Commander Keen (video game)

Commander Keen
Cover art
Developer(s)	David A. Palmer Productions
Publisher(s)	Activision
Designer(s)	David Palmer
Artist(s)	Jim Meston
Composer(s)	Mark Cooksey
Series	Commander Keen
Platform(s)	Game Boy Color
Release	NA: May 29, 2001 PAL: June 15, 2001
Genre(s)	Side-scrolling platformer
Mode(s)	Single-player

Commander Keen is a side-scrolling platform video game developed by David A. Palmer Productions and published by Activision in June 2001 for the Game Boy Color. Part of the Commander Keen series, it was released ten years after the first seven episodes in 1990–91. The game follows the titular Commander Keen, an eight-year-old child genius, as he journeys through three alien worlds to collect three plasma crystals to prevent the weapon they power, built by several enemies from previous games, from destroying the universe. The game features Keen running, jumping, and shooting through various levels while opposed by aliens, robots, and other hazards.

The original games of the Commander Keen series were developed by id Software, but after the success of their 3D first-person shooters such as Wolfenstein 3D (1992) and Doom (1993), they canceled the planned future episodes in the series. In 1999, founder John Carmack remarked that he was considering making a Game Boy Color game for the series, and sometime afterwards id approached Activision with the idea. Activision recommended David A. Palmer Productions to develop the game, as they had been proposing to make Game Boy Color versions of id's other games, and Palmer proceeded to make the game with oversight from id. The game was announced in April 2001 and released soon after. It received mixed reviews from critics, who gave varied opinions on the quality of the game's graphics and the suitability of the ten-year-old computer-based gameplay on a modern handheld game console, and generally found the game best suited for fans of the original series or younger players.