that game, you did play that game.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Yeah, actually, you're right. It is kind of jump king as well.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

I was literally thinking like jump king is like commander keen from the past, like the way that you have to jump you know back and forth with the pogo and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Yeah, that's honestly that's not a terrible comparison, especially because there's so many hazards that you can die on if you miss a jump in Keen. Yeah, and like and the stages are really like vertical. Actually, yeah, I do I do kind of see it.

SPEAKER_03 35:01

Yeah, and I thought, okay, from like a mechanic that aged well, like Jump King used it fairly recently in terms of like that hard committal of a jump. But I I think like very objectively, there's not a whole lot that I could probably say, you know what, Commander Keen in 2026. Like I think when it came out, it was one of those things where it was like revolutionary. Right. Um, but yeah, it it's pretty hard to pull anything, I think, you know, years and years later.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

That's fair. I agree with you. I think the pogo is, you know, clunky, but I do think it was like well executed. Like it feels like you're using a pogo stick. I don't know if I would call that satisfying, but it it did feel like surprisingly how I would feel like a pogo stick would control, which I thought was impressive for the time, at least.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Yeah, I I did like the kind of like weight and resistance behind it and how it was different from obviously like your jump and same with like the verticalness and like how vertical you would go. No, I I do think the pogo was alright. I think you said it best, like in Commander Teen, Commander Teen, Commander Keen 2.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

He's only eight years old.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

Well, in the sequel, he gets a little bit older.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

Oh, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

But yeah, Commander Keen 2. Uh it became again more of a focal point, and I agree with that because I did at least go through two. I did not go through three. You know, you sent that investor like three is a flaming piece of shit. I was like, dude, okay, I'll avoid it, it's fine. Um I thought too again, like the the the pogo was a lot more prominent in the sense like they designed the levels as you set around the pogo compared to the first one. The first one was like, okay, like we have a pogo and what do we do with it? I don't know, but it's here. So maybe you can go get something in a corner or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Uh anything that you found frustrating? Anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 36:46

I'm a sicko, as you said. I actually think like one hit death is okay. Like, I don't mind.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

Really? That's a high. I think that's a really hot take these days.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

I you know what? I I like that. I like limited continues. I also like the idea of like, okay, because at some point I think he becomes a skill-based thing, right? Where if you want to get back to the same spot that you died at, you have to be better than you were before. So I have no problem if you're killing me in one hit. I have no problem if we have limited lives and I game over, because it just forces me to be better the next time when I go there. Uh, the things that frustrated me though, I would say are like really small things that are probably, I don't know if they were like design limitations. There was quite a few times where I had to run away from either like one of those big aliens or like those werewolf things to turn around to shoot again. And I wasn't able to turn around to shoot, and then I would just get like walked into and killed. As I said, like the things that involved either like scrolling the screen up or down, there's a lot of like legitimate death hazards that you cannot see. Like, you literally cannot see that if you jump high, you'll just end up like jumping into something that kills you, or if you fall down, sometimes you just fall down into something that kills you. So I think it was like mainly that stuff. There was not really, I think, anything else. Like, I think overall it was pretty well designed in the sense that it wasn't anything amazing, but it I don't think it committed a whole lot of crimes either.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Sure. Yeah, I think I I mostly agree with you. I think that the one-hit deaths and like limited lives, no continues would have been frustrating for me if if the stages had been longer or the game had been more difficult overall. I think I would have started to find those things pretty grating. But I think it strikes a nice balance between, you know, the difficulty of like imminent death being all around you all the time, but you know, mostly making the challenges pretty manageable. I do think to your credit, I agree. There were a lot of times where the gun was like pretty clunky because you have to press two buttons to activate it, by the way. I think we had to like Google the manual to find that out. Yeah, control and alt or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so you have to press it's a two-button activation, and like we discussed, Keen, his acceleration and deceleration are kind of like awkward. So the combination of, like you said, trying to like run away, turn around, and shoot the gun. And there's like a fair amount of uh like cooldown between like each gunshot that you can fire. So I do think that was a little like clunky or cumbersome at times, but like nothing that really you know demotivated me from like finishing the game or whatever, like like I found later on when I tried out Keen 3.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

