Of Cat-Life, there has been one problem more troublesome then any other. The want of a coder.
In all the years that the mod has been in development… about six now… the team has seen several coders sign-on long enough to get their name on the team list. Then they either leave due to outside circumstances or they simply were not seriously interested in coding for our mod.
The video that BiGToM posted showing the early cat-code was mostly hard-coded map tricks and coding. The actual game code has yet to see any significant changes. This mod would probably be in beta phase by now had any one of our coders remained on team long enough to complete the Cat-FOV coding.
So… BiGToM contacted me yesterday on Steam for help with yet another coder request.
Team Cat-Life needs a coder. The mod itself is not going to develop much further without custom source code.
Cat-Life, for anyone that doesn’t already know, is a single-player Half-Life mod. The player will be tasked with surviving the Black Mesa incident of the original Half-Life, but from a new point of view.
This is NOT playing Half-Life but with cat replacement models or replacing Gordon Freeman with a cat. Rather, Cat-Life is the story of Newton… a scientist’s pet cat.
During the incident, poor Newton’s master is killed and the little fella has to escape the base alone… without being eaten or the ability to pick up the usual weapons.
You play Newton. You eat cat food. You try not be be eaten by the aliens. You claw, scratch, and bite your way through six chapters and a new hazard course. There will be more then 30 custom maps.
This is possibly one of the most unique and interesting mod concepts ever attempted and we ARE serious about completing it.
But we need your help.
Cat-Life needs a good, experienced coder for the GoldSource engine. Specifically, we need someone to lower the Field of View to a Cat’s eye level. That is the number one priority at the moment. Without such code completed for internal testing, the mappers can’t test their maps properly.
We also would like to add a Cat’s night vision, modified jumping, sprinting, pouncing, and such movement options… if these sorts of items are possible.
The original HL 1 C++ is freely available for editing and will be our source. BiGToM has said that he can offer a C++ program to work with and a simple file share program to make this easier for the new coder.
He also said that a reward is available for the coder. He couldn’t give me an exact dollar figure due to not knowing how long recruitment may take or how much will be donated, but he estimated anything from $10 to $60 US. Potential applicants need to discus this with BiGToM directly.
And when I said “We need your help” I was being very literal. If you can’t code, but you know someone who does… point them in our direction. We need experienced help here.
It’s high time we got past this one trivial problem and moved this mod into it’s final development stages. We need a coder.
Contact BiGToM on MSN at sayrken@hotmail.com, email him at sayrken[AT]gmail.com, or stop by our forums at bwldevelopment.com and leave a message. You can even send a private message at ModDB if you like.
