Commander Keen (Game Boy Color)

And you thought Keen Dreams was the black sheep of the series?

Released almost a full decade after the Goodbye, Galaxy! games, the Game Boy Color Commander Keen is a genuine attempt to continue from where Aliens Ate My Baby Sitter! left off, having Keen face off against Mortimer McMire's scheme to rip the fabric of the universe to shreds with the "Omegamatic Warp Drive" and the return of many enemies and creatures from past games. (Dopefish fans, rejoice!)

Unfortunately, it was developed by the same company responsible for Earthworm Jim: Menace 2 the Galaxy, resulting in distinctly worse level design than the DOS Keen games, unclear mechanics that necessitate reading the manual, and the usual warts you'd expect from a mediocre GBC platformer. That being said, it's a far better swan song for the series than that incredibly atrocious mobile game Bethesda threatened to release at E3 2019...

Unused Graphics#

To do: There also appears to be unused graphics loaded into VRAM at the Omegamatic Warp Drive hub. Is there a way to break out of the linear overworld track? There might be more unused graphics or overworld details outside the camera. Look for unused graphics inside the levels themselves.

A few of the levels on the overworld have their full graphics cut off due to the linear camera track:

The top of The Plasma Crystal Mines' top-right crystal just barely avoids being in camera range in-game.

Shikadi in Space's left edge gets cut off, leaving the full UFO flying saucer unseen.

The camera stops before the top of Techno Lab's right tower comes into view.

Finally, the rightmost tiles of The Imperial Palace get cut off in-game.

Cheat Codes#

Two cheats entered on the password screen are known to exist:

And yes, that is just the first row of letters used by the password system in sequence/backwards.