Commander Keen 4-6
| Levels? |  Editable |
|---|---|
| Tiles? | Editable |
| Sprites? | Editable |
| Fullscreen? | Editable |
| Sound? | Editable |
| Music? | Editable |
| Text? | Editable |
| Story/cutscenes? | Editable |
| UI/menus? | Editable |
| Demos? | Unknown |
Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy is a very popular platform scroller, which set the benchmark for this style of game on a PC.
There is a large amount of modding info in the modding section of the KeenWiki and there is an extensive patch library allowing the game to be extended and changed considerably.
Tools
The following tools are able to work with this game.
| Name | Platform | Group/archives | Levels | Graphics | Music | Sounds | Text | Saves | .exe patch | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abiathar | Windows | N/A | Edit | No | Replace | Edit | No | No | No | |
| CKPatch | DOS | N/A | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | |
| IMF Creator | Windows | N/A | No | No | Create | No | No | No | Yes | |
| Keen: Next | Windows | N/A | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
| Keengraph | DOS/Win/Linux | N/A | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | |
| KeenWave | DOS/Win/Linux | N/A | No | No | Replace | Edit | No | No | No | |
| EModKeen/LModKeen | Win/Linux | N/A | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | |
| GalaxyView | Windows | N/A | View | View | No | No | No | No | No | |
| ModKeen | DOS | N/A | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | |
| The Omegamatic | Windows | N/A | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
| The Photachyon Transceiver | Windows | N/A | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
| Startext | DOS | N/A | No | No | No | No | Edit | No | No | |
| TED5 | DOS | N/A | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | No | |
| Wombat | Windows | N/A | View | View | View | View | View | No | No |
File formats
The following file formats are used by this game.
| Filename | Format | Details |
|---|---|---|
| audio.ck[456] | AudioT Format, IMF Format | Sound and music |
| config.ck[456] | Keen 4-6 Configuration File | Settings and high scores |
| egagraph.ck[456] | EGAGraph Format | Graphics, text and miscellaneous data |
| gamemaps.ck[456] | GameMaps Format | Level maps |
| keen[456]e.exe | B800 Text, Keen 4-6 Action Format | There are a couple of text screens in the main .EXE file (including the text displayed on the screen when you quit) |
| keen[456]e.exe | Keen 4-6 Action Format | Sprite behaviours are governed by this |
| keen[456]e.exe | Keen 4-6 Tileinfo Format | Tile information are governed by this |
The main executable also contains a number of important blocks of data. The offsets below apply after removing LZEXE compression. "xGA" refers to "CGA" or "EGA" depending on the game variant. There is no MAPDICT.CKx for any of the games as the maps are not Huffman-compressed.
| File | Size | Version | AUDIOHED.CKx | AUDIODCT.CKx | MAPHEAD.CKx | xGAHEAD.CKx | xGADICT.CKx | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offset | Length | Offset | Length | Offset | Length | Offset | Length | Offset | Length | |||
| KEEN4C.EXE | 248480 | 1.0 | 131984 | 652 | 216486 | 1024 | 146880 | 402 + 23004 | 132640 | 14232 | 217510 | 1024 |
| 248496 | 1.1 | 132000 | 652 | 216502 | 1024 | 146896 | 402 + 23004 | 132656 | 14232 | 217526 | 1024 | |
| 253056 | 1.4 | 136096 | 652 | 221020 | 1024 | 151008 | 402 + 23004 | 136752 | 14256 | 222044 | 1024 | |
| KEEN4E.EXE | 262240 | 1.0 Demo | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | 136336 | 402 + 23004 | 159744 | 18780 | 229382 | 1024 |
| 258064 | 1.0 | 141696 | 652 | 224758 | 1024 | 156592 | 402 + 23004 | 142352 | 14232 | 225782 | 1024 | |
| 259232 | 1.1 | 142672 | 652 | 225922 | 1024 | 157568 | 402 + 23004 | 143328 | 14232 | 226946 | 1024 | |
| 259920 | 1.2 | 143264 | 652 | 226612 | 1024 | 158176 | 402 + 23004 | 143920 | 14256 | 227636 | 1024 | |
| 263488 | 1.4 | 146416 | 652 | 230134 | 1024 | 161328 | 402 + 23004 | 147072 | 14256 | 231158 | 1024 | |
| 263488 | 1.4f | 146416 | 652 | 230134 | 1024 | 161328 | 402 + 23004 | 147072 | 14256 | 231158 | 1024 | |
| 264864 | 1.4g | 147664 | 652 | 231382 | 1024 | 162576 | 402 + 23004 | 148320 | 14256 | 232406 | 1024 | |
| KEEN5C.EXE | ? | 1.0 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 255248 | 1.4 | 138944 | 828 | 222600 | 1024 | 154576 | 402 + 23688 | 139776 | 14790 | 223624 | 1024 | |
| KEEN5E.EXE | 262176 | 1.0 | 146032 | 828 | 228234 | 1024 | 161664 | 402 + 23688 | 146864 | 14796 | 229258 | 1024 |
| 266096 | 1.4 | 149632 | 828 | 232132 | 1024 | 165264 | 402 + 23688 | 150464 | 14796 | 233156 | 1024 | |
| 267616 | 1.4g | 151008 | 828 | 233508 | 1024 | 166640 | 402 + 23688 | 151840 | 14796 | 234532 | 1024 | |
| KEEN6C.EXE | 256656 | 1.0 | 130848 | 760 | 222626 | 1024 | 148288 | 402 + 23904 | 131616 | 16665 | 223650 | 1024 |
| 261984 | 1.4 | 135728 | 760 | 227888 | 1024 | 153168 | 402 + 23904 | 136496 | 16665 | 228912 | 1024 | |
| 261456 | 1.5 | 135072 | 760 | 227232 | 1024 | 152512 | 402 + 23904 | 135840 | 16665 | 228256 | 1024 | |
| KEEN6E.EXE | 236112 | 1.0 Demo | 123872 | 588 | 203328 | 1024 | 137568 | 402 + 19152 | 124464 | 13098 | 204352 | 1024 |
| 238368 | 1.0 Promo | 126224 | 588 | 205590 | 1024 | 139920 | 402 + 19152 | 126816 | 13098 | 206614 | 1024 | |
| 266032 | 1.0 | 140320 | 760 | 230674 | 1024 | 157776 | 402 + 23904 | 141088 | 16683 | 231698 | 1024 | |
| 271696 | 1.4 | 145488 | 760 | 236270 | 1024 | 162944 | 402 + 23904 | 146256 | 16683 | 237294 | 1024 | |
| 270896 | 1.5 | 164528 | 760 | 235342 | 1024 | 181984 | 402 + 23904 | 165296 | 16683 | 236366 | 1024 | |
Note that the offsets and EXE sizes given here are only valid for files that have been decompressed with UNLZEXE. Decompressing the executables with other utilities like UNP may generate executables with a slightly different header size and therefore the size of the executable will not match the values listed above and the offsets will be invalid for such files.
AudioT Format Details
Keen 4, 5 and 6 use the compressed version of the AudioT Format to store music and sound. The main audio file for each game, the AUDIOT.xxx file, is called AUDIO.CKx (for example, AUDIO.CK4 for Keen 4).
The two secondary files needed for this format, the AUDIOHED.CKx and AUDIODCT.CKx, are embedded inside the main .exe file of each game as listed above.