Happy 17th Birthday Keen!

As if DOOM wasn't old enough to make me feel my age now it's Commander Keen's birthday and I'm REALLY feelin' it. Today I'll just do a combo birthday announcement for the 1st and 2nd Keen trilogies (1-3 and 4-6) since Keen 4-6 was released on December 15th, 1991 and will be 16 years old. They're like big, old babies! LOL.

If you'd like to remember Keen or if you've never heard of it, check out some of these sites:

Keen History

Official Keen Site

Another Official Keen Site

Commander Keen fan site

Wikipedia entry

Back when Keen was released it was a sensation because no one had played a smooth Mario-style game on a PC before. I have a big box full of the letters from parents who wrote in ordering the game along with lots of praise - at that point we felt we were on the right track. And it all started with this little fella!

Happy 14th Birthday, DOOM!

It's that time of year again; time to raise a toast to the venerable DOOM. Blue's News has a nice comment about DOOM. Also, check out DoomWorld for the official site celebration.

I don't really have anything new to say except that working on DOOM was still one of the true highlights of my gaming career. Until you actually work on something as tremendous and magical as DOOM you have no idea what that feeling is like. We totally knew we were making something really special and beyond our previous games which in themselves were groundbreaking as well (Commander Keen; Wolfenstein 3D). I was fortunate enough to experience all that with my friends at id and it was truly awesome.

Text Console Library

When you first start coding in C/C++ your first programs are done in the console. The problem with the console nowadays is that the conio.h library no longer lets you do all the fun things it used to, like set the text color, set cursor position, clear the screen, etc. You can only print text out in a stream just like the olden days of the 70's and teletype printers. Lame.

This is the problem that all beginning game coders run into and it really takes some of the fun out of learning when you can't even sit down and try to write Pac-Man in text mode.

So I poked around and found a little snippet of code, added my own functions and now I have a nice little text console library you can use. Just add the console.h and console.cpp files into your empty Win32 console project and you can actually make text games. Without this kind of library you can't really make any kind of fun text game other than an adventure.

I threw together a short sample program to demonstrate what you can do. It's a simple maze that has a random exit ('X') in it; touch it and you win. The source is named main.cpp. The game? ULTRA-X OF THE FORBIDDEN REALM!

To add even cooler stuff to your console games you should download FMOD and link it into your project. Instructions on how to do this are on FMOD.ORG and are easy to follow. Imagine that - a text game with background music and sound effects.

Grab the code here (Windows only)