The Dink Network

Once in a Lifetime

June 1st, 2003
v1.1u
Score : 8.0 good
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Binirit
Peasant She/Her
 
Note: This indepth review was made on request by SabreTrout for his DinkMagazine that however never saw the light of day. Since I thought it a shame to just delete this indepth review, I decided to submit it as a regular review. That is why this review is so long: it was inteded to be in a magazine.

This is the first D-mod made by Simeon.

In this D-mod, King Daniel summons Dink to investigate what’s going on in some part of his kingdom. There are some problems, but the player doesn’t get to hear what kind of problems. Dink has to go there by boat, but the boat sinks and Dink washes ashore on an island. The D-mod is separated into two parts: on the first part you have to level up and find out what is going on, while on the second part the game relies more on fighting.

I wondered what the title has to do with the game itself since I could not find any references, but the author states that he just liked the title and that you could say that creating this D-mod was a once in a lifetime experience, which is of course exactly what it is: creating your first D-mod!

Let me first start by giving some numbers: this D-mod has one update, 129 screens, 6 midi files, 104 .d files, 2 new tiles (diary/notes), and the estimated time to solve it is between 1 and 2 hours. I finished it in about one and a half hour. This D-mod is classified as a quest. The author says it is a puzzling and adventure D-mod and indeed it is.

Let’s start at the very beginning, with the title screen.

The title screen
The letters of the title resemble gothic letters, in bright red. The start, load and quit buttons are in dark blue and become a lighter blue when you move the cursor over them. The text ‘A D-mod by: Simeon’ has letters that have different colours, the begin letters of each word are yellowish, the others dark red. The version number v1.07 is still there. There is also the notice ‘copyright 2002’
The title screen is not very artistic and has no graphics. The notice about copyright seems a bit overdone, and the version number is not necessary. Since the author used just Paint to make the title screen I consider it to be quite good. The author also states that there was not any specific reason to not use graphics; he thought that the title of the D-mod and his name would do just fine.

The music
The title screen music is calm and relaxing, and I consider that an excellent choice.
The music played in the introduction is very familiar. Alas, I am not that good in recognising music or telling which artist it is, but it resembles some pop/country. Hearing it when seeing at the same time King Daniel is plain hilarious! In fact, the music was so much fun, that I just laughed out loud and didn’t pay any attention to the intro so I had to restart to see that part again.
The first part of the game has the same music as played in the introduction, and alas, after a while it gets really annoying. It is a pleasure when you can go on to the other part of the island, not because you can then proceed, but also because you can then listen to some different, and very nice, music that doesn’t get irritating at all.

Now let’s have a look at the game itself.

The first part: the map
The first part of the game, right after Dink washes ashore on the island, is rather small. It consists of 11 screens. Those are decorated with trees, bushes, and rocks and such. Some ducks too. The borders are made nicely: some have seashore, others a cliff or a low rock border. The side of the cliff is nicely camouflaged with some trees. Without the trees you would see a cut off cliff, but now it gives the impression that the cliff indeed ends or bends towards the north. There is a blocked path and some other blocks that consist of trees, but those are obviously to prevent the player from going there, while the blocked path is an indicator that you should go there. There are not too many details, nor too few, so that keeps it interesting.

The first part: the interiors
All the interiors are as nicely decorated as the outdoors. The interior of the bar is just an average bar, but the tree adds a nice touch – and it is necessary for the gameplay too. It’s nice to have some cellars too. Not just houses, but also some other rooms you can investigate.
The little goblin village inside Gobbie’s house is nicely done, as is the cave with the pillbugs and the goodies. At first you see a junk yard of some sort, but later on when you have progressed in the game, you realise it’s the shop’s backyard. Real nice. It’s also nice that the area’s where you can not do anything or very little are nicely decorated as well.

The fist part: the game and story
While on the island, Dink finds out that the blocked path is there because the inhabitants placed it there. It turns out that on the other part of the island there are monsters and by setting up the roadblock the monsters can not go to the village.
Gobbie, the goblin, speaks a sort of human-goblish as almost all goblins in D-mods too. Although there are several people, only the goblin has a name.
The cave with the pillbugs is not too difficult, nor to easy to investigate.
You can play a game in order to get a sword. You need to find ten food items that the guy has hid somewhere. If you manage to find them all, he will give you a sword. The nice thing about the interior of the guy’s house is that he’s obviously interested in food since there is a table loaded with food. That is always nice, if things are correct. It’s only a shame that the guy has no name. He knows that Dink is Dink, but you never get to know his name.
It’s very easy to find 9 food items, and you already think that that is too easy, but then you have to find food item number ten and that one is a lot harder to find.
It is a bit of a shame that the conversation is so little.

The first part: the humour
The guy in the bar on the island looks like Milder, but he denies it. The old lady in the bar has some nice conversation too. The bar pet (a pill bug) is funny. The music played in the introduction is very familiar. Alas, I am not that good in recognising music or say by which artist it is, but it resembles some pop/country. Hearing it when seeing at the same time King Daniel is plain hilarious! In fact, the music was so much fun, that I just laughed out loud and didn’t pay any attention to the intro so I had to restart to see that part again.

