Land of Transforming Ducks
At the risk of shocking Dinkers here, I'd like to say that LoTD isn't as bad as a DMOD can get. It's not good, but there's more going on here than mets the eye. Let's run through the obvious problems one more time:
- No RPG elements (all stats are disabled, no items, weapons or magic)
- No puzzle elements
- Stock map elements used in outre ways
- Very linear map without even a road to guide the player
- No dialog or directions of any given to the player
- End boss presents no challenge
- No final cutscreen screen at the end
- No "win condition" defined
- No savebots (I know you don't need one, but still...)
- No scripting evident (but clearly there's reuse of existing stuff)
Now all of these are serious drawbacks to any game. However, there are a few interesting things about this DMOD:
- Outrageous resizings of stock images
- An interesting sound FX for the Boss (which is just the duck
quack slowed down with bad parameters to playsound() I think)
- A stubbornly dadaistic approach to game design that reminded
me of plenty of cartridges I played on an Atari 2600 in the 80s
I do give this author of this DMOD some props for a brute force mod attempt. It doesn't look like he used WinDinkEdit or any modern tools. It's likely he used DinkEdit, which is a Lovecraftian horror.
With about 4 days of work, this DMOD could approach the playability of Adventure. It just needs a weapon, a few more screens, a chalice and a
win condition. That would double my rating of this DMOD to, like, 2.
So, I'd put this DMOD in a new class. It's a toy, like simcity or xeyes or xsnow. It's a plaything that might distract you for a moment. However, not all toys have a high replay value.
- No RPG elements (all stats are disabled, no items, weapons or magic)
- No puzzle elements
- Stock map elements used in outre ways
- Very linear map without even a road to guide the player
- No dialog or directions of any given to the player
- End boss presents no challenge
- No final cutscreen screen at the end
- No "win condition" defined
- No savebots (I know you don't need one, but still...)
- No scripting evident (but clearly there's reuse of existing stuff)
Now all of these are serious drawbacks to any game. However, there are a few interesting things about this DMOD:
- Outrageous resizings of stock images
- An interesting sound FX for the Boss (which is just the duck
quack slowed down with bad parameters to playsound() I think)
- A stubbornly dadaistic approach to game design that reminded
me of plenty of cartridges I played on an Atari 2600 in the 80s
I do give this author of this DMOD some props for a brute force mod attempt. It doesn't look like he used WinDinkEdit or any modern tools. It's likely he used DinkEdit, which is a Lovecraftian horror.
With about 4 days of work, this DMOD could approach the playability of Adventure. It just needs a weapon, a few more screens, a chalice and a
win condition. That would double my rating of this DMOD to, like, 2.
So, I'd put this DMOD in a new class. It's a toy, like simcity or xeyes or xsnow. It's a plaything that might distract you for a moment. However, not all toys have a high replay value.