Welcome to Commander Genius!
Commander Genius is an open-source interpreter for the Commander Keen (1-6, Dreams) and Cosmos Cosmic series which allows you to play the original episodes and some of the mods made for them. All of the original data files are required to do so, however, we conveniently provide a online store where you can get some of the games, including Keen 1, 4, Dreams and Cosmos 1 for your enjoyment. There are also mods that can be downloaded directly. Of course you still have the option to use your old original DOS versions of the game
- (c) 2008-2023 Gerstrong
- (c) 2020-2023 Gagster
- (c) 2010-2023 Pelya (Android-Distro)
- (c) 2020-2023 Elias Oenal (Switch port)
- (c) 2018-2023 Zilem
Commander Keen 1-6 and Dreams are fully supported. There are some smaller missing features like PaddleWar, but the whole gameplay is there.
Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure: Forbidden Planet is integrated into Commander Genius. The engine for that game is somewhat playable and the levels with the enemies work so far, but there is a lot do in order to get it working much better. At some point CG will fully support that game and provide smoother experience with many more fps compared to the original. Special Thanks to Eric Fry for his code!
There is an alternative called Reflection Keen which supports Keen Dreams, on which the code is based.
Commander Genius runs on Linux/X11/Wayland, Windows, MacOs, Android, Switch with some more unofficial ports. If you think you would like to port it, please send us a message and we will do our best to help you.
The main goal of Commander Genius is to copy the original gameplay feeling as much as possible, and extend it further so you get a native implementation with even more features like:
- Mod Support with some extras using Lua
- OpenGL Acceleration
- SDL 2.0 Support
- New graphical effects
- Multiplayer Support (Up to four players)
- High Quality Packs which make the game look better, provide better sounds and even music you might never have known existed in the original games
- In-game Menu for Vorticons Keen as well as a new HUD
- Named save slots
- Unrestricted Joystick Support
- and much more
The mission of Commander Genius held by open-source developers is to revive the gameplay experience of the games we had in the 90s when those Keen games were popular.
With experience we mean, we try to leave the graphics retro but take advantage of newer hardware meaning there are some enhancements over the original games. There is also Chocolate Keen (Keen 1-3) by NY00123 which tries to be as close to the original as possible including even the frame rates as they were. Also RefKeen should be mentioned, by the same author. It runs Keen Dreams and some of the Catacomb game series.
Now modern hardware offers much more than what we had back in the 90s. Commander Genius tries to take advantage of that modern hardware and bring a bit of old school experience to the Commander Keen games.
Because Keen was made for DOS and we thought Linux could have more nice platform games, here is an alternative for you.
Yes, there also exists DOSBox, but this is a native port without any emulation. We want to get out of that DOS limit era. Imagine Commander Genius like a platform base for the Keen games how it would be on modern hardware. That means there are some differences. The physics are close to the original, but you might notice some of the details if you are an elite expert on original Keen games. I think CG delivers a faster gameplay than the original ones. Since the framerate for graphics is higher, it feels a bit more like that. Some people might not like that, for those I recommend sticking to DOSBox.
Now, it is a bit hard to define what that experience is obviously, because many people experienced that gameplay differently in the past. Some people had Sound Blaster, others didn't. Some loved the joystick support, others preferred to use keyboard.
So getting an experience like old school for everybody is difficult.
What does Commander Genius do then? Interpreting those games on modern systems, that's all basically. It can draw more colors on your screen and fix some issues the original games had back then. For example Vorticon Keen has two-button firing as an option. All buttons can be mapped to any input device in Commander Genius. Also the mouse can be used to some extent.
The original Keen games also have some bugs and given that the hardware was very limited back then, it has some weird frameskips too. There are many details that are different when playing Keen with Commander Genius. So the conclusion is as follows.
If you really want a vanilla feeling, even feel the lack of hardware support and eventual slowdowns, we encourage you to play Commander Keen on DOSBox. Many people are out there that think that to be the right way to play it. Also for some mods it might be the only way.
