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Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars is the first episode in the Commander Keen games. In this episode, aliens from the planet Vorticon VI find out about the eight year-old genius and plan his destruction. While Keen is out exploring the mountains of Mars, the Vorticons steal vital parts of his ship and take them to distant Martian cities! The four parts are the Joystick (for manual flight control), the Car Battery (for electrical systems power), the Vacuum Cleaner (reworked as an ion propulsion unit) and the Everclear (alcohol for fuel) — see Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket for details. Keen must explore the planet, fight the Martians and their robots, find the members of this Vorticon outpost and wrest the parts back from their wicked, clawed hands!
This is a tool-assisted speedrun, you know the drill.
  • Aims for fastest time
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Manipulates luck
  • Genre: Platform

Movie information

JPC-RR v11.6 was used to make the movie.
This TAS uses version 1.31 of the game. There are no TAS-relevant differences between versions - this one was chosen because of wide availability. You can locate a copy of it on the official site.
Here is the ImageMaker report on the disk image used: 
Entry: N/A            N/A                                      33 /
Entry: 19900101000000 b1e632ee0483b66c2f1dff487547753b      15568 /EGAHEAD.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 80a5870d9b48970333837fa0293561ed      57065 /EGALATCH.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 ed9a0d1736034c155555543263939fe7      17633 /EGASPRIT.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 3d9b5805e21a7cc7b248664b0b8f6494        942 /ENDTEXT.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 a44bcb798f931dc392903dcc5446c068       8565 /FINALE.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 476301a5a6ac41e39ea18d900e1c8e02       1859 /HELPTEXT.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 8b2b1f335bb49e0b81ad66af582de2ef      51190 /KEEN1.EXE
Entry: 19900101000000 075a98e05b6d5bbed80ec21420577582       1368 /LEVEL01.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 2d6b634fbce4aa357375d62300fb3e07        724 /LEVEL02.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 956f2bbf2ad4fe7c52ad90962bd92166       3474 /LEVEL03.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 57b24d48be8748362a0c5e2277d2d859       1720 /LEVEL04.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 1b6cd04bffb03fe26b722260da3316f9        810 /LEVEL05.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 7859497ced955aa87b4a935b43ae15b8        928 /LEVEL06.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 337259268ca2338ee4d16818cbcd59d4       5650 /LEVEL07.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 51b099927527e88f8450163d05c2ca39       3416 /LEVEL08.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 de0e0de6b46474e2f4f06fc9abfd3e61       1638 /LEVEL09.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 0bb9ac865cdcbd46bdcacd493669d499       2086 /LEVEL10.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 b341dd49e84d7580a9eb4280827a7251       1636 /LEVEL11.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 edf1eb3db5a424360996e82ecf1dba93       2178 /LEVEL12.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 0cb4b321cdbb2d69682c258788ce8e4b       9908 /LEVEL13.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 5d6d6814d7e7bf91dde2ec1792d45976       7024 /LEVEL14.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 09b0dc88bdb234d6b2efd5b8ac973dc0       2234 /LEVEL15.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 6ee167a36e7517320ff7ae6138f22e9d       5818 /LEVEL16.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 bfe6781e44056cbc248701ae192122ac       5638 /LEVEL80.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 b86086e33b4fb169f96abdf002fd64e3        758 /LEVEL81.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 dd1a09d6e332e0ae13c78670763ed891       1262 /LEVEL90.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 063d3bfda9c014b6395c1aa952ad2f8b       5714 /ORDER.FRM
Entry: 19900101000000 c8c4b2ce09a1d19d2763493c7e7ad44a      27886 /PREVIEW2.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 eaff03166eba1d1d5da749b0d687b3a6      25429 /PREVIEW3.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 c480310fb66b36854b293264dbf6d8ff       2160 /PREVIEWS.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 c726f4948d49c5b212cc6f6bc8a72247       8898 /SOUNDS.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 0f6e2c7fc0ec2df428757386b072b071       3504 /STORYTXT.CK1
Entry: 19900101000000 f8a5a377b9dbec63bba25148ea80adca       8876 /VENDOR.DOC

Tricks 

 Randomness

The RNG is seeded from the initial RTC time and only invoked when randomness is required. Having critters that behave randomly on-screen is the only way to advance the RNG. These include pink robots and all Vorticons. For details, TODO: make github or something

 THIS MEANS THAT MANIPULATION IS VERY LIMITED, VERY TIME-CONSUMING AND DEFINITELY WORTH USING ALL CAPS

 Oscillating movement

Every few frames, Keen moves one additional pixel forward unless he's not moving. The timing can be manipulated by entering levels earlier or later.

 Exiting levels

Keen's position when entering doors is irrelevant - while he will be out of view faster if landing closer to the edge, the transition will still be equally long. 