No, actually, on that note, too, thinking about it, there was a shockingly surprising amount of times where I was jumping with the pogo and I activated the pogo and I accidentally discharged my gun as I was jumping. Uh but I that could have been the way that I mapped everything too, because I had pogo as like L1 on you know, like the PlayStation controller, and then I had jump as X and then shoot as square, but like the way that I would jump at the very beginning, I would accidentally jump on the pogo and shoot quite a lot.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

I had the opposite problem. I would if if I ever wanted to like jump and shoot the gun at the same time, I would always like jump and then just unequip the pogo and fall, and like no gunshot would come out. And I did that so much.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Oh, you know what? Actually, thinking of jumping and shooting, the very end level where you have to like crush that werewolf guy.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Oh, yeah, we didn't talk about that at all. I just bypassed that because I ran out of ammo.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

See, I shot, I actually went back and I collected like I don't know what it was. I had like 60 shots, and I was thinking like this is the unboss. I didn't see you stream that part, so I kept shooting over and over and over. And I like shot like 50 shots into this guy, and he didn't die. He's infinite. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

So I guess for for context, it's like it's kind of like an environmental puzzle. There's this there's this alien, and there's like a big rock hanging from the ceiling on this chain, and you're supposed to shoot the chain, and they actually give you a tip about it in a previous level.

SPEAKER_03 40:42

There's I didn't even do that. That's wild then.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Oh, you didn't do it either.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

No, no, no. Okay, no, okay. So I guess further context too, it takes four shots to kill these werewolves with the gun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the way that I ended up doing that, I jumped into like the whatever this guy is. I don't know. I jumped into the ceiling. Did you do that?

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Uh yeah, I think there's like some walls, like fake walls or whatever that you can get inside of, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:06

Yeah, I jumped in the ceiling and I kept like pogoing in the ceiling, and eventually the whole ceiling fell on the guy. And I was like, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can go back and I can spend it after.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Yeah, I want to see the clip. I don't know if that's supposed to happen.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

I don't well that that that's that was like I was like, what am I supposed to do here? I missed that hint, I guess, from like the previous level. Oh, but I like jumped into the ceiling and I just bounced around and the whole ceiling fell down. And I was like, uh, sure. So like that actually took me like 10 minutes because I like depleted my entire ammo on this guy. And then further than that, I couldn't figure out how to kill him because I was like, did I miss like a power-up? Like what's going on?

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

And then I just jumped and I eventually killed him in the ceiling, and I was like, I would have never guessed this, man. Like, what am I doing in the ceiling?

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Yeah, that's that's crazy that you just kind of like stumbled into it like uh like an idiot savant or whatever. It's how we do things, you know? No, no, I'm I respect it. I'm all I'm all about that kind of game. Yeah, I knew about it, but I just ran out of ammo, so I just ended up like getting really lucky and was able to pogo over the guy. Speaking of really quickly before we what did you think about like all of the signs that were littered throughout the game with like the alien language?

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Pretty incomprehensible.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Like I do you think somebody's like decoded or deciphered translated that entire language?

SPEAKER_03 42:26

Curious and looking it up, but like to me there were a bunch of like they didn't really add anything. Like maybe there was supposed to be like alien lore or maybe make the world a little bit more mysterious or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

I do think there were a couple times where the placement was kind of clever because it would like early on in the game when it would introduce a new thing, it would put some signs near them. Like uh, for example, initially you kill enemies by like jumping or you know, shooting, like you like you would expect, but eventually you stumble across this like purple plant-looking alien, and you can't you can't jump on it. If you jump on it, you'll die. Uh, and they put the first time they introduced that enemy, they put uh a sign next to it that kind of looks like a warning sign or has like an exclamation point or something. And you know, sure enough, uh the first time I saw that enemy, I jumped on top of it and died. And then I went back through and I looked at the sign, I was like, Oh, I think I get what the sign says. So now I can't read it, but I get it now.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

