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Kickstart a Commander Keen successor, and the tools to build your own
Tom Hall's "Worlds of Wander" game creation tool looks Keen, literally. It looks like the classic side-scroller Commander Keen, which Hall designed back in 1990. Hall has launched a Kickstarter for the Worlds of Wander tool, through which he promises to deliver not only a method to create and share your own games, but a full sample game to play and experiment with.That game may be enough to secure pledges on its own. Secret Spaceship Club is billed as "the spiritual successor to Commander Keen." It stars two kids who discover a world of "secret space agents who disguise their spaceships as common objects," and set off to help them defeat the Bumbledybots.The editor allows users to create content in either a streamlined "Simple Mode" ("Smart-draw with ground tiles, ladders, bridges, switches, and more (it nicens the edges for you), then populate your world with NPCs and enemies and objects and dangers, then hook them all up with an easy-to-use Place 'n' Fiddle interface!") or a more robust Advanced Mode, and make levels to play on iOS, PC, Mac, and Ubuntu.It will allow all that, if the $400,000 Kickstarter goal is raised. The drive just launched, with just $750 as of writing. "This isn't just a spiritual successor to Keen," Hall notes. "It's an editor and game content-sharing community – so that means servers, community support, lots of art and design and programming!"
id's Carmack wants to support current franchises, new IPs unlikely
Rage represents a rather large milestone for Carmack's id team. Not only is it the first game to use id Tech 4, it's the first id game to be published by new owner Bethesda. It's also the first new IP from the team in over a decade, since 1996's release of Quake. If a recent interview in the Official PlayStation Magazine (via CVG) is to be believed, it's likely that the new new IP from id will be just as far away. "I doubt we're going to do another IP," Carmack told OPM. "We want to support Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake -- and hopefully we can add Rage onto that. ... Obviously, if Rage is a success then we'll want to do a Rage 2." Considering the lengthy development cycles at id (evidenced by the currently-MIA Doom 4) who knows when the next new IP will bubble out of the company? Especially with that Commander Keen reboot getting in the way, right?
GOG in the Machine: Duke Nukem 3D, more Apogee on the way
Week after week, Good Old Games bring us a bountiful list of memories from our childhood. This week the company's bringing not just Duke Nukem 3D for $5.99, but the announcement that Apogee Software has agreed to distribute through GOG's digital distribution platform. (Wait, does that mean Commander Keen as well?!)From what GOG has confirmed with us, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, Blake Stone: Planet Strike, and Rise of the Triad: Dark War are all in the queue for "the upcoming weeks." (So, no Commander Keen then, eh?) If you'd like a refresher on how hilarious and ridiculous hilarculous the Duke can be, check out the modern-classic Duke Nukem Trilogy trailer from last year's E3 after the break.[Thanks, Brent]
Ion Storm, Wolfpack vets lift lid off KingsIsle Entertainment
When the folks at KingsIsle Entertainment first approached us saying that they were working on something mysterious, we couldn't help but be intrigued. After all, this is a company co-founded by Tom Hall of id Software and Ion Storm fame, not to mention such nostalgic favorites as Commander Keen and Rise of the Triad. Of course, then we heard their project was an MMO, which was about the same time we began to feel uneasy and in need of nearby exit. Little is known about the new MMO project, save for the fact that it's been under the knife for three years and is one of two projects currently being banged out by the fledgling studio. Still, there's reason to believe that KingsIsle's MMO could turn out something worth looking out for, and not just another corpse on the massively multiplayer Hamburger Hill. Besides Hall, the company is being helmed by former Midway Games vet David Nichols, while development efforts are being led by former Wolfpack Studios president Todd Coleman, who worked on the semi-popular MMO Shadowbane in a previous life. Even so, with everyone and their brother coming to the table, forks in hand, boasting the 'next great MMO,' it's difficult not to be jaded, so we'll be looking forward to seeing what more comes out of this company in the weeks ahead.