 Level border funkiness

Some level designer somewhere thought that exposing level borders was a good idea.
That wasn't the case, as demonstrated by both Keen 1 and Keen 2. The latter doesn't have any useful application for it, though.

 Stage by stage comments

 Introduction

Shooting the rock requires ammo. Grabbing the ammo here would be slower.
As always, luck in manipulated.

 Battery

Having the Yorps and the Vorticon Guard avoid Keen is less likely than you'd think.

 Joystick

Not having ammo here costs some time, but it's still faster than grabbing the ammo on LV01.

 Green

 Vroom

The Vorticon cannot be manipulated to jump over Keen - by the time his actions become random, it's already too late for it to matter.

 Everclear

Input is ended early.

 Special thanks to:

  • Xarthok: for following progress with devotion, helping with route planning and providing useful feedback.

 Suggested screenshots

TBA

Nach: Very nice run, accepting.

			

		

	
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						Posted: 5/7/2012 2:25 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										TASVideoAgent
									

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This topic is for the purpose of discussing #3593: turska's DOS Commander Keen: Episode 1 - Marooned on Mars in 03:40.70

				

				
			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 3:08 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										hegyak
									

									
								

								

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Nicely done.

				

				

					
						
When TAS does Quake 1, SDA will declare war.

The Prince doth arrive he doth please.

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 3:29 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										Xarthok
									

									
								

								

									
										
									
								

							

						

					

					

						
					

					

						
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Hell yeah! Two DOS Keens and one GBC "Keen" to go :D

				

				

					
						
This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 4:00 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										mklip2001
									

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Wow, the early games of the series were definitely less interesting.  This still made a nice snappy run though.  Yes vote.

Also, turska, great job with being so productive lately.  I think you're now the second-most prolific DOS TASer on the site (Ilari being the first).

				

				

					
						
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.

Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)

Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)

Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!

Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:

Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 5:14 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										Spacecow
									

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What's the deal with the missed jump (?) at 3:44 in the Youtube video?

				

				
			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 5:25 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										turska
									

									
								

								

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	Computer TASer of 2012
					

				

			

			

				

					
Spacecow wrote:
What's the deal with the missed jump (?) at 3:44 in the Youtube video?
Input is ended early, making the movie file a bit shorter at the cost of reaching the ending slightly later. In this case, I wasn't sure if it was worth it, but I went with it in order to be consistent with the Keen 2 run.

				

				
			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 8:08 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										Derakon
									

									
								

								

									
										
									
								

							

						

					

					

						
					

					

						
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Man, if this were an NES run without any nostalgia backing it, it'd be rejected so hard. 

As someone who never played the Commander Keen games (or indeed basically any DOS games) as a kid, frankly I've found them all to be pretty dull, and the earlier games in the series are certainly no exception. Meh vote for game choice.

				

				

					
						
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 8:25 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										KusogeMan
									

									
								

								

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Man, if this were an NES run without any nostalgia backing it, it'd be rejected so hard

As someone who never played the Commander Keen games (or indeed basically any DOS games) as a kid, frankly I've found them all to be pretty dull, and the earlier games in the series are certainly no exception. Yes vote because everybody should get their favorite games TAS'd.

				

				

					
						
TAS i'm interested:
megaman series: mmbn1 all chips, mmx3 any% psx glitched
fighting games with speed goals in general

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 9:11 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										mklip2001
									

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Derakon: You've got a good point.  I don't really like games 1 and 2 of the series as much, but I still found them short and tricky enough to vote in favor.

Nostalgia aside, I would say the main redeeming features of these games from an entertainment standpoint are:
1) Ability to pick ordering of stages (to an extent), making a route a little less linear.  Keen 4 was especially good at this, since some stages had items needed for others.
2) One hit kills you, which leads to some tense situations
3) Ammo management; is getting the pistol worth the time spent?
4) The pogo is really hard to control, so precise use of it looks pretty spiffy.

I basically voted yes for this run on account of points 2) and 4)... I know enough about this game to know how tough the moves were to perform.  I wouldn't have voted Yes for this if it were significantly longer, though.

				

				

					
						
Used to be a frequent submissions commenter. My new computer has had some issues running emulators, so I've been here more sporadically.

Still haven't gotten around to actually TASing yet... I was going to improve Kid Dracula for GB. It seems I was beaten to it, though, with a recent awesome run by Hetfield90 and StarvinStruthers. (http://tasvideos.org/2928M.html.)

Thanks to goofydylan8 for running Gargoyle's Quest 2 because I mentioned the game! (http://tasvideos.org/2001M.html)

Thanks to feos and MESHUGGAH for taking up runs of Duck Tales 2 because of my old signature!

Thanks also to Samsara for finishing a Treasure Master run. From the submission comments:

Shoutouts and thanks to mklip2001 for arguably being the nicest and most supportive person on the forums.

