Goodbye Galaxy: Secret of the Oracle

As far as I recall, Commander Keen's Goodbye Galaxy: Secret of the Oracle was the second game that I ever played, though I would later play others of the same series.

The game itself was loads of fun, and I am sure that I have beaten it at least a dozen times during my childhood. At its core, the game is a typical side-scrolling shooter; you see something move, you shoot it (though not everything is dangerous). The goal is to find and save the oracles (that is, old guys with long beards and red robes) so that they may join together and set you off on the second part of your quest. I actually found a bug in the game that allows one to beat a level without actually finding the oracle if one dies far enough to the edge of the level that Commander Keen bounces off the right side of the screen, though this means that one cannot collect the oracle and thus is unable to beat the game, thereafter.

Secret of the Oracle (the fourth Commander Keen game) also introduced the Dopefish, which has become a bit of a video game in-joke. Personally, I despised him, because he made for many, many hours of frustrations as a child as I tried to outrun his insatiably hungering jaws.

System requirements are as follows:

• XT Computer (286Khz or higher recommended)
• 565k of conventional memory
• 1 meg of Hard Drive Space (for shareware)
• 3 meg of Hard Drive Space (for registered)

The game is freeware and is only 593 kb. Go get it here.

Download other Commander Keen games here, and learn more from this website.