Still though, Commander Genius has a patching system in which some mods run very well. If you want to create a mod that is not cryptic with machine code based patches, use CG with Lua scripts. It will make you more productive.
Commander Genius wants to be more like a new jump'n'run game that interprets Commander Keen. Billy Blaze visits all the levels you played before in the DOS version, taking advantage of your powerful computer or your mobile device. That's the strength of Commander Genius! If you are one of those people who want to experience Commander Keen in some new ways, then this software is for you!
The first engine was CloneKeen by a developer named Caitlin Shaw. Since the engine was left abandoned for the most part, Gerstrong took it and created the fork called CloneKeenPlus and fixed some problems CloneKeen had. This fork comes from the 0.83 Version.
After CloneKeenPlus, Commander Genius was born. It is a complete rewrite of the engine in C++. The transition to Commander Genius means a transition from C to C++ code mostly using OOP. After all this coding, we have retained only a small portion of the original CloneKeen code (about 0.02%).
There exist other similar engines, like Refkeen and Chocolate Keen, from which CG learned and tried to improve the overall gaming experience.
The Commander Genius source code may be freely distributed and modified as per the GPL, just remember to give credit to the original authors. We work very hard on this project and we deserve at least those credits!
Also give credit to the others who provided us with some code. They really deserve it.
Download it, install it and launch it. In the Game Launcher click/tap on "New Stuff" and choose your game. It will start to download. After it has finished, you can play it. You can download more titles if you want, enjoy!
If you happen to use Ubuntu, you might want to use our PPA so you always get updates. Add it using the command line and typing:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gerstrong/cgenius
Mageia and Arch Linux also have some packages by third-party maintainers.
Windows 7 up to 10 are supported. About older versions, I don't know. On some Windows Systems you might need to install the "Microsoft Visual Studio Redistributable 2015 (x86)" package in order to get it running.
On MacOS the recent dmg contain a version that is 64-bit only. You need to install macports first in order to get it running:
https://www.macports.org/install.php
After you have to install some SDL2 dependencies from the terminal using ports:
sudo port install libsdl2 libsdl2_mixer libsdl2_image libsdl2_ttf libsdl2_mixer curl
I plan to automate that in near future, but for the meanwhile that should do.
After having done that just open the DMG file and drag the Commander Keen Head to where you want the App to be installed on your Mac. Have fun!
CG-Data locations:
a) On Windows you usually find that directory under "Documents\Commander Genius". b) If you use Linux, open the directory "~/.CommanderGenius". c) Android's datapath usually is "/Android/data/net.sourceforge.clonekeenplus/files". For that you need to connect the device to your PC, normally through a USB cable, and in your options you have to enable file transfer. That way you access that directory. If you started CG, you already should find it and see some games.
If you have registered version Keen 2, 3, 5, or 6, put them into the directory where you will find your download games. That subdirectory is called "games". You can put personalized mods there as well.
Setting up the data for the game:
-
Copy the directory of the games to the "games" subdirectory of CG. If you own the registered versions, you can play all episodes, otherwise download the shareware version and copy them there. You also can use mods. If you have a bundled version, you already should be able to play episodes 1 and 4, as they are installed in that directory. If you connect your Android Device to the PC, normally you find a directory called something like like "/Android/data/net.sourceforge.clonekeenplus/files/games". Copy the games there where the shareware versions are and you should be fine.
You should note that the following versions of Keen work best: Keen 1 - Version 1.33 Keen 2 - Version 1.33 Keen 3 - Version 1.33 Keen 4 - Version 1.4 (EGA) Keen 5 - Version 1.4 (EGA) Keen 6 - Version 1.4 (EGA) Keen 6 Demo - Version 1.4 (EGA) Keen Dreams - Version v1.13 (EGA)
Other versions might work, but we cannot guarantee it. If you happen to own another version, I would recommend patching it first. There are free patches for that around the net. Also Keen 6 works on CG. Don't use the 1.5 version, which is not supported, sorry! Get the 1.4 version instead.
