Cast Awakening Part 5: Revolution
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- Author(s): Dan Walma
- Categories: D-Mod, Quest
- Downloads: 1581
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I only played this dmod at length after looking at the graphics folder for graphics to steal and seeing a very cool sword. Generally I'm not fond of pure gameplay games (be it dmods or games in general, I want a story to motivate me to engage with the gameplay - even fighting and racing games are infinitely improved by having some kind of storyline), but in this case I was amused by the imagination of the sword and wanted to see how it plays out. At this point I regarded the author's desperate plea in the dmod folder not to go snooping around, because that could spoil a lof of nifty secrets. Oops.
There's also a journal.txt describing the author's scramble to finish the dmod for the Silent Hero Contest around Christmas break, which was a neat read. It's not a full development journal, although now I'm wishing more people would do that with their (contest) dmods. It would be so fun!
Anyway, onto the dmod. The gameplay is changed in some significant ways: There's no defense which I think is great (defense is kind of impossible to balance around, you can easily end with an untouchable Dink that can also only tickle enemies), magic has been renamed "range rate", and there's also a "range damage" stat. And the luck stat greatly affects the drop rate of gold and probably other stuff, as well as sort of behaving like defense in that it seems to affect how quickly spellcasting enemies start targeting Dink. I was hoping there would be critical hits and the like, but I don't think there are. At least I didn't find any weapon that could perform such.
At first I wanted to ignore ranged weapons and focus on melee because melee is manly, but levelups are at least semi-random and it often makes the most sense to pick whatever stat you're offered a big bonus to. Melee and magic are complementary, after all, and I don't think there are normal ranged weapons in this dmod. When I got the option to buy a flame bow, which in Original Dink is the strongest weapon, instead I got some stupid flame arrow spell that replaced my god-tier running duck. <SPITEFUL QUACK> (It may be strong and useful but the duck is cuter, so it was a bad deal.)
THINGS I LIKED
* There's a lot of items and new gimmicks that can be unlocked that keep the gameplay fresh. I think Dink fundamentally has very fun combat, and the combat here is much improved from Original Dink.
* There's plenty of secrets and some unlockable levels, which likewise help keep the game fresh.
* The balance was surprisingly okay. Early game could be challenging, eventually I got really powerful and could obliterate entire screens of fools in seconds (which is very satisfying), but I could still be caught by the more annoying magic casters and had to prioritize them.
* There is an ending and a little epilogue that ties this dmod to the rest of 'redinkiverse'! This was the coolest, you can actually complete a run of this dmod.
* Variety in the tilesets and music. There's a lot of different midis that can play on different levels and different tilesets and sprites are used, so the dungeons are superficially quite different from each other. The dungeons weren't all great though... (more on this in the negatives section)
THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE
* When you get a new weapon or spell, it replaces your old one. And it's not at all guaranteed to be an improvement. I want to compare abilities and weigh their strengths to see what I wanna use, not pick something I have no inkling what it does and then feel bad because now I'm stuck with some lame stale bread. Although I can see why this was done (it increases the longevity of the game and many items have special uses so you can't do everything at once), I just think it's an anti-fun mechanic.
* Every level is a procedurally generated dungeon and there are a lot of different layouts, but they don't feel meaningfully different and every screen is a junction that joins the next screen at the same spot. You can get a map but you don't really need one, as they never get complex enough to be really mazey. Objects often get generated on top of each other, sometimes leading to goodies being unpickable. Sometimes items you've learned should be interactable are not. One time I even got stuck inside a duck statue and had to cheat my way out.
* Enemy variety. There are three types of enemies: Tocuhers, attackers and casters. And the casters thankfully actually cast their spells, rather than just autohitting you like the dragons in the original game do. The touchers and attackers might as well be the same, they generally move slowly and don't pose much challenge, except by being in the way when you're trying to evade the real danger posed by the casters.
On different levels the casters' casting patterns change and some special attacks are cool (I liked the dragons), but overall it's just not enough.
* No bosses. I unlocked a secret level named Spike and I was certain I would get a boss fight, but nope. It was just like the other levels. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of secret boss (I never unlocked level 13), but even if that's the case it's not enough.
VERDICT
Overall I think this dmod is a great demonstration of how joyous Dink can be purely in the gameplay department. This kind of game is not my mug of coffee, but I still had a lot of fun and kinda want to do another run.
