# Game Engine White Papers: Commander Keen

13 Hacker News commenters recommended Game Engine White Papers: Commander Keen and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People praise it as a valuable retro game code analysis with fine content. Critics say the site design looks copied and it reuses Fabien's material without clear credit.

## Why people recommend it

- Praised as valuable retro game analysis (2 comments): "this book looks like a valuable contribution to the genre of retro game code analysis" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546346)) "I took a quick skim of the content, it looks great" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546926))
- Content and work called fantastic (2 comments): "The work on the book itself looks fantastic, so it's a shame about the site design." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546531)) "I took a quick skim of the content, it looks great" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546926))
- Fond memories of classic games (3 comments): "encapsulate my earliest memories of using a computer" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48656285)) "My first and favourite game as a kid." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48552286)) "The 90s sure had some awesome games" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48290842))
- Iconic visuals that ran well (2 comments): "the iconic visual style of Commander Keen and Doom" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48663437)) "These games ran so well on IBM XT computers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46323451))

## What people warn about

- Site design looks copied (2 comments): "It looks like a complete rip-off. Both the design of the website and the book cover." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48552833)) "The work on the book itself looks fantastic, so it's a shame about the site design." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48546531))
- Fabien's work copied or misattributed (2 comments): "the site could be a little clearer that it's not Fabien's work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48548681)) "The book's source has verbatim copy and pasted TeX ripped from Fabien's books which was licensed under GPL." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48547394))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Linux From Scratch by the LFS Project](https://hackerapproved.com/p/linux-from-scratch.md): 72 recommend
- [Offline password cracking book by Bojta](https://hackerapproved.com/p/offline-password-cracking-book.md): 10 recommend
- [FreeBSD Handbook by FreeBSD Documentation Project](https://hackerapproved.com/p/freebsd-handbook.md): 9 recommend
- [WebRTC for the Curious by Sean DuBois](https://hackerapproved.com/p/webrtc-for-the-curious.md): 5 recommend
- [Hands-On Large Language Models by Jay Alammar and Maarten Grootendorst](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hands-on-large-language-models.md): 5 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Commander+Keen&tag=YOURTAG-20) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Game Engine White Papers: Commander Keen", https://hackerapproved.com/p/commander-keen/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).