C-Dogs


C-Dogs, the sequel to Cyberdogs, is a shoot 'em up computer game where players work cooperatively during missions, and against each other in "dogfight" deathmatch mode.

Gameplay

C-Dogs made changes and improvements on the original Cyberdogs game mechanics. The single-player/cooperative gameplay is separated into campaigns, each comprising many missions. Usually, each level involves the player killing enemies using a variety of pre-selected weapons; collecting keys to unlock special rooms; and picking up required items to fulfill the mission objectives.
The "dog fight" gameplay is the typical deathmatch: players attempt to kill each other for points, in order to gain victory. Only two players can play against each other, by sitting at the same computer and using the keyboard, joysticks or gamepads.

Development

The creator of C-Dogs, Ronny Wester, released the precursor to C-Dogs, Cyberdogs, in 1994. The popularity of Cyberdogs and the limitations of its 16-bit protected mode motivated Wester to write a sequel, which was released between the years 1997 to 2001 as Freeware. In 2000 Wester released the Borland Pascal 7 source code of Cyberdogs on his website.

Open source

In 2002 Wester released the source code of C-Dogs to the public. Following that Jeremy Chin and Lucas Martin-King ported the game to SDL and released their work under the GPLv2 as "C-Dogs SDL". As of June 2007, Wester no longer maintains a website for C-Dogs but the game continues to live on via the C-Dogs SDL project hosted on GitHub. The open source software port contains a number of enhancements to the original C-Dogs, including high-resolution support, local multiplayer up to four players, enhanced graphics and LAN multiplayer. In October 2015, C-Dogs SDL was updated to SDL2. In April 2016, Wester released the game assets as CC-BY.

Ports

With the source code availability and the initial SDL port, the game was ported later for many platforms: Android, GCW Zero, GP2X, Dingoo, PlayStation Portable, Dreamcast, Nintendo DS, Wii, Amiga OS, UIQ3 devices such as SE M600, P1i, P990, and Motorola RIZR Z8.

Reception

Hardcore Gaming 101 reviewed C-Dogs in May 2017.