Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy

[3] Once entered, the only way to exit a level is to reach the end, though unlike in the first trilogy of episodes, Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons, the player can save their game at any point.In the first episode, having defeated the Grand Intellect in Invasion of the Vorticons and saved the Earth, eight-year-old child Billy Blaze is building a faster-than-light communications radio.Donning his helmet as Commander Keen, he takes off in his spaceship—first stunning his parents with his neural stunner gun as they call him in to dinner—for the planet of Gnosticus IV, home of the Oracle and the Gnosticenes that tend it, to find out who the Shikadi are and how they plan to destroy the galaxy.In October–December 1990, a team of employees from programming studio Softdisk, calling themselves Ideas from the Deep, developed the three-part video game Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons.[7] The team reprised their roles for both Keen Dreams and Goodbye, Galaxy, with the addition of programmer Jason Blochowiak for Goodbye, Galaxy, and changed the game engine and design for the next Keen games: an increase in graphical quality, a pseudo-3D view rather than a side-on view, ramps rather than solely flat surfaces, support for sound cards, and changes to the design based on player feedback.[5][1] The level maps were designed using a custom-made program called Tile Editor (TEd), which was first created for Dangerous Dave and was used for the entire Keen series as well as several other games.[9] For Vorticons, Carmack had created adaptive tile refresh to produce a scrolling effect on computers not powerful enough to redraw the entire screen when the player moved.By August they had completed a beta version of episode four, "Secret of the Oracle", and Romero sent it off to a fan he had met from Canada, Mark Rein, who had offered to play-test the game.Within a few weeks of being hired, Rein made a deal to get id into the commercial market: to take the sixth episode and make it a stand-alone game, published as a retail title through FormGen instead of part of a shareware trilogy.Id signed the deal, but Scott Miller of Apogee was dismayed; he felt that not having a full trilogy for the shareware game would hurt sales.There, they worked on Goodbye, Galaxy, their remaining Softdisk games, and the now standalone Commander Keen in Aliens Ate My Babysitter between August and December.[13] Despite being listed numerically as the sixth episode, because Aliens Ate My Babysitter had a different publisher and schedule it was developed after "Secret of the Oracle" but before "The Armageddon Machine".Acknowledging its debt to Super Mario Bros., he called it, especially Goodbye, Galaxy, "one of the best games of its type" and praised that it was not "mindlessly hard", instead requiring some thought to play through, and especially the humor in the graphics and gameplay.[1] Another trilogy of episodes, titled The Universe Is Toast, was planned for December 1992, but was cancelled after the success of id's Wolfenstein 3D and development focus on Doom.
Gameplay in "Secret of the Oracle". Both stunned and un-stunned enemies can be seen, as can dart traps, water droplets, and a yellow keycard gem.
John Carmack in 2006
Developer(s)id SoftwarePublisher(s)Apogee SoftwareDesigner(s)Tom HallProgrammer(s)John CarmackJohn RomeroArtist(s)Adrian CarmackComposer(s)Robert PrinceCommander KeenPlatform(s)WindowsGenre(s)Side-scrollingplatformerSingle-playerplatform video gameCommander Keen in Keen DreamsCommander Keen in Invasion of the VorticonsCommander Keen in Aliens Ate My BabysittersharewareWolfenstein 3Dplatform video gamespogo stickfireman's polessave their gametwo-dimensional mapraygunSoftdiskShreveport, Louisianadisk magazineGreen Bay PackersSigmund Freudsound cardsadaptive tile refreshparallax scrollingBobby PrinceFormGenMadison, WisconsinPC ZoneShareware Industry AwardsSandy PetersenDragonSuper Mario Bros.GT InteractiveDoom IIGame Boy ColorActivisionSteam Spyvideo game industryin-jokeZiff DavisPetersen, SandyDragon Magazine3D RealmsInternet ArchiveGamasutraDennis PublishingPC MagazineArs TechnicaCondé NastShacknewsKotakuGawker MediaEurogamerMasters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop CultureRandom HouseApressUniversity of Michigan PressCommander Keen seriesCommander Keen (2001)list of gamesArctic AdventureBio MenaceBoppin'Cosmo's Cosmic AdventureCrystal CavesDark AgesDuke NukemDuke Nukem IIKroz seriesMajor StrykerMath RescueMonster BashMonuments of MarsMystic TowersPaganitzuPharaoh's TombRealms of ChaosRise of the TriadSecret AgentStargunnerWacky WheelsWord RescueList of minor video gamesTerminal VelocityDuke Nukem 3DShadow WarriorBalls of SteelMax PayneDuke Nukem ForeverBombshellIon FuryGravenCore DecayTempest RisingScott MillerGeorge BroussardTodd ReplogleBuild engineApogee EntertainmentEmbracer GroupSaber Interactive