The Dink Network

Day of the Carcass

In this game, you play as a brother and sister team. From the COTPATD project.
Description
Dink has finally managed to settle down and form a family. One day the peace is disturbed by an old threat.

This D-Mod was originally created for the DDC D-Mod contest.

*Best D-Mod of Q4 2009*

*Best D-Mod of 2009*
Released:December 30th, 2009
File Size:28.85 MB
Downloads:316
Release Notes:Initial version.
Play:Play this D-Mod right now in your web browser! (More Info)
 
May 28th, 2010
v1.00
Score : 9.1 exceptional
peasantmb.gif
yeoldetoast
Peasant They/Them Australia
LOOK UPON MY DEFORMED FACE! 
First of all, the main reason people won't like this is because they don't understand how it works. It is imperative that one reads the readme file included. Then start playing. I personally thought the introduction sequence was the best I have seen for a while. It's worth downloading just to see it.

In this mod, you play as a girl called Nadine who is in a party with her brother (sort of like Dink's Friendly Double by Redink). They are the children of Dink, who is called off to see the king. The children however, collect meat and mushrooms in the forest, then fight spiders. It is quite clear that there is something afoot, and they both save the world etc.
The dialogue is filled with funny jokes and humour throughout, and I think it's the first time since "The Quest for Cheese" or "Cloud Castle 2" that I laughed whilst playing.

The control system borrows from Lyna's story for Nadine (with several modifications), and of course works very well here as well. Nadine has the option of several magic arrows that she can shoot. These take energy out of a mana bar which slowly replenishes over time. David is also a spellcaster and can use some quite useful spells which really enrich game play. If you don't want David to attack, you can "phase shift" him, which basically means that he turns transparent and freezes so as to prevent damage. David's controls are quite extensive, and will take a while to get used to if you don't want him to get killed all the time.
I personally think there should have been a tutorial at the beginning of the game taking the player through all of the controls and how to best use them, such as burning trees and freezing water.

The graphics are quite well done. David's graphics are Dink's recoloured (inverted), and the full list of graphics can be found in the credits listing. The mapping is well done, and the attention to detail is high. Lots of secret burnable trees too.

The soundtrack is fair though limited; It starts off with Robert Miles' "Fable" from his 1996 album Dreamland. And an Enya song is chosen for the forest. When fighting spiders, the Lufia II battle theme plays. In Dink's house, "More than a feeling" by Boston plays. I personally hate that song, and would have given it a higher score had it not been included.
The rest of the music is standard Dink fare.
I'd say the soundtrack is this games weakest element.

When David is attacking, Nadine can be hurt by his attacks and quickly die. The author claims that you should get out of his way, but I found when fighting spiders, they spray little white webs all over the ground which Nadine can get stuck in. I would try to "phase shift" David to stop him attacking, then die from a spider bite. I think the spider's webs should not cause Nadine to get stuck, but merely slow her down.

I found the readme file to be poorly laid out, and controls should have been in a separate section from the storyline. The file size is really large, and the graphics should have been compressed with the fastfile. A tutorial would have been useful at the start of the game, as nobody reads readme files, and David's controls are esoteric.

The rather steep learning curve compared to other mods may put people off but who cares? This is a barrel of fun.

The only other problem to note is that it does not always work correctly in Beuc's GNU FreeDink. It may be fixed in later builds.
TopicPostsPosterLast Post
How to kill the green dragon?16anonJuly 28th 2011, 02:24 AM
bug report: memory problem with freedink on linux7hokiApril 1st 2011, 04:56 PM
Improvements6AbsolutionJuly 25th 2010, 04:39 PM
FreeDink quits after the intro4GOKUSSJ6February 21st 2010, 12:40 PM
stuck after spider tells me "we need to talk"16arossowJanuary 5th 2010, 12:14 AM
still stuck4arossowJanuary 4th 2010, 06:39 PM
The dragon3croforlifeJanuary 2nd 2010, 04:54 AM