C-Dogs SDL 0.6.7 released! This time we’ve added a secondary weapon system for grenades and explosives, plus there’s some graphical enhancements!

Grenade key

C-Dogs grenades have always been awkward to use: you have to cycle through your weapons, standing still while doing so. What if throwing a grenade was just a single key press?

Well now you can!

This idea isn’t new, although it wasn’t very common back when C-Dogs was first released. Giant Bomb calls it “Automated Grenade Throw”, and says it started with Shadow Warrior, but it was also available possibly earlier with Assault Trooper (1997), or if you want to stretch the definition, Metal Slug (1996), or, um, Taito’s Front Line (1982)???

Now it’s very common, especially in FPS games, and it’s a great design; grenades are really a situational weapon, so to have easy access to it without switching out your current gun is handy. Although it is possibly the biggest gameplay change we’ve made, it’s what C-Dogs SDL is about: making a great retro game even better with modern tech and game design.

To support it, we’ve reduced the number of gun slots to two, and made grenades occupy the third slot.

Although this means you can’t have three guns anymore (or three grenades… I’m sure we’ve all played with this at some point 😈), having two guns makes it easy to switch between them, and one grenade makes the most sense.

We’ve also added a neat grenade counter to the HUD, so you can quickly see how many you have!

Finally we’ve redesigned the way ammo pickups work for grenades. For guns we have gun pickups and ammo pickups, but for grenades, they’re one and the same: if you have the same grenade type, you pick up as ammo, otherwise you can choose to switch out your grenades with the one you are picking up.

Try it out! I think this is a great excuse to replay your favorite C-Dogs campaigns!

Texture Rendering

We’ve also reworked the graphics backend to render textures instead of raw pixels. The goal was to improve performance; unfortunately that failed 😟, but on the bright side, it means we now support semi-transparency effects!

This means we can have better-looking muzzle flashes, and glowy laser beams!

Enjoy the eye candy!

Downloads and release notes: https://github.com/cxong/cdogs-sdl/releases/tag/0.6.7