Replacement campaigns

[cxong]

Eventually we want to make C-Dogs SDL 100% free (#336), but that means removing the classic C-Dogs campaigns as they are not free.

This is bad because C-Dogs is not much of a game without campaigns. At minimum, we should replace the classic campaigns with an equivalent amount and diversity of campaigns.

The original game features 5 campaigns (2 built-in, 3 as external files) of equivalent length:

• Between 10 and 20 missions
• At 2-3 minutes per mission, this represents 30-60 minutes of gameplay, not counting retries
• Altogether that's up to 5 hours of content

The campaigns are also quite varied:

• Bug-eyed monsters: absurd story, weird weapons, this one showcases the features of C-Dogs
• Ogre Rampage: serious thriller story, lots of pitched battles with good NPCs too, this one showcases the (compared to Cyberdogs) campaign plot and better AI
• Distress: interesting build-up story, horror themes
• terror: focus on gunplay as enemies shoot a lot
• zombies: zombies!

So a good replacement set of campaigns should feature:

• [ ] >5 hours of content, preferably with >30 minutes per campaign
• [x] A techno-thriller/military story
• [ ] Zombies
• [x] Pitched battles between lots of friendly and enemy AIs
• [x] Missions with intense gunplay
• [ ] Horror/tension
• [ ] Weird/novel weapons

So far, we have the following campaigns, but we need more (or improvements):

Sand

• [x] Techno-thriller
• [x] Pitched battles
• [x] Intense gunplay

Could really be improved with:

• [ ] Weird weapons

Doom

Unfortunately not a very C-Dogs-like campaign, just lots of shooting mooks.

[ghost]

@cxong Right now I can't promise much, still, maybe I could create one of my campaigns or modify one, to fit those criteria more than before.

Any ideas on what to do ideally?

[cxong]

My favourite campaign of yours is space pirates; it has a nice variety of missions, good story and good balance. I think it can be improved by making it longer.

Devhell also has a pretty funny premise, but I think it's too short.

I'll try to replay those campaigns some time, it's been a while and I can't remember all of them.

[ghost]

Ok, so until further feedback, Space Pirates it is. Like I said, I can't promise anything right now, but maybe there is time for me to work on the campaign next week.

Am 26.03.2016 um 14:02 schrieb Cong:

My favourite campaign of yours is space pirates; it has a nice variety of missions, good story and good balance. I think it can be improved by making it longer.

Devhell also has a pretty funny premise, but I think it's too short.

I'll try to replay those campaigns some time, it's been a while and I can't remember all of them.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/cxong/cdogs-sdl/issues/385#issuecomment-201815602

[ghost]

@cxong BTW: Devhell somehow doesn't play the included songs. Did you unimplement this feature or is this a bug?

[cxong]

Looks like a bug; issue created here #389

[ghost]

@cxong I started working on a campaign that replaces "YOU are the experiment" part I and II. My plan is to work on them in parallel to prevent bigger deviations in style and quality. Just so you know that it might take a little longer to finish the space pirate campaign.

[ghost]

@cxong I sent you a first complete version of the space pirate campaign by mail.

[cxong]

Since Ronny has released all his assets under CC-BY, there's no need to replace the original campaigns, although new ones will still be good. To make C-Dogs SDL fully free now, we just need to exclude the custom campaigns with unknown licenses (cpns, AnttiHukkanen etc.), and offer them as a separate download pack.