What is Commander Keen? Turn back the clock to 1989. The Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES, is the leading video game console, and the Super Mario Bros. series is the blockbuster of the videogame industry. Such sidescrolling techniques have never been used on the PC; games usually take place on a single screen, or chunk around in an awkward, unpleasant excuse for scrolling. Meanwhile, the 'shareware' concept was just beginning to take off on the PC, pioneered by the Apogee company. Shareware games rarely paid off because people rarely registered them, and there were consequently few to no commercial-quality games released via shareware.

Then came Commander Keen. What was Commander Keen? Commander Keen was the first smoothly side-scrolling PC game, matching NES quality to the letter, and putting Super Mario Bros. to shame. Commander Keen was the first commercial-quality shareware game, funded and then distributed by Apogee. And Commander Keen was the first product made by the fledgling company iD Software (We're "in Demand"), soon to be world-famous for their line of cutting-edge games.

    The original trilogy, Invasion of the Vorticons, was a raving success. The first episode, Marooned on Mars, was free to distribute, but those who wanted to save Earth in episode 2 and then learn the secret of the Grand Intellect in episode 3 had to order the full version for $30.

Commander Keen paid off, and iD Software could stand on its own.

So that's it, then, right? iD gets its feet off the ground, Apogee gets to distribute a commercial-quality game, and Mario-quality scrolling shows up on the PC. End of story, right? Wrong.

After making a variety of small games to fulfill a contract with Softdisk (the company all the members had formerly worked for), iD decided it was time for—you guessed it—a sequel, to one of the most successful PC games ever.

Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy!

Now the team had a designated, experienced artist to give Keen a quality look, topped off with an isometric ("2.5D," as some people refer to it) point of view. Now the scrolling was smoother, the settings more dynamic and detailed, the enemies more varied and interesting, and altogether the best sequel that anyone could ever have hoped for for Commander Keen. The storyline continued right where it left off, Keen was maneuverable and could do a variety of agile moves, and it even included sound card support and had a self-playing demo mode and a mini-game called "Paddle War," based on "Pong."

At the same time as Goodbye, Galaxy, iD released a commercial Keen game called Aliens Ate my Baby Sitter. This game was originally intended to be released with Goodbye, Galaxy, but instead was released by itself as a commercial (instead of shareware) Keen game. Advertisements boasted that it was larger than the entire Invasion of the Vorticons trilogy, and it could easily stand on its own as a single game independent from the series, though its storyline, once again, was in direct continuity from the game before it.

Back before Invasion of the Vorticons, iD Software hadn't existed yet, and its to-be members had worked for a medium-quality shareware development company called Softdisk. John Carmack developed a smooth scrolling engine, but Softdisk didn't want to use it because it required high-end video cards. He offered it to Nintendo for a PC port of Mario, but Nintendo decided Mario should be a console-only title. The only remaining option, then, was for Carmack and some of his co-workers to form their own company and make their own game. Hence iD came into being and eventually came up with Commander Keen.

But even though iD's members left Softdisk, they still had a contract to fulfill, which meant making a lot of medium-sized games for Softdisk. Between Keens 3 and 4, amidst making countless of these small games, they decided to make a Keen game for Softdisk. Using some of the work they'd already completed for Keen 4, they made a medium-sized, single-episode game called "Keen Dreams". This game is usually not recognized as part of the main Keen series, but rather is often referred to as the 'Lost Episode' of Commander Keen. Many fans refer to it as Episode 3.5, as it is between episodes 3 and 4 in storyline, tech level, and publication date.

After Keen 6, the series was going to continue with "Commander Keen 7: The Universe is Toast!" It was going to be a third-person 3D game like Super Mario 64, featuring Commander Keen, and it would be Keen vs. Mortimer for the final challenge! Unfortunately, it was pushed aside when iD made Wolfenstein 3-D, and then as the Doom and Quake series unraveled, Keen was left in the dust. Various iD games feature Keen-based cameos on occasion, but other than that iD seems to have forgotten about its groundbreaking firstborn.

Recently a Keen game was developed for the Gameboy Color, simply called "Commander Keen." Unfortunately, this game lacks most of what makes Commander Keen what it is, and misrepresents countless elements of the game, though is arguably a decent game as far as Gameboy-Color games go.

The ground-breaking smooth-scroller Invasion of the Vorticons. The Lost Episode Keen Dreams. The ultimate sequel Goodbye, Galaxy. The commercial Aliens Ate my Baby-Sitter. Then in Christmas '93 there was supposed to be The Universe is Toast. Years came, and years went, and still there was no Keen 7. In 2001 Commander Keen for the Gameboy Color was released, disappointing many fans who had high hopes for it. And still there was no The Universe is Toast. Will it ever come into existence? Who knows. But in the mean while, fans have made countless fangames and mods, and even a host of generic forms of fanfiction ranging from TV-quality flash animations to a professional-quality comic series. The Universe is Toast may never exist, but Commander Keen is far from dead!