-
If you want to use some patched mods just copy them as separate games to that path. Remember that due to copyrights, mods usually do not come with the games to patch. Like in DOSBox, you have to copy the original game data with the patches in the same directory.
-
If you want improved sounds and music, just download the High Quality Pack (HQP) and extract it in the CG-Data location. Be aware that CG handles global HQ files and per-game files, depending on where the resources get extracted. Read the HQP readme for more information on how to use those resources. Using HQP, you might have to copy some resources to thespecific game directory so that CG can detect it. For example, you might want to copy ck1tiles.bmp to /games/keen1/. I'm thinking of making HQPs deprecated and providing special versions of the games in future.
How to launch Commander Genius (if you didn't compile it):
- Go to the program's directory.
- Under Windows you start "CGenius.exe", under Linux "./CGenius".
Getting the most recent source code:
- The most recent version is hosted at GitLab.
- From the Linux command line, type:
git clone https://gitlab.com/Dringgstein/commandergenius.git
cd Commander-Genius
- I recommend you using the master branch. I might create a more stable one later.
Requirements:
Build Tools. Works best with GNU Compiler and Clang which supports at least C++14 and C99.
SDL2, SDL2_Image, SDL2_mixer and SDL2_TTF. There is support for SDL1.2 but it is getting deprecated and will be removed in future.
Curl and Zlib, so you can fully use the Game store CG provides.
How to compile it under Ubuntu:
- Install through Synaptic like this:
sudo apt install build-essential libgl1-mesa-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev zlib1g-dev libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev
- Create an empty build Dir: mkdir -p CGeniusBuild
- Extract my source code into the "CGeniusSrc" directory.
- cd CGeniusBuild
- Run "cmake ../CGeniusSrc".
- Run "make".
- If everything went fine, you should be able to see an executable in the build directory. Copy the game data files to if you didn't already, and run Commander Genius. Even without any data copied, CG should run, but report that there are no games.
How to compile it under Fedora:
- Install using the package manager (replace "dnf" with "yum" for Fedora 21 or older):
dnf install -y SDL2-devel cmake cmake-data gcc-c++ mesa-libGL-devel libcurl-devel SDL2_image-devel SDL2_mixer-devel SDL2_ttf-devel
- Extract my source code into the "CGeniusSrc" directory.
- mkdir -p CGeniusBuild
- cd CGeniusBuild
- Run "cmake ../CGeniusSrc".
- Run "make".
- If everything went fine, you should be able to see an executable in the build directory. Copy the game data files to if you didn't already, and run Commander Genius. Even without any data copied, CG should run but report that there are no games.
Compiling CG on any Linux/UNIX (other than Ubuntu or Fedora):
- If you want to compile the game, you need to have all the standard development libraries and GNU C Compiler (at least version 4.8) installed on your system.
- You need to install the "SDL_mixer", "SDL_image", "SDL", "curl" and "Mesa/OpenGL" development libraries to get it to compile successfully.
- Extract my source code into the "CGeniusSrc" directory .
- mkdir -p CGeniusBuild
- cd CGeniusBuild
- Run "cmake ../CGeniusSrc".
- Run "make".
- Then, you can run "CGenius".
Compiling CG on Windows (using MSYS2): This is my recommended way, because you have a nice terminal/shell and pacman for package management. All the required dependencies can be pulled without too much hassle. You can also install my favorite IDE QtCreator and use all together if you want to develop CG further
- Go to https://www.msys2.org/ and get the i686 version for 32-bit or for 64-bit x86_64. You can have both builds in one system but I highly recommend staying always on one.
- Start its setup and just follow the instructions
- Like webpage instructions indicate: pacman -Syu and eventually pacman -Su If you are entirely through with that setup, the installation of dependencies for CG are next.