Oh, what was I watching? There was I don't remember what it was. It was like one of those like Tales games that was like Tales of A Turnier or something like that. Sure. It's a couple of months ago. For sure it was one of the Tales games. I think it was on PlayStation 1, but somebody actually did that. There was like some kind of like foreign alien language that is all symbols and like gibberish. And you can decode it. The people that use that language actually are saying something. So it'd be kind of cool to see if somebody did that with Commander Keen, if this actually meant something back then.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Man, if we could if we could make curing cancer in Into a video game, it'd be we'd have it cured yesterday.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

We would, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Um, all right. So we talked about the age well audit. I want to kind of move into the legacy bridge for now before we kind of move into like our final verdict. The legacy bridge. I want to talk about like first what I would call like the DNA test. And that is, you know, do we think that this game influenced any other titles at the time or in the future? Uh and I think this might be a good time to talk about uh the distribution model as well.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

Uh uh, I was talking to like Reshwaline Gaming, uh, because this was like one of the games that he really enjoyed. Like he's a DOS nerd and he likes like Commander Keen and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 44:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

And he pointed out that there is actually a game that was recently released. It was like from 2020 or something like that, and it's on Steam. And I don't remember the name, I'm sorry. But uh, we were talking about that, and it heavily actually came from like Commander Keen universe, like the UI is the same, the same kind of movement is the same. So outside of that one exception, I like outside of Duke Newcomb as well, you know, like using the key card system and stuff like that. I think there's kind of like spiritual successors where there's some elements that made it into different games, but like did Commander Keen influence anything directly, especially you know, like 2026. Uh I don't know if it had like a really long-lasting legacy. Probably it was like a proximity thing, or if you know, after Commander Keen came out, maybe there was, you know, like copycat things like a no dangerous Dave, but I think that was also ID, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Yeah, that was like the the Mario prototype.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Yeah, and there was like some other stuff. So probably around the same time, you know, like it was a formula that other developers were interested in, or maybe tried to copy or whatever, but yeah, I I think not a whole lot, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Probably probably a lot more influential like around that time than it would be today. I don't know how many platformers from the era had like non-linear level select. I know there were some, you know, like Bionic Commando, uh Clash at Demon Head, you know, stuff like that. I don't know which came first. I assume some of those NES titles. On a similar note, I don't know if the modern Doom games still use like a key card progression system. I doubt they do. You know, I doubt I doubt Doom 2016 or Eternal or uh Dark Ages too. But they they could. I'm just not not sure. I do think that the shareware model, uh, you know, it's pioneering the shareware model where they released this first episode for three uh for free and then you know, kind of entice you to buy episodes two and three. I do think that is something that was incredibly influential, not only at the time, but still to this day. I think that that kind of helped pave the way for honestly models that are generally much worse uh for consumers, but for things like uh free to play, like freemium games, early access models, downloadable content. I do think kind of where that all started and originated was with uh id and and commander keen.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

Oh yeah, no, shareware was huge, I think, in the way that kind of like people consumed like how they would buy something. One of the games that we had was Exile 3 Ruined World, and it came on a shareware disc. And I remember like you get CDEs of like all kinds of games back then. It just had like a bunch of shareware games on them. And what you could do, like if you think about it, it's kind of wild, right, compared to like modern demos, because like one game that I ended up immediately buying after that was originally shareware was Diablo, and the original shareware for Diablo was it locked out uh rogue and sorcerer that allowed you to play the warrior. So imagine having basically you know unlimited access to the game, but only one class. Yeah, so I think that respects you know a potential consumer of your game because you get a lot of experience, you get a lot of playtime, you get to experience it. And I think natural curiosity is gonna grow from that, where it's like, oh, what's the rogue like? What's the sorcerer like? But if you're releasing a demo and the demo is one level, uh, I think that's a very different way that you would perceive that as a consumer, because at that point, if the demo sucks, like you're not gonna buy it, but you also don't spend a lot of time revisiting, and I think that's where shareware was so good because you could revisit over and over, like exile three, it was it was like all kinds of stuff that you could do in that game. Um again, you know, Diablo was all kinds of stuff that you could do in that game, but if you release, you know, like a demo for level one, like you can play level one and that's it.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Yeah, yeah. Shareware kind of like a uh closer to like a full experience. I do think that it paved the way for models that are like unfortunately like a little more insidious, right? Like a free-to-play game, for example. Yes, it's free to play, but it's littered with gotcha, yeah, my gotcha and microtransactions, uh, early access, you're kind of like you're almost paying, paying to beta test their game for them. And you know, downloadable content is kind of it feels like studios release incomplete titles, and then you have to like pay for them to complete them or for the complete experience later, which I guess is maybe the closest to the shareware model, but with DLC, you're paying the entire time, right? You pay up front for the what's supposed to be the full game, and then you pay for the DL DLC as well. Whereas shareware, you at least got something up front, right? Uh, which I think is just like it builds a lot more good faith with consumers. It's it's more fun, more exciting. Like you're excited to get those those new episodes or what have you. I don't know. I think it's sad that the industry has kind of like moved away from it. I understand why they have, right? It's I'm certainly it's it's monetary or like financially driven, but I do think it's interesting. I do think the the way that it's turned out is kind of sad though.

