C-Dogs Releases

[Wuzzy]

Great! It seems I have indeed figured almost everything out on my own. But some things were new to me, so thanks.


C-Dogs has now very simple in-game weapon descriptions.

I tried to apply it to my test campaign but the game crashes.

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

cdogs-sdl: /home/wuzzy/src/cdogs-sdl/cdogs-sdl/src/cdogs/weapon.c:314: StrGunDescription: Assertion `0' failed.


Here’s the text of guns.json (temporarily):
http://lpaste.net/raw/805967878862929920

According to a JSON parser, at least the JSON is correct. I have no idea how to find the mistake (if there even is one).

Of course I changed the gun names in mission.json.
It’s not pressing, though. I have copies of working files so I can easily revert if I have to.

[Wuzzy]

C-Dogs 0.5.7 has been released:

https://cxong.github.io/cdogs-sdl/relea ... eased.html

[Wuzzy]

Hi again!

For a long time, the work on my terrorist campaign I posted earlier has been stalled. Recently I have continued to work on it, I will upload the next version some day. But I don't guarantee anything yet.

As a side project, I have created a simple but pretty long campaign featuring all the custom guns from my first project. I have also added complete weapon descriptions. The campaign is called “Gun Game” and you and your enemies only have one gun per mission and you always have to kill all the enemies. I think this campaign is finished, I am not 100% sure about balancing, tell me what you think! :-)

You find Gun Game in the attachment. Extract the Zip archive into the missions folder.

[c_xong]

Excellent! The campaign is fun but tough-as-nails; since you use the same weapon you need to be faster than the AI, and the AI is very fast

0.5.8 is coming along and should be released soon-ish (some time next month I think); there have been many changes, including gun icons:



If the gun icon isn't specified, it will default to that non-descript pistol you see in the bottom half. If you want I can help you create icons for all the guns in your game, and maybe have it released together in the next C-Dogs release!

[Wuzzy]

If you want I can help you create icons for all the guns in your game, and maybe have it released together in the next C-Dogs release!

That would be great, thanks! :-)
Feel free to tweak the balancing (if you wish).

This Gun Game could use some balancing. I am especially am not happy about the sub machine gun enemies. The bad guys basically fire a never-ending stream of bullets once they spotted you. I think this behavior should be nerfed but I don't know which variable I have to change.

[c_xong]

This Gun Game could use some balancing. I am especially am not happy about the sub machine gun enemies. The bad guys basically fire a never-ending stream of bullets once they spotted you. I think this behavior should be nerfed but I don't know which variable I have to change.

You'll want to tweak the "Shoot %" value in the character editor. Like the other percentages, this controls what % of the time the AI will decide to do something like shooting. Shooting works a bit differently than the other actions, and it takes a while to explain, but the bottom line is: shoot % is usually 10% or less. I've recently added a "boss" character to the Doom campaign, who shoots quite often, but even there the shoot probability is just 12%: https://github.com/cxong/cdogs-sdl/blob ... s.json#L95

Which raises a problem for the character editor: in it you can only adjust the percentages in 5% increments, and this is too coarse for the shoot %. I should probably change it so that it adjusts by 1%, and shift+click adjusts by 5%. For now you can edit the characters.json directly and change the "probabilityToShoot" value.

I derived the gun icons mostly from this set: http://opengameart.org/content/141-military-icons-set
The guns in your campaign, are they based on any real-life guns? That will help with making good icons for them.

[Wuzzy]

Thanks for the info.
No, the weapons aren't directly based on real-life guns directly. The names are all invented by me.

However, a few weapons (not all!) are loosely based on weapons from Counter-Strike:

Poshlinov ~ AK-47
X90 ~ P90
Seven-Seven ~ Five-SeveN
Desert Hawk ~ Desert Eagle / “Deagle”
MD5 ~ MP5
Milit ~ Galil


Feel free to use your imagination for the other guns, I really had no particular image in mind for most of them. But here are some loose guidelines:

The weapons say their weapon class in their weapon description, this is clearly the most important part. I also think that “stronger gun = bigger gun” is a kinda acceptable rule of thumb for SMGs and rifles. After all, it's just about editor icons, so probably not _that_ important yet.

