Introduction to the “Commander Keen: Shadowlands” tileset:
The “Commander Keen: Shadowlands” tileset is a take of the second Commander Keen series’ Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle’s tiles.
Content:
One tileset, one example level, one battle level, and one text file are in the reviewed zip file.
Unbiased Review:
This seems to be the most important section of the tileset review. The tileset is based on a game not related to this.
Design/Content: 1.8/2.5
There are a fair number of tiles in the tileset. The tileset also is able to cover the most frequently used events, which is very important, and many tilesets lack. Though it is possible to flip tiles, they don’t really make up for the left side of a platform very well. The masking of the tileset does hurt the tileset as a whole, but unfortunately, there is no such thing as
a perfect masking.
Tile/Tile compatibility: 2.1/2.5
The tiles fit pretty well together. There is still the occasional excess room for confusion when putting tiles together in a level. However, this was made up by the formation of the tiles within the tileset (a common idea used by ideal tileset developers.) Extra animations were also supplied in the tileset. Perhaps the most amusing animation in the tileset was that of Spaz devouring the dopefish of the second Commander Keen series. This didn’t make up for any confusion in the
tileset make-up, but the other animations did.
Tile/Event Compatibility: 2.0/2.0
The tileset covered most tile-event combinations. As long as the supplied events worked (which they did), the designer of the tileset didn’t have a problem with this portion of the rating.
Tile/Concept compatibility: 0.8/1.0
Besides the day/night transition animation, it was an original concept. This tileset has a strong showing of tiles and their concepts. Though they helped this rating, the extra concepts didn’t really carry out anything useful in any level.
Layer use: 0.5/1.0
Aside from the content downfall, the compatibilities with the tiles and the layers was a sad downfall on the tileset’s part. The only real active layers are the few sprite layers, and maybe the background layer if there is a day/night transition. The eyecandy wasn’t at any current or previous standard (which couldn’t be helped since the original was done in 256 colors.)
JCS compatibility: 1.0/1.0
The tileset is fully compatible with JCS. As far as I know, this is a given for any tileset that works perfectly, and allows enough room for animated tiles to work.
Overall rating: 8.2/10.0
This tileset had limits, which probably could be resolved with a few tweaks that didn’t require much intelligence. The animations, tile make-up, and event compatibility had a well-rounded balance of ratings.
Biased Review:
My thoughts on the tileset aren’t much different from the unbiased review. There are a few different points that could be brought up, though.
Reusability: 3.5/5.0
There aren’t too many reasons to compel you to keep using this tileset for your levels. It isn’t a bad idea to use it for your levels at all, on the other hand. The tileset should be compatible with most of your ideas that apply to the official tilesets.
My opinion on this tileset: 4.5/5.0
The tileset is a fine display of work. I’m sure there was a lot of effort involved in designing this tileset. From the example levels, you can see the author was able to use it pretty well. In any case, this isn’t a tileset that you shouldn’t reconsider taking a look at, in my opinion.
My overall rating: 8.0/10.0*
From what I believed, I thought the tileset was pretty good. That’s all I really have to say about it besides my biased review.
True rating: 8.1/10.0*
Combined, the two reviews are only one tenth of a point apart. The tileset is considered not great, but good. The original rating of 8.2 is fair enough.
Summary:
If you are a fan (or were a fan) of Commander Keen, you should like this. If you are not a fan (or were not a fan) of Commander Keen, you might still like this. In other words, this tileset has my recommendation for a download.
How could this tileset be improved?
The left side of platforms and the eyecandy of the tileset could be tweaked a bit. Confusion with the tileset’s build could also be fixed by re-arranging the tiles in a more suitable manner, though they were done pretty well.
Interesting fact:
The tileset covers the tiles of more than just one level of Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle. The original levels were intended to look like Keen landed in a forest.
- Only the unbiased rating counts towards the site’s review rating system.
~ Derby