About
Commander Keen is a series of side-scrolling platform games developed primarily by id Software, with most episodes released for MS-DOS in 1990 and 1991. Omnispeak is an open-source reimplementation of Commander Keen episodes 4, 5, and 6 (Goodbye Galaxy) that aims to be a pixel-perfect, bug-for-bug clone and is compatible with savegames from the DOS version. It is built on SDL 2 and runs on Linux and Windows, with cross-compilation support for the GCW Zero and a DOS port the author describes as quite buggy.
How it differs from the original
It adds a QuickSave/QuickLoad feature (F5 and F9 by default) and greatly expanded keyboard and joystick rebinding, including a 'modern' joystick mode. It uses the original game's data files rather than its own assets.
Getting started
You need the GAMEMAPS, EGAGRAPH, and AUDIO files from a v1.4 EGA copy of Keen 4, 5, or 6 (or Keen 6 v1.5), such as the Steam or GOG release, placed next to the omnispeak binary along with the matching files from its data directory. Other versions, including CGA, v1.0, and retail FormGen releases, will likely crash.
Known limitations
- audio: The MS-DOS port is quite buggy.
Media
Additional notes
- External link
- The shareware release of Keen 4 v1.4 EGA is available from the author's site: https://davidgow.net/keen/4keen14.zip
- Hardware
- On Linux it can drive real OPL2-compatible sound hardware via ALSA or an OPL2LPT parallel-port device instead of AdLib emulation.