Creating your own levels

The game levels are just plain bitmap files (.bmp), so you can make levels with Paint or some other paint program. Put your levels in the ".../Scudden Death 2/Original/Levels" folder.

The level bitmaps should be made in 1920x240 resolution. Although you can make them in any other resolution, they are stretched to the given resolution in the game. The color depth can be from 2 colors to 16 million (24 bit) colors.

The black (rgb 0,0,0) color is the transparent color. This means that all pixels that are black will be sky, and all pixels not black will be ground.

If you want to make a description of your level, just create a text document containing your description and put it in the ".../Scudden Death 2/Original/Levels" folder. The description file must have the same name as your level. If your level is called "My Level.bmp", name your description "My Level.txt". The level description is limited to 512 characters. The level description will be visible when viewing the level in the levels menu in the game.

You can customize your level further by creating a level info file. A level info file is just a plain text document with a file extension of ".level" instead of ".txt", and are put in the ".../Scudden Death 2/Original/Levels/" folder. The info file must have the same name as your level. If your level is called "My Level.bmp", name your info file "My Level.info".

The level info file is used to select the scenery type for the level, background color and image, water height, and more. One of the most important parameters to set is the scenery type, and is used to select the kind of civilian units and trees to have on the level. To set the scenery type, create a level info file containing the following:

[Options]
SceneryType=Jungle


This will give a jungle scenery type. Other possible values are Desert and Winter, or None for no trees and civilians. The [options]-line is needed for the game to understand the file. If you want a different background color, you need a level info file containing something like this:

[Options]
SceneryType=Jungle
BackgroundColorR=0
BackgroundColorG=100
BackgroundColorB=255


This will give a light blue background color.

You can get a full listing of the different parameters in the level info reference below.

Level .info reference

Download the reference here, in the form of a ".info" file.

Converting Scudden Death 1 levels to the Scudden Death 2 level format

The Scudden Death 1 levels you want to convert must be in wide format (1280x240), like in the newest level format for Scudden Death 1, not the old format (640x480). If they are not, you need to alter them to the wide format.

To use these wide format levels in Scudden Death 2, you need to replace the Scudden Death 1 transparency color, magenta (rgb 255,0,255), to the Scudden Death 2 transparency color, black (rgb 0,0,0). So replace all of the magenta pixels in the levels with black pixels.

Now your level is ready for Scudden Death 2. But if you want to have trees and civilians on your level, you must add a level .info file for it.

Creating your own missions

The missions are located in the ".../Scudden Death 2/Original/Missions" folder, and are plain text documents with a file extension of ".mission". Mission 1 is called "1.mission", mission 2 is called "2.mission" etc. There are 75 missions in the game, so you should name your missions "76.mission" and so forth, or you could replace or alter the existing missions.

Read the mission script reference below for information on how the mission script work, and for a simple mission example. You should study some of the missions already in the ".../Scudden Death 2/Original/Missions" folder to see usage of the mission script, in addition to reading the mission tutorial below.

Mission Script Reference

Download the full mission script reference here, in the form of a ".mission" file. It also contains a simple mission example. If you only want the simple mission example, download it here. For an additional example mission, download that here. For a mission tutorial I have gotten from a fan, download that here.