Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons – Episode 1: Marooned on Mars, released 35 years ago, revolutionized gaming technology through its innovative development for PCs. The game showcased smooth scrolling using adaptive tile refresh, a technique initially developed for a proposed Super Mario Bros. 3 port that was never completed.
Commercial Success and Industry Impact
Released via Apogee's shareware model, Commander Keen was an immediate success, significantly boosting Apogee's sales. Within two weeks, monthly sales soared from approximately $7,000 to $30,000, eventually stabilizing around $60,000 per month within six months. This financial success empowered John Carmack, John Romero, and others to leave Softdisk and establish Ideas from the Deep, which later evolved into id Software.
Advancing Gaming Graphics
The advent of Commander Keen's technology paved the way for id Software's groundbreaking 3D games, including Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 and Doom in 1993. These titles were instrumental in enhancing the prominence of the PC as a premier platform for gaming. Furthermore, they stimulated the development of dedicated 3D graphics hardware, such as 3dfx Voodoo, nVidia RIVA 128, and PowerVR.
The culmination of these efforts was nVidia's release of what was marketed as the first GPU by the decade's end. Id Software titles were among the first to benefit from the hardware acceleration that this technology offered, marking a significant milestone in gaming history.