SPEAKER_03 49:55

It is, because it was a relic of like simpler times back then. Because one thing that I really like seeing is like the shareware kind of like notice in the game itself. Like, oh yeah, send your checker money order or whatever, it's like this studio.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In in Commander Keen, yeah, in the menu, even in the uh the full release on Steam, which is it's just emulated through DOS box, but yeah, all the original like menus and and dialogues from the release are in there for episodes two and three. May send checker money order.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

Yeah, it's like send fifteen dollars or whatever. Yeah. I like that because I was thinking, like, if I was a kid and you played this game and your mom or dad was like, Yeah, sure, we'll send away for that. Imagine the crazy anticipation waiting, you know, like three or four weeks just for Commander Keen to show up in your mailbox at some point.

SPEAKER_00 50:41

Yeah, now you can just you plug your credit card into Steam and you can buy and download a game. Like it's crazy, just instant gratification all the time.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

No, we we missed out, I think, on a lot there. But I I do like you know, simpler time kind of things like that.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

All right, Dave. I think I'm ready to wrap it up. We can move into kind of our like final verdict on Commander Keen episode one. I kind of want to start off and just say that you know, contrary to what I expected going in, I had a good time, at least nowadays. It's not revolutionary. Uh, but it was uh an enjoyable playthrough. Uh it was short, it didn't overstay its welcome, it never became like overly frustrating. I was impressed by some of the mechanics for the time. I will I I will say that I the sound was really, really rough for me. But other than that, I I enjoyed my time with this one. I was I was pleasantly surprised. How about you?

SPEAKER_03 51:41

Pretty much Miri the same thing. Uh, I think it was not necessarily an amazing game. You know, like I would probably rate it like a six out of ten. As I said, I didn't think it committed too many crimes. I think it was oddly more responsive than I thought it was gonna be. Like, I I thought maybe I was gonna fight with the controls from seeing how you streamed it. So I was like, oh man, like it's gonna be an experience. It was it was mostly all right. Like there was definitely some rough edges to you, but you know, nothing too bad. And I think overall, again, I was also pleasantly surprised. Like, I think the main draw to me was that it was kind of like Saturday morning cartoon sort of thing. You know, I really like the art style, and to me, I think that was a little bit more powerful than I don't know, like like everything else. But yeah, pretty, pretty good overall.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

Um, I agree. And I think the the shareware model helps it a lot, right? The episodic format, because I think keeping it short and sweet actually I think if it had been a whole lot longer or you know, much more difficult, I think it would have like overstayed its welcome. I don't need to play six or eight hours of Commander Keen. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 52:43

Yeah, I don't know if you have like a time stamp yourself. I did keep track of how long it approximately took me, and it was about two and a half hours to beat it.