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/7/2012 11:54 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										FractalFusion
									

									
								

								

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	Glitchy TAS of 2013


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Surprise monster attack at 2:09!

This TAS doesn't seem so interesting to me. Probably because the first Commander Keen looks very simple in comparison to the other Keen games. I wish there was more of a use for shooting stuff, but this TAS only shoots once.

As for the end of input, you can do whatever you want, but I say that ending input there makes it look very bad.

				

				
			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/8/2012 4:19 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										DrJones
									

									
								

								

									
										
									
								

							

						

					

					

						
					

					

						
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I've heard that you can skip collecting keycards in this game. Granted, the only example I've heard is from that one level with consecutive coloured doors that you don't even visit in this TAS, but I thought I would mention it anyways.

The first commander keen is definitely simpler than the other games, but it still has some interesting sections that this TAS skips. The only thing I hate is that I always evade the Vorticon (as in this TAS) because I thought he was invincible, and years later I discovered that I just hadn't shoot him enough times. :p

				

				

					
						
No.

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/8/2012 7:33 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										korhojoa
									

									
								

								

									
										
									
								

							

						

					

					

						
					

					

						
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I've played these games and as a kid, they were quite difficult. Seeing them just destroyed like this is quite fun!

				

				
			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/8/2012 11:25 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										Nach
									

									
								

								

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Derakon:

I agree with you that the Commander Keen series is dull, and I played this when I was younger. Many of the old DOS platform games just don't hold a candle to the gameplay of NES platform games. Even then I would much prefer playing an NES or DMG game to Commander Keen or other DOS games.

On the other hand, if we were to view the games on their own merit without comparing to other platforms, or compare to other games on their own platform, the Commander Keen games aren't that bad, and actually pretty good, especially Goodbye Galaxy.

That, combined with their popularity I think makes them publish worthy here, if the run is reasonably entertaining and well played.

				

				

					
						
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/9/2012 3:30 AM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										CoolKirby
									

									
								

								

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	Exotic platforms TASer of 2014


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I think this is entertaining enough to be published. This game actually looks pretty fun, and you played through it nice and fast. Yes vote.

				

				
			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/9/2012 4:53 AM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										Derakon
									

									
								

								

									
										
									
								

							

						

					

					

						
					

					

						
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Nach: oh, don't take my post to mean I don't think this should be published. It was just an observation of how strongly nostalgia influences our decisions here.

				

				

					
						
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/10/2012 11:46 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										Nach
									

									
								

								

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Derakon: It was quite a good point. I for one appreciated it.

				

				

					
						
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/10/2012 11:58 PM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										Radiant
									

									
								

								

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Personal feelings aside, the first Keen trilogy was a major milestone in gaming on the DOS platform, and put ID software on the map. On the hardware at the time, games like these were commonly thought to be impossible. I feel that alone should warrant publishing this run.

				

				

					
						
Indie game developer

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/11/2012 12:43 AM
						
					
				
			

			

				
					Post subject: Movie published
				
			

			

				
					
					
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										TASVideoAgent
									

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This movie has been published.
The posts before this message apply to the submission, and posts after this message apply to the published movie.

----
[2034] DOS Commander Keen: Episode 1 - Marooned on Mars by turska in 03:40.70

				

				
			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 5/11/2012 6:53 AM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										franpa
									

									
								

								

									
										
									
								

							

						

					

					

						
					

					

						
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Radiant wrote:
Personal feelings aside, the first Keen trilogy was a major milestone in gaming on the DOS platform, and put ID software on the map. On the hardware at the time, games like these were commonly thought to be impossible. I feel that alone should warrant publishing this run.
I thought Cosmo or Duke Nukem did, maybe they were innovations in other areas. (I think cosmo proved it was possible to have lots of colours in a platformer with vertical and horizontal scrolling?

				

				

					
						
Ryzen 3700X, ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (WiFi) Motherboard, 32GB 3600MHz RAM, MSI Geforce 1070Ti 8GB, Windows 10 Pro x64

http://tasvideos.org/Nach/FranpaAlert.html

					
				

			

		

	




	

	

		

			

				
					
						
						Posted: 12/21/2017 6:51 AM
						
					
				
			

			
			

				
					
					
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										TheCoreyBurton
									

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Here are some extra encodes of this run. Higher resolutions are based on the game's native resolution and are scaled at 2x:

Direct Downloads:
10bit444 MKV: 480p, 960p
Compatibility MP4: 480p, 960p

Torrents:
10bit444 MKV: 480p, 960p
Compatibility MP4: 480p, 960p

To download the direct download links, you may have to right click on the link and select "save link as" (this option may be named differently depending on your web browser).

				

				

					
						
I'm not as active as I once was, but I can be reached here if I should be needed.