Commander Keen 5: The Armageddon Machine

Commander Keen 5: The Armageddon Machine is a platform game, the fifth in the Commander Keen series as a whole, and the second in the second series Goodbye, Galaxy.

Eight-year-old genius Billy 'Commander Keen' Blaze, having learnt about the alien Shikadi's plans to destroy the galaxy, arrives on board of their ship, the Omegamatic, in order to destroy it and prevent the evil deed. The objective is to reach and destroy the core of the Omegamatic, but before this happens, Billy must find and destroy four machines which protect the main elevator.

The game begins with a top-down map of the Omegamatic. This is the level select screen, where Billy can walk around and the player can choose the next level they want to enter. On each level, Billy has to either make your way to the exit, or destroy a vital machine if there is one on this level. Once a level is completed, Billy ends up back on the overhead map.

The levels are full of enemies, mostly robots of various kinds. There are also many deadly hazards. If Keen gets shot or touched by an enemy, or falls into a pit or touches something hazardous, he dies and loses one life.

Thankfully, Keen can stun most enemies with his raygun. He also carries a pogo stick which allows him to jump very high. Other items to find include: ammo, gems and keycards that are needed to open locked doors, bonus items which give score, jars of 'Vitalin' (100 of them give an extra life) and the rare Keg O' Vitalin which gives an extra life.

Id Software did not produce any more games in the Commander Keen series after Goodbye Galaxy besides the co-developed Aliens Ate My Babysitter. Another trilogy of episodes, titled The Universe Is Toast, was planned for December 1992, but was cancelled after the success of id's Wolfenstein 3D and development focus on Doom. When GT Interactive wanted to publish Doom II, it proved itself to id by quickly selling 30,000 copies of Goodbye Galaxy. A final Keen game, Commander Keen, was developed for the Game Boy Color in 2001 by David A. Palmer Productions in association with id Software, and published by Activision. Goodbye Galaxy has been released as part of several collections since its first release: the id Anthology compilation in 1996, a compilation release by Apogee in 1998 of Invasion of the Vorticons and Goodbye, Galaxy, a similar compilation in 2001 by 3D Realms titled Commander Keen Combo CD, and the 3D Realms Anthology in 2014. They have also been released for modern computers through a DOS emulator, and sold through Steam since 2007 as a part of the Commander Keen Complete Pack. According to Steam Spy, as of June 2016 approximately 200,000 copies have been sold through Steam.