Dink Goes Boating
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- Author(s): Simon Klaebe
- Categories: D-Mod, Development, Romp
- Downloads: 2286
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Dink Goes Boating is only partly a traditional dmod. It calls itself a "Tmod", or tutorial mod, where after a brief introduction, the player is brought to an island whereupon they may press the "T" key to toggle a mode that allows objects to explain how they work, while still allowing a sort of meta-adventure for the uncurious. Even simple objects such as barrels and potions will talk back to (or attack) you and explain what's going on behind the scenes in "T" mode, and there is great fun to be had in attempting to poke and prod at the most mundane of prop sprites just to see how they react.
Dink Goes Boating is also notable for being the single finished release that benefited from redink1's reDink engine fork, in which the user could run "boatdmod.exe" instead of launching from a front-end and talk to the dead dragon carcasses to observe the gradated fade feature that didn't make it into 1.08. Apart from this, everything else such as the palette-shifting seems to work reasonably well in any other engine variant capable of 8-bit palettes.
Upon departing from the mainland and sailing south, the player finds a castle with various forum stalwarts from roughly 20 years ago who may be conversed with in interview format. Some of these users are still occasionally present, even if to check in on things every now and then, while others have moved onto greater things, with the rest sadly no longer with us. This section provides the player with a small window into how things were, not just on this site's forum, but across the web in general. If you're at all curious as to what forums and the web were like back in the day, DGB is worth traversing through just to talk to the castle's inhabitants.
Afterwards, they player may attempt to undertake the final boss fight in a small grove and fulfil WC's quest in a manner reminiscent of an Argento flick. There is no traditional ending to be found here, and in the aftermath you may walk around or sail the high seas to your heart's content.
When first trying DGB almost 20 years ago, I knew little about the engine and its inner-workings, and must admit that despite the comprehensive explanations provided in "T" mode, I didn't come away from it with a sense of having learnt anything. Unlike "The Rudiments of Scripting", another tmod which starts from fundamentals and gradually builds its way up, DGB simply dumps you into the deep end of the pool with no clear direction and expects you to already possess enough engine expertise to not drown in a whirlpool of confusion at the often long-winded demonstrations which are thrown at you almost immediately after starting.
Due to the seafaring nature of it all, the player could have instead started out on a smaller island introducing basic concepts before eventually traversing to a larger island whereupon the more advanced concepts would be demonstrated. It doesn't help that, while occasionally humorous, some of the simplest scripted objects are snarky when talked to and refuse to provide what would otherwise be suitable introductory explanations, while other tutorial mode expositions are easily missed once the object is interacted with normally. Meanwhile, some sprites simply say nothing, rather than provide basic filler text or a clue to press T and try again. All of this makes the split between the two modes a bit clunkier than one might expect.
Overall, Dink Goes Boating is a unique adventure that provides historical insight into the state of Dink script-writing, the people it united, and the discussions they had during what might be called the golden era of dmods. Although the tutorial features might not always be as helpful or smooth-sailing as one might expect, it is still very much enjoyable with much to discover if you're prepared to explore. As an immortalisation of since deceased forum users however, its value is beyond measure.
Dink Goes Boating is also notable for being the single finished release that benefited from redink1's reDink engine fork, in which the user could run "boatdmod.exe" instead of launching from a front-end and talk to the dead dragon carcasses to observe the gradated fade feature that didn't make it into 1.08. Apart from this, everything else such as the palette-shifting seems to work reasonably well in any other engine variant capable of 8-bit palettes.
Upon departing from the mainland and sailing south, the player finds a castle with various forum stalwarts from roughly 20 years ago who may be conversed with in interview format. Some of these users are still occasionally present, even if to check in on things every now and then, while others have moved onto greater things, with the rest sadly no longer with us. This section provides the player with a small window into how things were, not just on this site's forum, but across the web in general. If you're at all curious as to what forums and the web were like back in the day, DGB is worth traversing through just to talk to the castle's inhabitants.
Afterwards, they player may attempt to undertake the final boss fight in a small grove and fulfil WC's quest in a manner reminiscent of an Argento flick. There is no traditional ending to be found here, and in the aftermath you may walk around or sail the high seas to your heart's content.
When first trying DGB almost 20 years ago, I knew little about the engine and its inner-workings, and must admit that despite the comprehensive explanations provided in "T" mode, I didn't come away from it with a sense of having learnt anything. Unlike "The Rudiments of Scripting", another tmod which starts from fundamentals and gradually builds its way up, DGB simply dumps you into the deep end of the pool with no clear direction and expects you to already possess enough engine expertise to not drown in a whirlpool of confusion at the often long-winded demonstrations which are thrown at you almost immediately after starting.
Due to the seafaring nature of it all, the player could have instead started out on a smaller island introducing basic concepts before eventually traversing to a larger island whereupon the more advanced concepts would be demonstrated. It doesn't help that, while occasionally humorous, some of the simplest scripted objects are snarky when talked to and refuse to provide what would otherwise be suitable introductory explanations, while other tutorial mode expositions are easily missed once the object is interacted with normally. Meanwhile, some sprites simply say nothing, rather than provide basic filler text or a clue to press T and try again. All of this makes the split between the two modes a bit clunkier than one might expect.
Overall, Dink Goes Boating is a unique adventure that provides historical insight into the state of Dink script-writing, the people it united, and the discussions they had during what might be called the golden era of dmods. Although the tutorial features might not always be as helpful or smooth-sailing as one might expect, it is still very much enjoyable with much to discover if you're prepared to explore. As an immortalisation of since deceased forum users however, its value is beyond measure.
