Commander Keen: Keen Dreams

The Good
Keen Dreams is considered the lost episode of the Commander Keen series, and it is sandwiched between “Invasion of the Vorticons” and “Goodbye Galaxy!”, both in terms of technology and chronology. It is still developed by id Software, but Apogee did not publish it this time.

One of Billy’s first tasks after getting back from Vorticon VI is to eat dinner served with broccoli and mashed potatoes. Having an argument with his mother and refusing to eat his meal, he is transported to Tuberia, a land populated entirely by vegetables. He is told that a device called The Dream Machine was responsible for bringing him there. To get back to reality, he needs to destroy King Boobus Tuber and dismantle the Dream Machine.

Keen Dreams retains most of the elements that made the series popular. As soon as you start the game, you are still presented with the world map displayed in a top-down perspective, in which you can walk around at your leisure and enter individual levels. The green hills all around you as well as the brown path blend in with the vegetable theme, and the way the inhabitants wave at you is a nice touch.

Upon entering each level, the perspective changes to a side-on view, where you need to find the exit while dealing with live vegetables that try to kill you. There are some differences to the gameplay. As well as Keen wearing his pajamas, he doesn’t have his pogo stick or his raygun (he is walking around in a dream, after all.) Keen obtains power pellets along the way and uses them to temporarily turn vegetables into flowers. If a life is lost, you have the option of trying the level again or returning to the map. Some levels contain Boobus Bombs, which you need to collect if you want to defeat Boobus Tuber in the end. If you successfully complete a level, the word “Done” is written on a wooden sign right near the entrance, and you won’t be allowed to enter the level again.

The graphics are excellent and up to scratch with Keens 4-6. They made me feel that I was actually walking through detailed environments such as riverbanks, cities, and swamps. There are many platforms in the air, and some of them even have a pole that Keen can climb up to arrive at another. The Tomateeth (Killer Tomatoes) take advantage of these poles, in the same way Amptons in Keen 5 do. The way Keen shimmies down them like firefighters is a nice touch, so is Keen taking a nap if you leave him idle for a minute or two.

The controls can be configured to your satisfaction, but even with the defaults, controlling Keen is pretty simple, however. Only two keys - the [Ctrl] and [Alt] keys – are needed for jumping and shooting, respectively. I like this control method, because having played more than enough Apogee games, I got used to this a long time ago.

The Bad
There are a few omissions in Keen Dreams, and one of them is the lack of music. There is a button for it on the main menu, but the settings don’t do anything. This is purely id’s fault. Employees were still obliged to create games for Softdisk, whose policies dictate that all games made by a company must fit on a single 360K disk. id could have worked on a new Dangerous Dave and still signed a publishing deal with Apogee.

Also, Keen no longer has the ability to hoist himself up onto platforms if he does not make it. This means that you are expected to know where on the platform’s edge you have to jump without missing your target platform. Many times did I miss and landed on the ground, and have to work my way up again. As well as these two keys, [Space] can be used to bring up the status dialog box, and this tells you the score and the number of lives (also shown in the upper-left corner), as well as the number of keys and Boobus Bombs.

The Bottom Line
Overall, Keen Dreams is right up there with the other episodes of the series, but there are a few changes to the gameplay; there is no pogo stick and Keen can only stun enemies. The graphics blend in with the vegetable setting as well. Although the game is good, it is a shame that there is no music. This is a game every Keen fanatic should play.