Over the last few weekends I have been porting the Commander Keen interpreter Commander Genius to the Nintendo Switch. I am quite happy with the current state of the port, which supports plenty of features. Most notably:

• Multiplayer co-op with up to four players
• Touch screen support
• Integrated game downloader (Requires WiFi)
• Native resolution (+ scaling options)

Installation

Just download the ZIP and extract the whole “CommanderGenius” folder into the “switch” folder on the SD card. Then start the application from hbmenu. (Preferably NOT in applet mode)

Download:
CommanderGenius_2.4.5.2_NSW.zip (07/12/2020)

The default controls: (Can be remapped)

Action	Button
Walking directions (Left, Right, Up, Down)	Directional buttons (On left Joycon)
Jump	A
Run	B
Pogo	X
Shoot	Y
Back/Menu	Plus +
Status	Minus –
Camlead (Multiplayer)	R
Help	L

Adding the games

To use the integrated downloader just select “+ More” after starting Commander Genius. Depending on the mirror the download sometimes takes up to ~30 seconds. If it still fails, just try again or download the games manually.

If the integrated downloader causes issues, or if one just wants to keep the Switch offline, the shareware titles can also be downloaded here and extracted to /switch/CommanderGenius/games/ on the SD card.

Note: Besides the shareware episodes, Commander Genius also supports the commercial Commander Keen titles.

Source Code

My patches to the Switch port can be found on GitHub and were built using devkitPro. Big thanks to Gerhard Stein for Commander Genius and his support that made this port possible. We will also be working to upstream the changes so the Switch port can keep up with the latest development.