SPEAKER_00 52:51

Yeah, I don't. I'd be interested to go back and check my VOD. I'm sure that I spun my gears, you know, getting everything set up, getting everything in working order, etc. etc. It looks like my initial stream of the game was about two and a half hours, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

That's about the same then. Yeah. I feel like there wasn't really like the the only roadblock that I kind of had was again the key card level because I kept dying. And if I put like a percentile on it, I would say like that level in itself is like probably like 20% of the total time that I played.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

But even the final level I didn't find that bad in comparison, and like the rest of the game I didn't find that bad in comparison. But like that one like multi-key card level is like, my god, man, I'm spending a lot of time here.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

All right, so would you consider this for like if for other retro gaming enthusiasts, or if you were trying to you know recommend a retro game to somebody, would you consider this uh you know a must play? Uh given its like historical significance, it's better left in a museum.

SPEAKER_03 53:53

Can I answer both?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Like uh sure.

SPEAKER_03 53:57

I I feel I feel like it's one of those games where it's very similar to like Mega Man 1 where you could go back and play Mega Man 1, but should you again? Like not really. And I feel Commander Keen is kind of there because I think it holds up in a sense, like if you do go back and you play it, it's again like a decent little package. Um, but I honestly don't think that you're missing anything if you skip out on Commander Keen in 2026 and you're like, nah, I don't want to play this. I don't think there's anything that revolutionary that like like it's not some you know crazy hidden gem. Like I enjoyed my time with it, but if I was on my deathbed clutching to life and someone was like, Okay, what's the one game that I should play? Like Commander Keen would not be my answer.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

So right. Nah, I agree. I I'd prefer that we, you know, disagreed, so there it'd probably be a little more interesting, but no, I I agree with you. I think um I don't think it's a bad game, you know, especially given you know the context of the time. But like you said, I just I don't think it's something that you need to go back and revisit. I don't think you're really missing a lot. I think there are a lot of other, you know, similar platformers from this era that do the same or similar, uh, but probably a little more, a little more refined, a little more fleshed out. So yeah, I don't think it's something that you necessarily need to run out and try. But if it's something that you might be interested in, by all means, you know, give it a shot. It's a quick playthrough. And, you know, like we said, Dave and I both, you know, mostly enjoyed our time with it. All right, Dave, the last question I want to ask before we wrap things up. If you were to remake Commander Keen today in 2026, what's like the core element that you uh that would have to stay the same that you wouldn't change? The ice machine, of course. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 55:44

In all its loud glory, like this thing needs to come back.

SPEAKER_00 55:48

Just the sounds you want full DOS sounds, everything else can be updated.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

Yeah, no, I don't know, man. I think that's a tough answer because like there's really not anything that I think is like a must in that game by lack of anything else that could pick, I guess, the pogo mechanic.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Yeah, I was gonna say either I would say either the pogo, the charming aesthetic, you know what I mean? Like that Saturday morning cartoon sci-fi, like eight-year-old Billy Blaze vibe. Like, I wouldn't want to see the game compromise its identity. I don't want to see Commander Keen grow up and like get cool. Like he doesn't need to start smoking SIGs and become a badass. Just I would want to see it stay true to its like quirky, charming, irreverent roots.

SPEAKER_03 56:32

All right. Well, how about you answer with that? And I'll modify and change my answer slightly because like one thing that I really did enjoy that extends beyond the Poco system is something you already mentioned anyway. It was like the point system. And I like that. And I think you know, it's not clearly like a thing to build a game around, but for a lack of again, anything else that this game might have that I can pick as an answer. The point system was a cool one, but that's more so a cool one in 2026 where it's like completely dead. There's no games anymore that have point systems that are incremental and they have different values, and it kind of incentivizes you to explore a level in a different way. Like this is a totally dead mechanic. That's true. For the virtue of bringing this back in 2026, if there was some kind of like random remake. I hope that they wouldn't take away that.

SPEAKER_00 57:18

That's that's fair. Yeah, you don't really, to your credit, you don't really see it anymore nowadays. It is kind of like a dead game design element. I'm not sure if that's for better or worse. Um, but I like you said, I do think it's done well in this game. I think that the uh collectibles being like varying points, it kind of it's interesting in the way that it motivates you how you how you play the game. And I think that it would be neat to see a developer tackle that same mechanic now in 2026 and see what maybe kind of like interesting new spins they could they could put on the on that.

