Commander Keen 5 Any%

					Commander Keen 5 Any% FAQ

	What is Commander Keen 5?

Commander Keen 5 is the sixth member of the Commander Keen series (Keen Dreams is counted as Keen 3.5). Commander Keen 5 was released in 1992 for DOS. It uses the same engine developed in Commander Keen 4. The story of Commander Keen 5 is basically that the Shikadi want to destroy the galaxy (these plans were discovered in Commander Keen 4) and Keen has landed on their spaceship (the Omegamatic) to destroy their spaceship while it orbits the planet Korath III.

	What is an impossible pogo?

Turns out the developers included an extra high jump within the game. Pogo'ing and then hitting Jump almost immediately afterwards will do the 'impossible pogo' which allows normally impossible jumps to be made. The very first jump in the game is an example of an impossible pogo (as are the third and fourth jumps, and many more). Annoyingly, pressing jump/pogo at the same time just does a little pogo, a pogo followed too soon by a jump will also have the same effect. This makes this a non-trivial jump which is used annoyingly often.

	Why do you wait for the Pink Robot on the first level?

Oddly enough, when the pink robot pushes Keen off of a pole it messes with the game really hard for some reason. It sets up a wrong warp from the first level to the secret level, Korath III. Korath III is situated right at the end of the game leaving only 2 levels to be cleared after Korath III. As such, having the Pink Robot (a Lil Ampton) push me off a pole is the fastest way to complete the game.

	Why is the jump on Korath III so hard?

The ledge that I grab is really thin. It basically only has enough room for Keen to be completely embedded in the wall, and nothing else. It's also only marginally taller than Keen which makes jumping difficult. I need to turn Keen around without falling off and make a semi-difficult jump. It's not pixel perfect, but there aren't many pixels to work with!

	How did you beat the green level?

Remember how the game is based off of the Keen 4 engine? Well, to beat some stages in Keen 4 you need to walk off of the screen. The developers were lazy, and simply made it so that if Keen was out of bounds to the left or right of the stage then you instantly beat the stage and added an impenetrable border around the edge of the level. However, when Keen dies he flies off of the screen bouncing off of anything that will kill him. When in this mode going out of bounds ends the stage for a loss for Keen. However, saving/reloading tricks the game into thinking Keen is actually alive. So when Keen flies off to the right out of bounds after a reload I instantly beat the level.

	What are you doing in the red level?

The red level is the last level in the game and basically I need to get all the keys and progress to the end of the level. There I need to drag a Shikadi mine to the Quantum Dynamo Core and have the mine explode and one of the fragments touch the core (thus destroying it). There's a ton of annoying stuff in the way which makes collecting the keys difficult.

	Can you break down the annoying stuff in the red level?

Green Key: Make a series of Jumps (two of which are impossible pogos), flip a switch, jump on platform and grab the key.
Blue Key: Fall down dodging the laser, down the pole, fall down some more (dodging lasers), hope that dogs give me good RNG so that I can fall down and kill them all (dodging the snow flake) and then collect the key.
Red Key: Go to the left and avoid some red bouncing diamond things.
Brown Key: Hope that the laser bridge is in a good phase so that it doesn't kill me, then dodge some Shikadi firing electricity up poles.
Then unlock the doors, clear a final set of laser beams and then hope the mine gives good RNG!
Oh, and the Shikadi Master doesn't teleport to troll me (he can go anywhere) AND hope that he waiting for me right before the Quantum Dynamo Core.

	Why do you never finish a run?

Basically, all the RNG needs to go my way. Here's a breakdown:
First Level: Lil' Ampton needs to give me a good cycle
Second Level: Hope that the Korathian doesn't troll me
Third Level: All skill
Fourth Level: Lasers, Lasers, Lasers, Dogs x10000, Red Diamond thing cycles, Laser Bridge, Shikadi, Laser Beams, Shikadi Master, Shikadi Mines

Combine this with execution, it makes for a very very annoying run to finish.

	Okay, how often is teh urn?

I estimate 1/10 runs will get to the final level. A sample of 121 test runs of the final level yielded this set of probabilities on run enders:

Jumping Fuckups: 13%
Top Laser: 12%
Laser while Falling: 23%
Death to Dogs: 29%
Dogs Trolling: 6.5%
Snow Flake: 1%
Red Diamond Things: 1%
Laser Bridge: 1%
Shikadi: 5%
Laser Beams: 1!
Mine Fuckup: 6%
Shikadi Master Death: 2.5%
I actually finish the run: 2.5%

This excludes the probability that the Shikadi Master is handing out next to the Quantum Dynamo Core (which is 70%)

So, combining this all together. 10% Chance to get to the last level. 8.5% to reach the end of the last level. 70% chance that the Shikadi master trolls and then 30% chance that the mine behaves....

Chance of teh urn: 0.1785% which is close enough to 1 in 400 runs.