I'd like to think that this is a good place to ask questions about Commander Keen, too!
I've contributed some corrections to the Commander Keen Wiki in the past. It's a great resource.
memsys wrote:there are more versions out there then you think
I can guarantee that there aren't any versions of Commander Keen that I don't know about! I have copies of the less mainstream versions that weren't distributed by Apogee, such as Precision Software's v1.34 release of Keen 1, the Goodtimes version of Keen 4 v1.4, and the "promotional release" of Keen 6. According to Apogee, there was no v1.2 of Keen 4, and yet I have a copy of it!
The fact that Apogee's records show that there was no v1.2 of Keen 4 forced me to question whether or not the release was real. Apogee also claimed that there was no v1.3 of Major Stryker, but I found copies on six shareware compilation CDs, as well as BBS listings (which is where the shovelware guys found them), and the "Official Apogee FAQ" now acknowledges that v1.3 existed, with the caveat that it may not have been an "official" release. Apogee was wrong about Major Stryker v1.3, so they may also be wrong about Keen 4 v1.2. It's also possible that 1.2 was created by id and never given to Apogee to distribute.
The short version of what I'm trying to say is that there is a reason why some versions of the Keen games don't appear on the site, and that reason is laziness! Because there was a bit of confusion about whether or not at least one version was real, and the fact that some versions were distributed by lesser known companies, and some of them were only distributed on CDs instead of BBSes and, thus, may or may not be legal to distribute... well, it was just easier to stick with the official releases, and that's what I did. I didn't come up with a satisfactory solution at the time, and then I moved on to other things.
Interestingly, I was just about to add a few of those versions to the site, but I spent yesterday redesigning the website so that recent changes wouldn't break the Classic DOS Games DVD-ROM. I'll probably follow through with those plans tomorrow.
Today entirely the maniac there is no excuse with the article.
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