Category talk:Bio Menace patches

Relevance?

The editing notes for this page said that "In the future it might get relocated to the ModdingWiki" but really, do Bio Menace patches have any business being on the KeenWiki? Why wasn't this just posted on the ModdingWiki in the first place? -- Flaose

See discussion on Keen:Modding (half way down the page) - never really went anywhere but feel free to join in. The main reason being Bio Menace uses the same engine as Keen so many of the patches will be similar. I'd prefer the ModdingWiki but since the engine is the same I can see the point of putting them here too. -- Malvineous 23:04, 17 March 2011 (GMT)

Just how much of the commander keen source code was reused for Bio Menace? The "engine" proper (i.e., C files prefixed with ID_ in wolf3D), would have been reused, but what about the keen physics code / actor structures? Were those the same or completely new? Also, was the text screen (end of game menus, etc) parsing code reused for Bio Menace as well (this was not in any ID_ file either). Lemm 04:06, 18 March 2011 (GMT)

I'm not sure if that's known, but I suspect the complete source for one of the Keen episodes was provided and it was then modified as required. I would have expected that this would result in some very different patches, but then I've never reversed any of the gameplay code so I don't know for sure. -- Malvineous 09:24, 19 March 2011 (GMT)

While a bit late response, I'd add that my opinion about this has been varying: Beginning the KeenWiki way (cause patches are similar), then changing to ModdingWiki (as one looking for BM patches would look for then on the ModdingWiki first, I've guessed). Even now I'm not sure. To illustrate, there's the ck456dtli tool, which might be made for Keen Galaxy and Dreams, but there's the potential for BM support.

To Lemm, I have a feeling that almost all of the Commander Keen source code has been used. For one notable example, switches and goplats are available, both being Keen Galaxy features. NY00123 19:21, 29 March 2011 (GMT)

The parser for the text files is in WL_TEXT.C (Wolf3D source) and really is almost the same code that could have been used for Keen Galaxy and Bio Menace. It will even parse the delayed animation stuff that's used in Keen 4 even though those commands are never used in Wolfenstein per se. Probably the only difference is that Keen and Bio Menace are EGA games, so the Color stuff would read only one hex digit instead of two.

The same parser can even be found in the ROTT source (RT_TEXT.C), but I have no idea if it's actually used in ROTT. --K1n9 Duk3 15:47, 31 March 2011 (GMT)