Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 20:53, 21 September 2017 [1].

Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons[edit]

Nominator(s): Pres N 21:50, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In 1992 id Software created the grandfather of first-person shooter video games with Wolfenstein 3D, and in 1993 they released the canonical form of the genre, Doom. But two years before that, they weren't even id: they were "Ideas From the Deep", a group of employees from Softdisk in Shreveport, Louisiana, who had just figured out a way to make a smooth platformer game on an IBM-compatible PC instead of a dedicated gaming console. And with that concept, they made the strangely-titled Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons: featuring no demons or Nazis, but a child jumping his way through alien-filled levels. Commander Keen launched id as a developer and Apogee Software as a publisher, so while it was never as famous as id's follow-up games, it forms an important bit of video gaming history, as well as fond memories from my childhood. I wrote this article last summer as part of a campaign to get all of the Keen games to GA; I'm now circling back around to them in an effort to boost at least some to FA-level. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did researching/writing it! --Pres N 21:50, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Cas Liber[edit]

I played and enjoyed this...reading through now...please revert if I accidentally change meaning while making copyedits...

After a demo of a PC version of Super Mario Bros. 3 developed by Carmack and his coworkers John Romero and Tom Hall, along with Jay Wilbur and Lane Roathe, failed to convince Nintendo to invest in a PC port of their game, they were approached by Scott Miller of Apogee Software to develop an original game to be published through the Apogee shareware model. - I think this sentence is a tad long and better split. I got lost in the clauses...

The team worked continuously for almost three months on the game, working late into the night at the office at Softdisk and taking their work computers to John Carmack's home to continue developing the game - two "game"s in the one sentence...

"X-14 Tantalus Ray cannons" - why the quotation marks here?

~~Otherwise~~ reads nicely and appears to be complete...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:25, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Casliber: Split, fixed, and removed. Thanks for reviewing/copyediting! --Pres N 01:04, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from JM[edit]

In the gameplay section, there's a little bit of blurring of player and player character. Perhaps this could be tweaked? I know all gamers know what is meant, but it may be a little unclear to those who aren't familiar with video gaming. (Also "vertically when the player moved as" in the development section.)
"an adventure game where the player navigates mazes while avoiding Egyptian-themed traps and monsters" in which? Also the next sentence: "publishing where part of a"
You might want to consider breaking up the development section a bit; not only is the section itself very long, but the paragraphs are very long too.
"and "The Available Data on the Worp Reaction", a short story about a child constructing a spaceship" Who was that by?
We have two Carmacks; could you check to make sure that they are always referred to by their full name unless it is definitely clear from the context which is being referred to?
Is id Anthology worth a redlink?
"Commander Keen Combo CD" Italics? Worth linking?
"3D Realms Anthology" Worth linking? Even if these aren't notable, perhaps they belong on the navbox with a link to a list entry or something?
"Commander Keen Complete Pack" As above!
I think something about the compilation/Steam releases belongs in the lead.

Support. That's all very small, and I think this is a great article. Please double-check my edits. Delegates: I reviewed this article (and others in the series) at GAC. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:54, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaned up
Done
Chopped into two sub-sections; are the names alright?
Done
Only spot where it was questionable was the lead; actually the first time Adrian is mentioned in the development section is the last time either Carmack is mentioned in that section, and Adrian is never mentioned in Legacy.
No, I don't think any of the "anthologies" or "collections" could support an article, and the List of 3D Realms games list I recently wrote doesn't cover the collections as separate items. They weren't "produced" collections like you see nowadays, they were more "here's a cd with several games on it" and "here's a bunch of games sold on Steam together".
But italics, yes.
Added.