The first part: overall
Overall is the first part of the game the most interesting part of the whole game. It is a small area where you can do a lot without having to walk endlessly, which is good. You have to puzzle, talk with people, search for different items and the gameplay is very good.

The second part

The second part: the map
The second part of the game is larger then the first part. It is as nicely decorated, with many different details, as the first part is. It never gets boring. There are different types of landscape, such as forest, grassland, seashores and rock borders. The sandy parts are very good, with a combination of natural bridges and bridges that are placed on screen. You can explore a larger area here then in the first part but there is not that much to do, apart from fighting enemies. There are several hearts and potions, and you need both. It is obvious that the monsters have taken over, since they are almost everywhere.

The second part: the interiors
There are several houses in this part, but they do not play a role, apart from one house. They are decorated very nicely. The inside of the houses also tells the story about the monsters since there are dead bodies and the houses are a chaos. And there are monsters of course.

The second part: the game and story
The second part is mostly about killing enemies. There are several screenlocks. It is a good thing that you have the fireball by now, since the monsters are much tougher in this part then they are in the caves in the first part. Even with the fireball it takes some time to defeat them.
In one of the house you can read a diary by John, but that does not enlighten you on why the monsters have taken over. You have to puzzle in this part, which is nice. The puzzle consists of some wells and you have to drop some coins in them. You have to figure out not only what to do, but also how to do it. This puzzle is a splendid example of a nice and, most of all, original puzzle that can indeed keep you puzzled for a while. But if you just give it a couple of tries, you will soon find out what to do.
The good part about proceeding in this part of the game is that you actually come back to the first part of the game and something that did not work at first now does, so you can proceed. You can also get an even better weapons, and, if you have found and picked up some orbs, you can use those in a very nice way. The good thing about the ‘orb puzzle’ is that you do not have a clue what the orbs are for. And, if you finally know what they are for, you wished you had found some more! From this point on it is quite obvious what to do: you can not explore anymore, but you just follow the path until you have reached the end boss. The author states that, when he looks at this D-mod now, and if he had to redo it, he would change the end boss since you can only make it faster and stronger but it just is not an endboss.
There is almost no conversation in this part, which is a shame, since now you are just slashing and hacking your way through.

The second part: the humour
There is no humour in this part. The only conversation is from the end boss and a guy in the cave, and although the guy says something logical after you visit him a second time, I consider that sentence not funny.

The second part: overall
This second part depends mostly on fighting. A bit more conversation would have been nice though.

When considering all in all, I would say that this D-mod is a very nice quest. Even the two parts of which the game consists and their plusses and minusses do make a good game if you consider it as one game instead of two. It is of course one game and not two, but when you only look at the differences between the different parts you would easily say that the first part is better then the second part. But, if you look at the game overall, the two parts just make one good game: in the first part you find out what is going on and you level up, and in the second part it is action time and you kick some ass!

I wondered if the author intended it to be that way, that is, dividing the D-mod into two parts, and he states that he in fact did not intend it to be that way. He first had the part with the village but since that would have been to small and too short he added the part where Dink has to explore a village that has been attacked by monsters.

The thing I like most about this D-mod is that you can see that the author tried to make the map as beautiful as possible. You can just feel all the effort he put in it. This D-mod is a very good one indeed!

July 7th, 2002
v1.1u
Score : 9.4 exceptional
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IceMan
Peasant He/Him
 
So then, once in a lifetime, brought to you by Simeon. Well, what can I say. Let's simplify my thoughts... It is a very good game, new midis, new graphics although only a few. Some map errors which is bad and can be easily found, but anyway, take a look at the strengths and weaknesses and decide for yourself what you think is good and what you think is bad...

Strengths
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The midis here are very good and are all taken from James Perleys beautiful 374 Midi collection. I feel that although this is a pretty small D-MOD, what it lacks in size, it makes up for in storyline and gameplay. I feel that it has been very well constructed and very well thought out. The game itself, as a whole, is a pretty good acheivement. The combat is very good, just what I like, not too hard, yet, still not too easy. Making it just right (said the baby bear...). The end boss is ok, just not brilliant, actually the boss was very easy, but still...

Weaknesses
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Hmmm, glitches and bugs, as always a very bad weakness. The map here is very small, which I guess is OK, but I would have liked this game to last a little longer, it seems to just, stop. I feel the LACK of midis here is bad. Yes, they are very good midis, some of the best, but there are not enough of them. You will, throughout the D-MOD, hear the same midis every now and again, which is bad, as it makes it "boring" if you understand what I am trying to say. I feel that there is nothing too interesting about the boss you can find in this D-MOD. Nothing that makes him stand out from the rest. Once again, making it a bad D-MOD. There are different ways to approach different parts in this D-MOD, but some are just too easy, simple.

Overall
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A GREAT D-MOD with GREAT potential, but lacks that shiny touch, not making it "the one". Not enough midis, too many bugs to get the right amount of pleasure from this game, and the fact that there is nothing OUTSTANDING that you can find from the boss. There is, however, VERY good storyline, VERY good gameplay, which basically OVERPOWERS all of this D-MODS weaknesses, giving it a high score. A small map, adventure dies to quickly, hope there can be more in later versions.