-> Prepare Environment for CG
- Set PACPFIX (32-bit):
export PACPFIX=mingw64/mingw-w64-x64
pacman -S base-devel
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-SDL2
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-SDL2_image
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-SDL2_mixer
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-SDL2_ttf
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-cmake
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-curl
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-zlib
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-gcc
pacman -S ${PACPFIX}-nsis
pacman -S git
-> Build CG using MSYS2
git clone https://gitlab.com/Dringgstein/commandergenius.git
mkdir cgenius_build
cd cgenius_build
cmake -G "Unix Makefiles" ../Commander-Genius
make
-> Build CG using Mac Ports (for MacOS Systems)
- Install Mac Ports. You can download it here: https://www.macports.org/install.php
- Open up a terminal
- Install some dependencies:
sudo port install libsdl2 libsdl2_mixer libsdl2_image libsdl2_ttf libsdl2_mixer curl git cmake
- You might get a dialog asking for the installation of Xcode dependencies. Please confirm that dialog.
- You also will be asked for the installation of more dependencies. You need to confirm all that.
- cd into a directory where you want to clone the sources:
git clone https://gitlab.com/Dringgstein/Commander-Genius.git
- Now you should have a directory called "Commander-Genius". It contains the source code. You can verify that with "ls"
- Create your build directory and cd into it:
mkdir CG-Build
cd CG-Build
- Prepare your build referencing to the sources you cloned:
cmake ../Commander-Genius -DUSE_OPENGL=0
- And build it:
make
- If everything went well, go into src and execute it:
cd src
./CGeniusExe
We also provide CMake for Wiz, if you want to compile it for embedded systems. We had support for Linux and Win32, but since there is a bug when built for a different Linux build (32-bit or 64-bit) we only use it for embedded systems. Also check out the CMakeLists.txt for more information.
If you also want to play Cosmos Cosmic Adventure, you can build the engine part for that now.
The module code for that is separate directory. In order to get do the following:
cd <CG-Sources>
git clone https://gitlab.com/Dringgstein/cosmos.git src/engine/cosmos
Now tell CMake that you also want to build Cosmos engine support:
cd <you CG-Build-Dir>
cmake -DBUILD_COSMOS=1 <CG-Sources>
Now you can build CG normally as described above.
NOTE: Currently the cosmos engine is highly experimental. Feel free to report bugs here: https://gitlab.com/Dringgstein/cosmos/-/issues
Normally when you start Commander Genius you see the launcher menu in which you can choose the Keen games that were detected in the subdirectory. The CGLog.txt also tells you what CG detected on the system and gives feedback on further events that might occur. It is good to take a look at that file if something in CG goes wrong.
Optionally, you can pass launch arguments to Commander Genius. These are:
dir=<game-directory> This will launch the game from the given directory, if it
can be started, otherwise it will go to the game launcher
with a warning shown. If you have director name with spaces
just use double quotes
E.g.: CGenius.exe dir=games/keen4
E.g.: CGenius.exe dir="games/Keen 1 Special Edition"
finale=<on/off> If you want to directly show the finale of a game, pass
this parameter.
E.g.: "CGenius.exe finale=on"
level=<level> Supplying this parameter will directly open the given
level; very useful for testing.
Note about Cosmos Cosmic Adventure: The level number
is the map passed. This means for example that level 6
might become level 5. The reason for that are the
bonus levels which occupy some slots in between the maps.
exportGfx=<on/off> Exports graphics of the loaded game and saves them as BMP
in the gaming directory
Example: If you want to start the game with the path "C:\games\keen5", type:
CGenius dir=games/keen5
Remember, the path must be known by the game launcher. Absolute paths of games can be defined in the cgenius.cfg file in the [FileHandling] section. We might improve that in future.
One of the special features in Commander Genius is the multi player mode up to four players. It is meant to be having being cooperative.
You might need space in the levels and a better point of view, so you should consider switching the Game Resolution to 640x480. This might reveal some secrets but the internet also reveals those to what...?
Because everything happens in one screen, the camera moves according to the first player. Pressing the camlead button ("c" as default when using keyboard), you pass the camera to the next player. Now the first player have to follow him. He can pass the camera to the next player at any time. The last player would pass it to first one, like cycling through it happens. The red line under the helmet icon in the HUD indicates how has the camera.
