Commander Keen
For those who can read the title of this post without experiencing uncontrollable spasms of reminiscence, Commander Keen was an epic side scrolling video game first created in the early 1990's. It was fantastic.
The main protagonist is Billy Blaze. Billy is an eight-year-old boy genius who constructs a spaceship in his backyard from old soup cans and other household objects, called The Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket. When his parents are out and the babysitter falls asleep, he dons his brother's Packers football helmet and becomes Commander Keen, Defender of Earth.
Commander Keen, overcame alien environments with his trusty ray gun and a pogo stick, which enables him to reach high platforms and jump over his numerous devious enemies.
The Commander Keen series stretched seven games (This is counting the obscure "Keen Dreams" game, in which Commander Keen does not have his full complement of weapons - and must instead turn his enemies into flowers. Many people don't.) but these adventures is not the real topic of todays post, instead I want to mention one of the most prominent and perhaps Commander Keens most dangerous enemy. The Dopefish.
This monster still haunts my dreams to this day. Capable of extremely fast attacks, the dopefish would swallow our hero, turn to the screen, and burp. It was quite capable of sending me into a murderous rage, to which, no keyboard or screen was safe.
Dopefish is described in the cast of characters for "Secret of the Oracle" as the second dumbest creature in the universe. His thought patterns go, "swim swim hungry, swim swim hungry." Dopefish "will eat anything alive and moving near them, though they prefer heroes." (it is the second dumbest as a reference to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is the dumbest)
If you recognize the Dopefish and have never played a Commander Keen game, I am not surprised. The fish (scientific name: Pisces swimeatus) has since taken on a life of its own as a PC game industry in-joke and since its conception has had cameos in 28 games (not including the Commander Keen Apogee games) including: Wacky Wheels, Quake III Arena, Max Payne, Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem 3D, Warcraft 3 and Descent III.
This kind of easter-egg is missing from todays games, as currently game developers are watched closely to ensure they do not input this kind of non-regulated creative content into the play experience.
Although still entirely possible in TV and Movies (See Invader Zim, Bloody Gir in the refrences) It is getting more and more dangerous to place easter-eggs in mainstream games.
This migration from programmer hidden easter-egg to managerially regulated bonus content can be tracked and linked back to the 1996 firing of Jacques Servin who programmed in muscular bikini-clad men who periodically appear and kiss one another in the Maxis game SimCopter.
Personally i find this migration trend a shame, and it is my opinion that video games have lost a lot of the character which they used to have, because of it. Bring me back my Dopefish.
Would you like to know more?
Jacques Servin Documentation
Dopefish Info
Wikipedia Dopefish Info
Wikipedia Commander Keen Info
Easter eggs and the Trusted Computing Base
Wikipedia Bloody GIR Info
The main protagonist is Billy Blaze. Billy is an eight-year-old boy genius who constructs a spaceship in his backyard from old soup cans and other household objects, called The Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket. When his parents are out and the babysitter falls asleep, he dons his brother's Packers football helmet and becomes Commander Keen, Defender of Earth.
Commander Keen, overcame alien environments with his trusty ray gun and a pogo stick, which enables him to reach high platforms and jump over his numerous devious enemies.
The Commander Keen series stretched seven games (This is counting the obscure "Keen Dreams" game, in which Commander Keen does not have his full complement of weapons - and must instead turn his enemies into flowers. Many people don't.) but these adventures is not the real topic of todays post, instead I want to mention one of the most prominent and perhaps Commander Keens most dangerous enemy. The Dopefish.
This monster still haunts my dreams to this day. Capable of extremely fast attacks, the dopefish would swallow our hero, turn to the screen, and burp. It was quite capable of sending me into a murderous rage, to which, no keyboard or screen was safe.
Dopefish is described in the cast of characters for "Secret of the Oracle" as the second dumbest creature in the universe. His thought patterns go, "swim swim hungry, swim swim hungry." Dopefish "will eat anything alive and moving near them, though they prefer heroes." (it is the second dumbest as a reference to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is the dumbest)
If you recognize the Dopefish and have never played a Commander Keen game, I am not surprised. The fish (scientific name: Pisces swimeatus) has since taken on a life of its own as a PC game industry in-joke and since its conception has had cameos in 28 games (not including the Commander Keen Apogee games) including: Wacky Wheels, Quake III Arena, Max Payne, Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem 3D, Warcraft 3 and Descent III.
This kind of easter-egg is missing from todays games, as currently game developers are watched closely to ensure they do not input this kind of non-regulated creative content into the play experience.
Although still entirely possible in TV and Movies (See Invader Zim, Bloody Gir in the refrences) It is getting more and more dangerous to place easter-eggs in mainstream games.
This migration from programmer hidden easter-egg to managerially regulated bonus content can be tracked and linked back to the 1996 firing of Jacques Servin who programmed in muscular bikini-clad men who periodically appear and kiss one another in the Maxis game SimCopter.
Personally i find this migration trend a shame, and it is my opinion that video games have lost a lot of the character which they used to have, because of it. Bring me back my Dopefish.
Would you like to know more?
Jacques Servin Documentation
Dopefish Info
Wikipedia Dopefish Info
Wikipedia Commander Keen Info
Easter eggs and the Trusted Computing Base
Wikipedia Bloody GIR Info