Total 9.4
Grade A (Passing Greatly By My Standards)

End Comment "Great game, small, sweet, but great"
May 30th, 2002
v1.1u
Score : 9.2 exceptional
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Shaden
Peasant They/Them
 
This game is a masterpiece. Well, thats what I would call it if there was no glitches!

Well anyway, this story begins when the king asks Dink to travel to a distant island. While Dink is doing so his boat springs a leak.
Dink washes up on another island instead. Here Dink must save the town people from being killed by pillbugs.

In this game you may encounter a mini-game, which is my favirote part of this d-mod.

If there was not any huge glitches in the game, I would of gave this game the top rating.

Positives:

This game is great! Out of all the games here, this is my favirote.
The hidden D-mod was a pretty good idea, and had a halarious storyline. The soundtrack was great too. It would be great if you could come up with another version
with more mini-games. I love those things.

Negatives:

Well...just to break it to you, there is quite a few major bugs. For example, by the cliff when it says claw sword ahead,
You can walk on the side of the hill below you. It is a very weird glitch.

~The Mini-Game (The best part of the game!)

All I can say 'bout this Mini-game is that it rocks, do not, I repeat, do not complete the game without playing
the mini-game. I am not going to tell you where this mini-game is because,
it will spoil the game for you.

Other than that, All I have to say is:

DOWNLOAD THE GAME NOW!!!
May 6th, 2002
v1.1u
Score : 8.5 good
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Tyrsis
Peasant She/Her Russia
 
Simeon's "Once in a Lifetime" is a small DMod, but it is well done. Dink finds himself on an unknown coast and has to do something while waiting for the next boat.

First of all the map. Not large, but well filled and looks nice. Space is used well, very little hardness errors. A nice little world.

The plot is just like a small DMod should have. It is there, but of course nothing very complicated.
Some new graphics, nice to see the text, not to "listen" to Dink reading it.

Music - what can I say? I used the same in AGAE, they are of the best from 374midis collection.

The little quests are fun, and the wells puzzle takes some thinking. The small DMod is funny too. The end boss might be tougher.

There is a lot of gold, but what can I buy? Afraid not much...

Haven't noticed any bugs.

There is one place where Dink is on the hilltop, a lot of monsters, screen locked - and some monsters may hide behind a bush. So don't go up after pressing a button in the forest.

This DMod is able of giving 40 min of pleasure to any dinker, regardless of personal preferences
(I prefer epic ones, but sometimes like a little nice adventure).

This DMod you definitely must download. It is worth your time to play it. Let's wish Simeon good luck with his next one (hint, Simeon!

October 3rd, 2005
v1.1u
Score : 8.8 good
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Xanthos
Peasant He/Him
 
Very enjoyable quest. While I do enjoy more complex quests, this one was fun. Easy and fun, glad I got to play it. One of my major gripes is not being able to go look for any orbs you missed by the time you get to the orb guy, it was a neat little subquest though. The Dink's pimple thing was nice as well, a good addition. Like Sabre said, the end boss was a major letdown, I agree that final bosses should have something special about them, not just an oversized pillbug with a truckload of health. But great work, I enjoyed it.
July 3rd, 2002
v1.1u
Score : 9.0 exceptional
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Kat
Peasant She/Her Canada
We can out-drink most Americans! 
Dink gets washed ashore, where he starts a new adventure.

Highs: Simple, yet intestesting storyline. Villagers gave you clues, and I for once didn't get stuck in a tree. The "pimplecream" story, was a nice surprice, (once I figured it out)and everything was very easy on the eyes.

Lows: Maybe a little too simple, as I pretty well got the info I needed to go to the next stage.

Overall: A very nice DMOD, which is why I am modifying my old review. Looking forward to playing Simeon's next DMod.
April 24th, 2002
v1.1u
Score : 7.5 good
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SimonK
Peasant He/Him Australia
 
A nice little quest DMOD. New version has a couple of mini-games, or diversions. Overall though a little too easy in it's game play. No new sounds, 6 new midis and a couple of full screen bmps. But on the plus side the world is well done. Only two map errors that I found. One is a gap in hardness which lets you walk up the cliff and onto a lock screen. The other is another lockscreen you can legitmately reach without being able to attack the boncas/pillbugs. End boss was way to easy.
April 9th, 2002
v1.1u
Score : 8.5 good
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Simeon proves himself/herself as a dmod creator with "Once in a Lifetime." This game is well balanced; not too easy and not too hard to get through. It has two challenging areas which the player must "think" and "search with open eyes" to get through. I hope this isn't the final version though. This is a good start but could use some add-ons such as more trees to burn for those who like to burn trees, and more hidden treasure to find. Also the monsters were easier to kill than I expected. More of a challenge needed. I can't review the music because my stereo is louder than my computer. Sorry bout that. But I did enjoy the game. It did have a couple of small bugs that needs to be worked out but they didn't interfere with the gameplay by freezing the game up.