Secret Key (Galaxy only): While multiple players are seen, hold the Shift-key and press 1,2,3 or 4 to assign the control to another player. He has to have the camera in order to do that.
Being cross-platform, there are many methods to detect different resolutions on a system.
Generally it is not necessary, because many resolutions are already supported, but if you want to support other resolutions that you don't find in the options list, just modify the "cgenius.cfg" file by hand. CG always reads this file and checks whether your card and monitor support it and, if possible, uses it. But, use it at your own risk.
We had to go that way, because there are many systems that through SDL do not always return the correct list of possible resolutions though CG tries to read that list, so you might be lucky and everything for your case is supported.
CAUTION: This is recommended for advanced users who know what they are doing. The team won't bother if you use a wrong configuration, because you just manually edited it.
Before you play the game, you should take a look at the controls. Normally LAlt, Ctrl, Space and Enter are the action keys. You can also assign joystick buttons, axes and hats to those actions or just change the keys to your liking. The changes are global to all the Keen games.
For mobile users, I added the "sandwich" button which during the gameplay can be seen at the top right corner (FONTCOLORS::RED color). Click or tap on it to open the main menu.
Also Quicksave is possible. Just press F6 to save and press F9 to restore your quicksave. Since in Keen you have to save a lot this is very convenient.
There are a full assortment of cheat codes available. Some cheats must first be enabled with -cheat or through the options->game menu. C+T+SPACE and G+O+D will always work.
KEY ACTION DESCRIPTION
G+O+D godmode In god mode you are invincible!
C+T+SPACE All Items Gives all items, similar to the original.
KEY ACTION DESCRIPTION
F10+G Godmode In god mode you are invincible!
F10+I All Items Gives all items, similar to the original.
F10+J Fly This will make Keen fly at any time.
F10+N No Clipping With this cheat, you will go through walls.
Be careful, you might also fall through the floor
sometimes.
Mobile users: For those unlucky enough to not have a keyboard you can open "options->cheats" and trigger those wonderful cheats.
The game can be saved from the menu at any time. Keen will be saved at the exact position it was left. In the Vorticons engine it will save the game within the level as well. On Galaxy and Dreams games it works like usual.
Q: Where are Commander Keen 2, 3, 5 and 6?
A: Due to legal issues with the Commander Keen games, we are only allowed to provide a copy of Keen 1, 4, Dreams and everything mod related to those. This is possible because it is shareware. If you happen to have a copy of the other Keen games, just copy them to the data directory under "games" and CG will detect them.
Q: Commander Genius is slow! Please help!
A: You can decrease the fps under settings->video. OpenGL may also help on some systems with ScaleX disabled. Try to lower the resolution, use a lower filter, or decrease some stuff in the sounds section. Stereo sound requires additional calculations compared to mono sound. There are many things you can do to speed up the program. Also HQP requires more resources.
Q: Commander Genius is too fast! Please help!
A: There have been situations observed where Commander Genius too fast. When the VSync option is enabled there is no special latency running, because it is assumed that the graphics card does the throttling to the amount of fps configured through your hardware and drivers. There are situations where such hardware does not do that but instead tries to render as much as possible, making CGenius run as fast as the CPU. So in a nutshell, enabling or disabling the vsync might help in some ocasions. Also check if OpenGL is enabled or disabled.
Q: Strange DPI Setttings on Windows 10?
A: If you use different DPI Settings and have graphical issues using CG, it's recommended to right click on the executable on CGenius, click Properties, Compatibility, Change high DPI settings, and set High DPI scaling override to Application. Not doing that might result in black screen on CGenius on some screens in fullscreen mode.
Q: What about the run actions?
A: It is disabled by default. Feel free to assign it. This action when its button is held down will make Keen run very fast (Only Keen 1-6). It might break some levels though, because these game never were meant to have such feature. It is still cool though.
