Keen Lives!
id CEO jumps on Commander Keen nostalgia bandwagon
Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the release of the first shareware episode of "Commander Keen : Invasion of the Vorticons", the debut game from id Software, later to find fame and fortune as the developers of first person shooters such as "Doom" and "Quake". And today id CEO Todd Hollenshead gave a hint that the classic platform game series may not be dead, saying to "look for upcoming new Keen news in the not too distant future".
Sadly the chances of id halting development on their new Doom game to return to the exploits of the young Keen and his pogo stick are slim at best, but there are some interesting alternatives. Perhaps the "lost" episode six of Commander Keen is about to be re-released, after years in limbo following the collapse of its publisher. Or maybe id are planning to make the entire series available as freeware - after all, they have already released the source code for many more recent games such as Doom and Quake.
It's even possible that a new 3D Keen game may be under development - it's something that former id designer Tom Hall (now at Ion Storm working on "Anachronox") has apparently been keen (eugh) to do for some time now. Perhaps the most likely explanation though is that Commander Keen is on his way to the Gameboy Advance. A Gameboy version of Keen has been suggested before, but the old Gameboy Color didn't have the necessary umph to recreate the game in full. Or we could be completely wrong. Whatever the truth, we will no doubt know more soon...