Thanks for reviewing! --Pres N 21:09, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Impressively quick- yes, happy with those changes! Josh Milburn (talk) 22:25, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review[edit]

I think the non-free use rationales could be expanded a little. In particular, there are some "n.a."s in the rationale for File:Commander Keen Marooned on Mars Title.png, and the rationale for File:Commander Keen Marooned on Mars gameplay.gif is a little generic. I do believe, however, that the use of the images is justified.
File:Hall and Romero 1999 crop.jpg is a crop of an image that was deleted as having no source. This is a problem.
(Super bonus sourcing comment) ""Commander Keen". CQ Amateur Radio. Vol. 48 no. 1. 1992. p. 63. ISSN 0007-893X." This lacks a publisher. I generally wouldn't bother listing a publisher for magazines like this, but it should be provided here to be consistent with your other citations.

No problems with the other image. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:11, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@J Milburn: Expanded the rationales; arg, yes, I had to drop that image from Wolfenstein 3D for exactly that reason, so replaced; publisher added. --Pres N 18:36, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Aoba47[edit]

This is more of a clarification question about the following phrase (most of the game features the player-controlled Commander Keen viewed from the side while moving on a two-dimensional plane). I am a little uncertain about what is meant by "most of the game". Are there portions of the game where the player controls other characters or controls Commander Keen in a different way other than "moving on a two-dimensional plane". I just was not entirely sure what about this when reading through that section.
For the phrase (In between levels Keen travels on a two-dimensional map), please put a comma between "levels" and "Keen".
In the third paragraph of the "Gameplay" section, you use the word "alien" quite a bit. I would recommend removing "alien" in front of the word "Martians" to cut down slightly on the repetitive language, and I think it can be safely assumed that the word "Martians" by itself would reference some sort of alien without the descriptive phrase.
In the phrase (Touching a hazard or most enemies causes Keen to lose a life, and the game is ended if all of Keen's lives are lost), would it be helpful to add a link to game over for the word "ended"?
I would add the year in which Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century was released to provide the full context to that sentence.
In the phrase (on the afternoon of December 14 Miller began uploading the), please add a comma between "December 14" and "Miller".

Wonderful work with this article. I only found minor places for improvement. Once my comments are addressed, I will be more than happy to support this for promotion based on the prose. Aoba47 (talk) 16:09, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The counterpoint to "most of the game features [...] viewed from the side" is a few sentences later at "In between levels Keen travels on a two-dimensional map, viewed from above". So, the second option you gave.

Makes sense; I assumed that there must have been a counterpoint to this sentence, but for some reason, I could not find it. Thank you for pointing it out to me. Aoba47 (talk) 19:24, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done
Done
Why not, done
Done, good point; also added a year for the short story, which oddly enough is also from 1953, though he likely read it in an anthology from the 80s as it was in several (Duck Dodgers, of course, was shown on cartoon shows for decades after, I saw it in the 90s myself)
Done

@Aoba47: Responded, thanks for reviewing! --Pres N 19:19, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for addressing my points; I support this based on the prose. If possible, could you look at my current FAC? I understand if you do not have the time or if it falls outside of your interests. Either way, have a wonderful rest of your day, and good luck with getting this promoted. It is always interesting to read about older games; maybe one day, I will work on a video game article and bring it up to the FAC process too. Aoba47 (talk) 19:24, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Aoba47: I'll try to get to it this week; I owe the FA process a lot of FAC reviews in general that I haven't done so I'll include that one when I start them. --Pres N 19:29, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, my FAC is still really new so there is no rush. I am trying to be more patient with my FACs from here on out. Aoba47 (talk) 19:34, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment: Unless I've missed it somewhere, we still need a source review. This can be requested at the top of WT:FAC. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:46, 31 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review[edit]

Spotchecks not done. Otherwise, all seems pretty much OK in this department, subject to a couple of minor issues:

Short citations normally use author name not work title. Thus ref. 5: "Kushner, pp. 48–51". See also 10, 11, 13, 16, 21 and 22
Ref 4 appears to be lacking publisher details.

Brianboulton (talk) 20:53, 14 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Brianboulton: Book citations changed; Ref 4 replaced with another ref. --Pres N 14:15, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

All OK now Brianboulton (talk) 11:37, 17 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:53, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.