POW9 is intended to be some sort of “heavy” rifle with a lot of bulk. I thought a low fire-rate high-damage gun would be interesting for gameplay. This is probably the most unique gun in the weapon set and it is not based on anything. So I think an unique icon would do the trick.
M5000 and M6000 are machine guns, where M6000 is the “heavier” version of both.
SG1 and SG2 are shotguns. SG2 is a bit faster and stronger, so probably it could have a “lighter” look? Not sure.
The sniper rifles are, sorted by strength, lowest to highest: HITPRO, SNP6+, 1S1K. My rule of thumb would be: “longer = stronger”

[c_xong]

Here's my attempt using my non-existent pixel art skills:



These weapons should be iconic but it's very hard to retain details at a mere 15x15 pixels.

[c_xong]

And finally here's the rest, a bunch of fishguns

[Akien]

Those look really good, nice job!

[Wuzzy]

I think it is about time to give you a new version of Rise of the Orangists, my crazy (?) terrorist campaign.
It has now 10 missions. I still plan to add more missions, but I would like to read opinions on balancing.

Screenshot of the 1st mission:


The red guys are a new faction: Red Blood. They are weak and only use pistols. They should be easy enemies for the start.

[Sauer2]

@c_xong: It looks great for the pixel limit, but why keeping the limit in the first place?
@Wuzzy: If I find the time I'll take a look on it the evening...

[Sauer2]

The red guys are a new faction: Red Blood. They are weak and only use pistols. They should be easy enemies for the start.

That's true, but you may want to reduce the enemy count from ~40 to ~25, even more so with the first green guy level. Even carefully using the SG1 it's near impossible finishing that level.

[Sauer2]

@c_xong, @Wuzzi:

I think I might have encountered a bug.

At the first run, SG1 only created one bullet (edit: they had the same angle), but now that it worked as a shotgun, I think the level might be doable.

Weird, I wonder if some of the other weapons didn't work before as well...

Edit: It is still pretty hard, I don't get over the third level. I suggest you dramatically shrink the enemy count or lower their life or create seperated enemy/player weapons with drastical differences in damage.

[c_xong]

Both campaigns are very hard; on normal difficulty I can't get past the third level in orange.

Perhaps you are using different settings? Or maybe you're an expert C-Dogs player, so please provide a gameplay video

[Sauer2]

@Wuzzy:

I now came past level 3 using the shotgun and an smg, but it took me about 30 tries. The level design tends to cater tedious grinding.

BTW: I'd reduce the amount of weapons to exactly one per category. There isn't enough difference between them to justify having e.g. 3 or 4 kinds of pistols clogging the menu.

[Sauer2]

Since c_xong didn't mention: He released a new version with a deathmatch mode and weapons that can be picked up.

[c_xong]

Version 0.6.1 released; this one features 6 new (or completely remade) missions by sauer2

Download (or look out for it in your package manager soon): http://cxong.github.io/cdogs-sdl/downloads.html



But perhaps more importantly, I've contacted the original author, Ronny Wester, who has agreed to release the graphics as CC-BY, which means C-Dogs SDL is now 100% free!

[Akien]

But perhaps more importantly, I've contacted the original author, Ronny Wester, who has agreed to release the graphics as CC-BY, which means C-Dogs SDL is now 100% free!

Woooooooooooooooooooooot!!
That's awesome news! I'll very gladly move my cdogs-sdl package from Mageia's Nonfree repo to the Core repo \o/

[Sauer2]

FYI: c_xong just released 0.6.2: http://cxong.github.io/cdogs-sdl/releas ... 0.6.2.html

[smcameron]

Noticed a new cdogs release, on Oct 30, 2019, v0.7: http://cxong.github.io/cdogs-sdl/releas ... s-0.7.html

https://github.com/cxong/cdogs-sdl/releases/tag/0.7

[Wuzzy]

I like the new update!

The new effects and interface update are indeed improving things.

But there's a bunch of new bugs, mostly related to the new particle system (already reported). And the editor is completely broken for me, but c_xong already warned us about a broken editor.

Yeah, this game definitely needs more work before it can go 1.0.