Q: What about Keen Dreams?
A: You can already play it through. Never thought we would support that one day, but NY00123 made it possible. Not all versions are supported, but the supported version has a few enhancements as well. If you forget to collect some of the bombs in a level, you can replay that level, making the game better to play in my opinion. The support on that game is still a WIP but you can finish it already.
Q: Will Commander Genius support more games?
A: I like the ScummVM approach for adventure games. Maybe one day we do that in CG for other great DOS platformer titles, maybe one day...
Q: The log file annoys me, how can I disable it? A: Under section "FileHandling" (You might want to create it), add the line "EnableLogfile = false".
So you found one or more bugs? Please report those to use via GitLab issues and they might get fixed. Depending on the priority, we are going to fix them as soon as possible. Sending us the "CGLog.html" file helps with tracking down issues. Also remember to test using the latest version from the testing repo we provide. Your error might have been already fixed there.
Of course you can send an email, but GitLab is more useful to me:
https://gitlab.com/Dringgstein/Commander-Genius/issues
For the Cosmos Engine please use this page:
https://gitlab.com/Dringgstein/cosmos/-/issues
Many thanks to the people who have helped me so far in this project with their suggestions:
- Sanic The Hedgehog
- XRackProject
- Passion4Pins
- Lemm
- Mewingtree
- Mancus
- Zilem
- Vanfanel
- Hagel
- FCTW
- Markus Arnold (ThinkLabs. Thanks for your generous contribution.)
- DSL (Nice legacy icon contribution)
- Motorfingers
- James Le Cuirot
- Tim Wegener
- Qbix and his DOSBox team (for creating DOSBox, which made Dosfusion possible)
- Chrisfischtopher
- Commander Spleen
- Dreams
- Casey Bird
- Raymond Larabie
- Alexander 'z33ky' Hirsch
- Pizza2004
- Pickle
- Sciz CT
- hasufell
- Alexandre Detiste
- Zear
- Oet
- Eric Fry (Cosmos engine)
- Napalm (More Keen data structure information)
- Malvineous
- Clobber
- Mewingtree (Keen 6 Demo support)
- Hans de Goede (The Redhat/Fedora Guy)
- Levellass (Keen EXE information)
- ZidaneA (For his music tracks!)
- Iv4n (wiivn)
- Ildar Mulyukov
- ianhan79
- Dan Church
- Lee Reilly
- Vincent Beers (davince21)
- Rohit Nirmal
- Rémi Verschelde
- Lucio
- Albert Zeyer
- Tulip
- Pizza2004
- Pickle
- NY00123
Tom Hall and John Romero for his recommendations and overall design of the original game. John Carmack and Adrian Carmack for making it technologically possible to bring such great graphics and animations to the screen. Also special thanks to Bobby Prince for his music and everybody I forgot here. You created all an awesome product that will live forever thanks to the fans.
Also many special thanks to Martin Hauber (Tulip), Hagel and Mancus Nemo who have been supporting me all the time in testing the Windows version of CG and giving me access to a lot of information about the games. Without you it wouldn't be that great!
Special thanks to Chad Ian Anderson (Pizza2004) in helping us so much in many points of the game. Every time I had the chance to test his port in Mac it was awesome. I like his work! Even in difficult times, he always supported us. I hope to read from him some time again...
Furthermore, special thanks to Scott (Pickle) and Albert Zeyer for their changes. They helped out a lot on the quality of the code and performance incrates.
Also special thanks to NY00123 for helping to test many different versions and improving them. Too bad he invests his time on his own projects right now, but still awesome stuff he creates. Also the Reflection Keen port helped to integrate Keen Dreams in CG. Thanks for that hard work!
I'm sure, there were more people who helped us and whom we forgot to mention, but many thanks to them also.
And many thanks to all of you, the project has become that awesome!
For questions, comments, or updates to the source tree please contact: gerstrong@gmail.com or go through SourceForge at http://clonekeenplus.sourceforge.net/
