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Game Engine White Papers: Commander Keen

Hacker Approved

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.

Summarized from 15 comments.

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.

recommend
13
criticize
2
months recommended
4 of 13

Why people love it

What people warn about

  • Site design looks copied · 2

    It looks like a complete rip-off. Both the design of the website and the book cover.

    Jun 2026 · comment

    The work on the book itself looks fantastic, so it's a shame about the site design.

    Jun 2026 · comment
  • Fabien's work copied or misattributed · 2

    the site could be a little clearer that it's not Fabien's work

    Jun 2026 · comment

    The book's source has verbatim copy and pasted TeX ripped from Fabien's books which was licensed under GPL.

    Jun 2026 · comment

What hackers pick instead

Every quote

The 12 most detailed of 15 comments. Each links to the original.

  1. this book looks like a valuable contribution to the genre of retro game code analysis

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Game Engine White Papers Commander Keen”

  2. The work on the book itself looks fantastic, so it's a shame about the site design.

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Game Engine White Papers Commander Keen”

  3. the site could be a little clearer that it's not Fabien's work

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Game Engine White Papers Commander Keen”

  4. encapsulate my earliest memories of using a computer

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “How Quake Ruined Id Software”

  5. I took a quick skim of the content, it looks great

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Game Engine White Papers Commander Keen”

  6. the iconic visual style of Commander Keen and Doom

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “John Carmack on the mistakes around Quake that ruined id software”

  7. These games ran so well on IBM XT computers.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Reconstructed Commander Keen 1-3 Source Code”

  8. My first and favourite game as a kid.

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Game Engine White Papers Commander Keen”

  9. The 90s sure had some awesome games

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Splinter Cell veteran says realistic modern lighting has screwed up stealth game”

  10. The book's source has verbatim copy and pasted TeX ripped from Fabien's books which was licensed under GPL.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Game Engine White Papers Commander Keen”

  11. It looks like a complete rip-off. Both the design of the website and the book cover.

    Criticizes · Jun 2026 · in “Game Engine White Papers Commander Keen”

  12. Keeping commander keen alive should be a priority project for humanity!

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Reconstructed Commander Keen 1-3 Source Code”

Counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, Nov 2025 to Nov 2026. How we count · Report a mistake