Aside from adding story content, I think the main way to improve this would be to add more complexity to the generations and just add a lot of stuff in general. Which of course is antithetical to trying to make it to a contest deadline. For a contest dmod this is already extremely bulbous, with lots of new weapons and spells crammed into it. I must've spent a couple of hours playing this and my completion % was still only 62.
There's also a journal.txt describing the author's scramble to finish the dmod for the Silent Hero Contest around Christmas break, which was a neat read. It's not a full development journal, although now I'm wishing more people would do that with their (contest) dmods. It would be so fun!
Anyway, onto the dmod. The gameplay is changed in some significant ways: There's no defense which I think is great (defense is kind of impossible to balance around, you can easily end with an untouchable Dink that can also only tickle enemies), magic has been renamed "range rate", and there's also a "range damage" stat. And the luck stat greatly affects the drop rate of gold and probably other stuff, as well as sort of behaving like defense in that it seems to affect how quickly spellcasting enemies start targeting Dink. I was hoping there would be critical hits and the like, but I don't think there are. At least I didn't find any weapon that could perform such.
At first I wanted to ignore ranged weapons and focus on melee because melee is manly, but levelups are at least semi-random and it often makes the most sense to pick whatever stat you're offered a big bonus to. Melee and magic are complementary, after all, and I don't think there are normal ranged weapons in this dmod. When I got the option to buy a flame bow, which in Original Dink is the strongest weapon, instead I got some stupid flame arrow spell that replaced my god-tier running duck. <SPITEFUL QUACK> (It may be strong and useful but the duck is cuter, so it was a bad deal.)
THINGS I LIKED
* There's a lot of items and new gimmicks that can be unlocked that keep the gameplay fresh. I think Dink fundamentally has very fun combat, and the combat here is much improved from Original Dink.
* There's plenty of secrets and some unlockable levels, which likewise help keep the game fresh.
* The balance was surprisingly okay. Early game could be challenging, eventually I got really powerful and could obliterate entire screens of fools in seconds (which is very satisfying), but I could still be caught by the more annoying magic casters and had to prioritize them.
* There is an ending and a little epilogue that ties this dmod to the rest of 'redinkiverse'! This was the coolest, you can actually complete a run of this dmod.
* Variety in the tilesets and music. There's a lot of different midis that can play on different levels and different tilesets and sprites are used, so the dungeons are superficially quite different from each other. The dungeons weren't all great though... (more on this in the negatives section)
THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE
* When you get a new weapon or spell, it replaces your old one. And it's not at all guaranteed to be an improvement. I want to compare abilities and weigh their strengths to see what I wanna use, not pick something I have no inkling what it does and then feel bad because now I'm stuck with some lame stale bread. Although I can see why this was done (it increases the longevity of the game and many items have special uses so you can't do everything at once), I just think it's an anti-fun mechanic.
* Every level is a procedurally generated dungeon and there are a lot of different layouts, but they don't feel meaningfully different and every screen is a junction that joins the next screen at the same spot. You can get a map but you don't really need one, as they never get complex enough to be really mazey. Objects often get generated on top of each other, sometimes leading to goodies being unpickable. Sometimes items you've learned should be interactable are not. One time I even got stuck inside a duck statue and had to cheat my way out.
* Enemy variety. There are three types of enemies: Tocuhers, attackers and casters. And the casters thankfully actually cast their spells, rather than just autohitting you like the dragons in the original game do. The touchers and attackers might as well be the same, they generally move slowly and don't pose much challenge, except by being in the way when you're trying to evade the real danger posed by the casters.
On different levels the casters' casting patterns change and some special attacks are cool (I liked the dragons), but overall it's just not enough.
* No bosses. I unlocked a secret level named Spike and I was certain I would get a boss fight, but nope. It was just like the other levels. I wouldn't be surprised if there's some kind of secret boss (I never unlocked level 13), but even if that's the case it's not enough.
VERDICT
Overall I think this dmod is a great demonstration of how joyous Dink can be purely in the gameplay department. This kind of game is not my mug of coffee, but I still had a lot of fun and kinda want to do another run.
Aside from adding story content, I think the main way to improve this would be to add more complexity to the generations and just add a lot of stuff in general. Which of course is antithetical to trying to make it to a contest deadline. For a contest dmod this is already extremely bulbous, with lots of new weapons and spells crammed into it. I must've spent a couple of hours playing this and my completion % was still only 62.
