Well, instead of writing out a whole article about the history of Commander Keen I may as well just put up the official one:
Joe Siegler's History of Keen
Here's a short history of the Commander Keen games. First, I'll list all the games and their
titles. ALL of them were written by id Software.
1.Marooned on Mars
2.The Earth Explodes
3.Keen Must Die
3.5: Keen Dreams
4.Secret of the Oracle
5.The Armageddon Machine
6.Aliens Ate My Babysitter
Episodes 1-3 are collectively called "Invasion of the Vorticons", and are published by Apogee
Software. This series of Commander Keen was released on December 14th, 1990 according to Tom
Hall (Ion Storm), and at the time, Creative Director of id Software.
Episodes 4 & 5 are collectively called "Goodbye Galaxy", and are also published by Apogee
Software. This series of Commander Keen was released somewhere around June of 1991. There
was also a special CGA edition of Keens 4-5 made. The CGA version of the game is functionally
exactly the same as the standard EGA version of the game, but the graphics are in CGA. The CGA
version of Keens 4-5 was discontinued by Apogee in November 1997 and is no longer available.
Starting in April of 1998, Apogee bundled Keens 1-5 on a single CD-ROM, and they're only
available now like this. If you call up to register one of them, the only way to get it now is to
get the others, too.
Episode 6 is a "stand alone" game, and is entitled "Aliens Ate my Babysitter". From its inception in
1991 until 1996, it was distributed by FormGen. In 1996, FormGen was bought out by GT Software,
and the Keen license was not renewed. � Because of this, Apogee was left with only what stock we
had at the time of the game. It was never actually an APOGEE game, it was a FormGen game (that
id authored) that Apogee distributed. In August of 1997, Apogee's stock of the game finally ran out,
and as such, Keen 6 is no longer available from Apogee. As of now, the only way to get Keen 6 now
is as part of the package "The id Anthology".(more info later) from GT Software. Two side notes to
this: First, for some reason, only the CGA version of Keen 6 is on the CD. Second, for awhile,
FormGen distributed a playable 3 level commercial demo of Keen 6.
Keen Dreams has kind of an interesting story. This is referred to as the "Lost Episode" of
Commander Keen. I like to think of it as "Keen Episode 3.5". The reason for that is that Keen
Dreams falls inbetween Vorticons and Galaxy, both in terms of technology and storyline. Before the
id guys actually formed id, the majority of them worked at Softdisk, a computer software publisher
in Shreveport, LA. The founding members of id Software left Softdisk to do the Vorticons series of
Keen for Apogee Software. However, they were contractually obligated to deliver another game to
Softdisk, and since development had started on the Galaxy series, they threw together a Keen
game for Softdisk, and Keen Dreams was born. This game is not sold by Apogee Software, nor
does Apogee have anything at all to do with it. You'd need to contact Softdisk for any further
information regarding Keen Dreams.
Episodes 1, 3.5, 4, and the 3 level demo for Episode 6 are the only ones that you are legally
allowed to upload and download anywhere. Episodes 2,3,5, and the full version of Episode 6
are commercial software, and should not appear on any BBS, online service, web site, FTP
site, etc...� These games are only to be sold by authorized sellers of the games (Flea Markets and
swap meets are generally NOT authorized sellers).
In December 1996, id Software published a package called "The id Anthology". This is a product
that contained every single game that id Software ever made, as well as some others that were
made by id people for other companies like Softdisk. In this package are all 7 Commander Keen
games mentioned above. As a side note, for some reason, the person at id Software who put the
package together put in only the CGA version of Keen6. Why they did this, we don't know. For more
info on the id Anthology, contact id Software (Apogee has nothing to do with the id Anthology.)
Here are the filenames as currently available from Apogee for the various Keen games from
Apogee.
Keen 1 -> 1KEEN.ZIP
Keen 4 -> 4KEEN.ZIP
Keen 4 -> 4KEENC.ZIP (Special CGA Version)
I've seen the 3 level Aliens Demo available with the filename #6K-DEMO.ZIP (& K6DEMO.ZIP). I've
seen Keen Dreams available with the filename KDREAMS.ZIP. However, neither of these are
Apogee products, and I cannot vouch for the files' names.
If you played Keen 5, there was a screen that said something to the effect of "Join
us in December 1992 for the greatest Keen adventure yet". There was a picture of
Keen smiling, with a Santa Claus hat on. At the time, id Software was intending to
do a third series of Commander Keen, tentatively entitled "Commander Keen: The
Universe is Toast". However, other projects came up (Wolfenstein 3D, Spear of
Destiny, and later, Doom). There are no plans now to do more Keen. The main reason for this is
that id Software owns the rights to Commander Keen, and any new project would have to be either
done by them directly (EXTREMELY unlikely), or at least approved by them. At this time, there are
no Keen games under development by either Apogee, id, or Ion Storm (where Tom Hall & John
Romero now work as of 1997). If and when there ever is more Keen, it will be state of the art of
whatever technology is current at the time.
In December of 1998, Tom Hall has stated his interest in making future games based on his
character Keen and his universe, but only if he owned the rights to Keen, which is also unlikely.
Notes:
Commander Keen has made a couple of appearances in other video games:
1.In Paganitzu, Keen's helmet makes an appearance in a hidden area
2.In Bio Menace Episode 2, as one of the hostages you need to rescue
3.Four Keens made an appearance in a secret level of id's Doom II
4.Commander Keen's helmet made an apperance in a level of Crystal Caves