Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars

MS-DOS (PC) · 1990 · by id Software / Apogee

Commander Keen: Marooned on Mars is a 1990 side-scrolling platformer developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software as the free shareware first episode of the Invasion of the Vorticons trilogy. Players take on the role of Billy Blaze, an eight-year-old child genius who explores the Martian surface after extraterrestrial Vorticons steal four essential components of his homemade backyard starship. The game introduced groundbreaking smooth multidirectional scrolling to IBM PC hardware. Billy runs, jumps, uses a raygun against hostile wildlife, and discovers a pogo stick to reach high platforms and secret caches. Because Apogee released this opening chapter as freeware shareware, the full Martian adventure remains free to play.

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Controls

Arrow keys to walk and look, Ctrl to jump, Alt to pogo, Spacebar to fire raygun.

License & source: Shareware — Episode 1 of Invasion of the Vorticons, distributed free as shareware by Apogee; copying the episode was the distribution model. Source

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