C-Dogs SDL

About the game

C-Dogs is a top-down action game: you walk around a map seen from above, shoot everything that moves and complete each mission's objectives, which can be killing a target, collecting items, reaching a place or freeing prisoners. Ronny Wester wrote the original in 1997 for DOS; in the early 2000s Jeremy Chin and Lucas Martin-King ported it to SDL, and since 2013 Cong Xu and a group of volunteers have kept it growing, with new weapons, effects, enemy behaviour and tools to make your own campaigns.

You pick your weapons before each mission, from a pistol and a knife to machine guns, shotguns, flamethrowers and grenades, and a mission can send you into bases, caves, laboratories or ships. Enemies range from guards with pistols to the monsters of the campaign's setting. The game has a campaign mode, where missions follow one another into a story, a quick-play mode on random maps, dogfights, where players fight one another, and a deathmatch mode.

Playing it here

This is C-Dogs SDL 2.5.0 built for the browser from the project's source code. The download is about 45 MB (graphics, sound effects, music and the campaigns). It starts with seven campaigns: AI Insurgency, Antares III Conspiracy, Development Hell, Grave Intent, Harmful Crysalis, Most Classified Enemy and Pirates from Outer Space, plus a dogfight map, because they are the ones with a recorded free licence; the older campaigns of the original game are not included (see the license page). The game's network features are off in this build, so it is for one or two players on the same keyboard. Your settings stay in this browser. It needs a keyboard.

How to start

1. Press Enter on Start, then on Campaign and on the campaign you want (the arrow keys choose).
2. On the screen that asks you to join, press X, then Enter to go through the player and options screens.
3. Pick your weapons if you like and choose (End). The mission starts after its briefing: press X to start.

Controls

The second player uses the numeric keypad (4, 6, 8, 2 to move), so a laptop without one can only play as player 1.

Tips

Keep moving. You shoot in the direction you are facing, so run past enemies, turn and fire instead of backing up in a straight line.

Read the objectives. The list at the bottom of the screen tells you what the mission wants. Some missions end when you collect everything, others when you reach a spot.

Use the knife. Your melee weapon needs no ammunition; save the guns for the groups.

Pick up everything. Health, ammo and keys lie around the map, and the doors you cannot open need the key of the same colour.

Credits

The game was created by Ronny Wester; the SDL version is by Jeremy Chin, Lucas Martin-King, Cong Xu and many contributors. The included campaigns are by Sauer2 and clovehoof, released as CC0. The original graphics are by Ronny Wester (CC BY, relicensed in 2016). Other graphics are by Cong Xu (CC0) and, under CC BY or CC BY-SA, by AngryMeteor.com, Buch, Calciumtrice, Daniel Cook, Daniel Siegmund, JM.Atencia, JROB774, Jetrel, Joe Williamson, Jordan Irwin, Lanea Zimmerman, Midi, OceansDream, Sharm and William.Thompsonj, Skorpio, Spiney, Stephen "Redshrike" Challener, Wind astella, ZiNGOT, Zush Design, armisius, extradave, jestan, leeor_net, qubodup and sgtcrispy. The music is by Alexandr Zhelanov, Joth, Matthew Pablo, Ted Kerr, ViRiX and VocalMix. The sound effects come from many authors on Freesound and OpenGameArt, among them CGEffex, Corsica_S, Benboncan, Blender Foundation, Halleck, KuraiWolf, Lee Barkovich, Michel Baradari, juskiddink, smcameron, spookymodem and themfish. The full list, with the origin and license of each file, is on the license page.