The Dink Network

Grasp of Darkness

I shall not prepare Cropped version of screenshot originally taken by Drunkpunk. Farmer Bob, eh?
April 19th, 2010
v1.00
Score : 8.7 good
custom_iplaydink.gif
iplaydink
Peasant He/Him Sweden
Hmm.. 
Grasp of Darkness is Quiztis first dmod, his first contribution to the Dink Network. I really enjoyed playing this most of the time; and for a first dmod it very impressive!
The D-mod isn't really long, but it still takes time to finish, I got a playtime of over 3½h! This is probably because I got lost all the time and spent a lot of time trying to kill quite hard bosses, but more of that later.

Story:
This is the strongest part of the dmod, not necessarily plot itself but rather the way is was put out with lot's of detailed cutscenes. The beginning was nearly perfect, entertaining and professional-looking.

Everything starts when Dink is sent out by King Daniel to investigate some strange events, someone attacked the castle there with a meteoroid and a house turned all grey and shadowy

This part deserves a 9.9, I want to see more of those clever and well-made cutscenes in dmods!

Scripting:
Nothing outstanding here just ordinary scripting with a fair amount of bugs. The most annoying one was that if you had the throwing-axe equipped before talking to the last boss, after he transformed into a green knight you will punch when you use the axe?! By pressing enter and choosing axe again it will work though. Nothing Critical; but annoying indeed.

The scripting in the cutscenes was well-made with lot's of walking and such, but I counted that under the topic Story.

An 8.0 for this part; Nothing wrong with the scripting just some small bugs.

Graphics:

Here we have some nice things made by Quiztis and some graphics by other great artists (Like SimonK with others). Graphics can always be better, and Quiztis would have to create more himself to earn all points; But it's worth a 9.0.

Mapping:
Mostly enough details, sometimes a bit empty. There was a couple of dephque errors; but there aren't a dmod that don't have them. More bothering was the facts that cracks in the ground, grass, flowers and mushrooms often had nohit disabled. This could have been forgettable, but when almost all the weapons in the game are ranged it's a big flaw. It's also ugly with sprite trees as borders, something I learnt from own experience. 7.5

Gameplay:
In the beginning the gameplay was great, but towards the middle (When you entered the forest) It was really annoying with screenlocks on every screen and an environment you easily got lost in. Frustrating. The bosses was also a bit hard, some people like the challenge of an almost impossible boss but I don't. But overall I liked the gameplay and I'm ready to give it 8.0 points for this part.

Sound and Music:
I liked this music and sounds all the time. 9.9.

Overall:
A great dmod that I recommend to everyone! Quiztis has done a good job with this and I assume the possible sequel will be even better. Let's calculate the average score.
9.9 (Story) + 8.0 (Scripting) + 9.0 (Graphics) + 7.5 (Mapping) + 8.0 (Gameplay) 9.9 (Sound) = 52.3
52.3/6 ~ 8.7

Thanks for a some hours of fun Quiztis! I hope you keep dmoding!