Commander Bean
Release type: Incomplete
Release date: 1997
Levels: 2
Author: John and Robert Brandon
Commander Bean was an attempt to make a parody game influenced by the popular Commander Keen series by ID software. In particular, the game was influenced by the style present in Commander Keen 4-6.
The game featured certain elements related to the Keen series, such as a young boy going on a platformer style adventure, roaming around a world map to select levels, blasting aliens with a gun and having enemies/aliens appearing stunned with stars around their heads when shot/killed.
Work was done to make a world map in the style of Keen 4-6, with various graphical representations of levels to be created at a future date. Only one or two test levels were ever created.
As with many games and demos by Brandon Enterprises Commander Bean is an incomplete test. The world map depicts some interesting concepts for future levels, including a large Christmas tree, city building, a park, fair with rides, and more. Most of these were never created. The appropriate palette file for the test level could not be found during the recovery of the files for this demo (see description below about the recovery of the game).
Contents
Story[edit]
Commander Bean IN ALIENS ATE MY BEANS!
The Story So Far...
At 9:00 A.M. Commander Bean was working on his new lean mean Bean machine spaceship when he heard a scream from one of the houses in his neighborhood. "I'd better investigate this." He told himself.
At The Scene Of The Scream. "Hi" why did you scream. "Because this giant wine bottle and transparent bird came in here and took my jelly and Boston Baked Beans." "Hmm sounds like the Bean burglars have teemed up." "What did you say." "Um... I said there is no such thing as a Bean Burger unless you make it up." "Booo Hooooo Hoooooo Waaaaaaaaahh!" "Why are you crying?" "Booooo Hoooooo What am I going to make for dinner now? I was going to make Bean Burritos but now I can't." "Don't worry i'll save you, Bye."
On The CMM Morning News. 10:00 A.M.
"And now the whole world doesn't Have Beans." (Bean.) "Oh no this is terrible, a world without Beans." "And at 9:00 This picture was taken." (Bean.) "Hey I know those pictures, that is a Booze and Chicka-dee, guess their war is over and know they plunder together. This is terrible. I'd better go to Boozeouloose Sax and rescue the Beans." So our bold hero jumps into his mean lean bean machine spaceship.(Constructed out of old bean cans and moldy pork rinds, while being fueled by coco beans.) And gets a speeding ticket? Yes he does, the intergalactic police make him pull over and tell him he was going over the warp 200 speed limit and gets a speeding ticket. Have fun!
Instructions[edit]
CONTROLS[edit]
Arrow keys/numeric keypad
After acquiring the gun item, the player may shoot lasers at the enemies with other keyboard keys
Credits[edit]
Designed by
- John and Robert Brandon
Engine and Tools by
- Recreational Software Designs
Edited by
Background[edit]
John Brandon:
- Commander Bean was another highlight. It featured both a worldmap and a side scrolling level a la the Commander Keen games. Looks like we were able to replicate the concept of an enemy being stunned with stars around the head as well, another attribute of the Keen games. I couldn't find the right palette for the in-level background blocks, but looks like we might have borrowed some bg blocks from Orb or Sign of the Hedgehog. We made more content than usual for this demo, including multiple proposed title screen backgrounds, a storyline, and had started trying to make a larger version of the character for the side scrolling levels.
Archive history[edit]
During Fall and Winter 2023, John Brandon acquired several old hard drives from PCs used by his family in the 1990s. Most of the hard drives were unreadable through standard means with corrupted and unreadable data. Using various data recovery techniques John was able to rip many Game Maker files from the old drives, some of them incomplete or partially corrupted, and was able to assemble some of these files into packages readable by Game Maker. Commander Bean is one of the games recovered through this method.
Availability[edit]
Prior to this archive's online presence, this game is not known to be publicly available.