SPEAKER_03 57:49

I agree, but especially if they didn't make it for us, and I think that's what I liked about kind of like the point system too.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

Yeah, it is just kind of like this optional thing you can engage with if you want.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

Right. And that's huge because at that point I think what ended up becoming point system kind of things in games was like collectivine stuff.

SPEAKER_00 58:06

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah, like Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

I'm not a huge fan of like, okay, let's find like 300 random things in the level to open up the next level because at that point you're forced to explore like every cranny, every nook of everything, and I'm like, man. So I like the idea that the point system here was almost like an optional one, and I was rewarded the times that I wanted to engage with it compared to when I wanted to ignore it. I wasn't punished.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Sure. I think it's a great answer. All right, Dave. I think that wraps up Commander Keen. I don't think that we're going to finish the trilogy at this time. It might be something that we cover later in the future. Dave, do you wanna should we spoil what game is gonna be next, or should we just leave people in the dark?

SPEAKER_03 58:52

Uh, that's a good question. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

Uh however you feel.

SPEAKER_03 58:56

You know what? Let's let's let's say sure. You know what? Let's let's spoil it.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

Yeah, go ahead. Sonic. Sonic Sonic 1, the OG. Yeah. So which I think will be an interesting stepping stone coming from Commander Keen, right? Like going to kind of what I would call like the next iteration on you know platformers from this era. Because Keen is kind of like mimicking or aping, you know, Mario 3 from the time period, and now we're kind of moving into the next console generation. And I think that Sonic kind of occupies a similar design space as Keen, where like it's kind of like a middle ground between a Nintendo left-to-right platformer and like what Sega platformers would later become, which is more like Keen, like more like huge, chunky vertical play spaces. So I think it'll be cool to see you know how Sonic's age. I've actually never beaten the game. I used to play it all the time when I was younger, but I've never finished it.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

I have never played Sonic for even one second. So what? Yeah, never.

SPEAKER_00 59:54

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 59:55

I didn't have a Genesis growing up, so this is a really good gig for me.

SPEAKER_00 59:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:00

And we just we knew like one person growing up. I said a long time ago streaming, and I honestly believe that to be truth. But I think I grew up in like a Psyop. Like a Nintendo Nintendo PsyOps. Everybody had like a Super Nintendo. I knew one kid, like one friend that had a Genesis. Everybody else had a Super Nintendo. But then it was weird because like during the next era, nobody had an N64. There was again one kid, but everybody had a PlayStation. So I really didn't get exposed to N64. I really didn't get exposed to Genesis.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

Oh, that's exciting. I'll have to keep that in mind, like moving forward for my game suggestions.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:35

Yeah, actually, the two games that you saw me randomly stream, Mario 64 and Goldeneye, those are the only two games on the N64 I've ever played and beat.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:43

That's crazy to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:45

Oh, and Green Dog. I have played Green Dog.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

Wow, I'm excited for you to experience it. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts, especially for us to see like how has the like you know, the go fast gameplay actually aged. You know, do you do you actually get to go fast or does do you just end up like bonking into shit and losing all your rings on spikes over and over again? So it'd be cool to see.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:06

Yeah, I think that one I would actually stream too. I I wanted to kind of stream Commander Keen, but like this month in particular, as you know, it was like an extremely busy one.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:15

But I think going forward, I'll try to find the time to stream some of these things too. But especially Sonic, I feel that's like everybody would be like, What? Are you did you grow up in a PsyOp? I'll be like, well, actually. Actually.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

Do you uh you have any ideas for a clever sign off? That's the only thing I didn't really come up with.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:36

I don't know. The Batman the video game kind of Oh, what how does it go? Just like that. Like when you started I didn't think about it. That was like, okay, like you you made me panic, and that's my best answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

All right. Well, until next time, we're podcasting the video game. All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

No, no, don't use that. That's horrible. Okay, by the second episode, we'll figure this shit out, okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:06

All right.