The Dink Network

Sour Gummy Worms

One of the many screens with ever changing enemies
January 5th, 2021
1.00
Score : 8.5 good
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yeoldetoast
Peasant They/Them Australia
LOOK UPON MY DEFORMED FACE! 
For those who aren't aware of the author's great history on this web site, their interpretation of what he has produced and what it represents in the grander scheme of things will almost inevitably be lacking in some way. I will spare you an in-depth history lesson and instead direct you to type "POOPY SAUCE" into the search box on the forum search page with deleted messages on so that you may marvel at the standard of discourse. However, if you're at all acquainted with this and other such behaviour over the last ten years or more, the rationale behind "Sour Gummy Worms" will be at least somewhat obvious.

What may strike newcomers to the D-mod world as somewhat baffling is that the author's earlier DMODs did actually aspire to some sort of worthwhile standard. Compared to Sour Gummy Worms, "Smallwood-Man!" was a veritable masterpiece in regards to the finesse and apparent craftsmanship involved. At the start of 2015 there appears to have been a violent shift towards Dmods of deliberately poor quality. To these uninitiated individuals who are left shaking their head while wondering what went wrong, they have once again missed the point. The world of Dink modding has a long history of poorly-produced questionable uploads, with there being an equally long history of a sort of meta-commentary that surrounds these "bad" mods and the apparent disgust they inspire in the player. You can be assured that the clamour of distaste for ABCDEFG was far larger and lasted much longer than it ever took to download and finish. Similarly, the discussions surrounding GlennGlenn's uploads and whether or not he was making deliberately bad D-mods to torment the community with were more long-winded than all the lines of dialogue in "The Scary Beast" put together. The author thus continues this rich tradition by making what is essentially a fusion of everything unpleasant from the archetypal "bad" Dmod.

When Sigmund Freud and his students were in the early stages of refining his process of psychoanalysis, they stumbled across a phenomenon that they couldn't make sense of. A certain subset of patients were almost impossible to successfully treat. It was found that whenever they made any sort of noticeable progress, they'd end up somehow becoming worse in the aftermath to the point where their progress was effectively negative. Freud concluded that these individuals were ultimately driven by the "death drive" or "Thanatos" rather than the desire for life, or "Eros" as he termed it. Through this lens we may observe that "Sour Gummy Worms" is the culmination of what may be achieved when this desire for self-annihilation is harnessed for the sake of Dmod development and taken to its extreme. If you can't be the best at something, why not attempt to become the best at being the worst at it instead?

Unfortunately Sour Gummy Worms does what it does extremely well to the point where it transcends the category of "bad dmod" and ends up becoming something incredible in its own right. Similarly to how "The Quest for Cheese" and "Dry" attempted to subvert the conventional, Sour Gummy Worms takes it one step further and manages to upend just about every aspect of what one expects to be the norm at just about all stages of playing a D-mod. For any seasoned Dink veteran this actually becomes a somewhat welcome contrast to the tedium that is present in most standard D-mods in which Dink visits the king, is teleported somewhere by a wizard and then must punch things for a while until the ending occurs. The deviation from established norms begins from the start in which the title screen's buttons are incorrectly labelled, and attempting to load the included saved game turns out to be a trap of sorts. Upon starting the game, the player is presented with enemies that periodically disappear, tiles that don't convey any sort of path, and a number that talks to you and provides advice.

Overall, "Sour Gummy Worms" is an assault on everything that we as D-mod players find sacred, and successfully subverts just about every established norm that we're accustomed to. Although you may start with a sour taste in your mouth upon first bite, the resulting insulin spike is more than enough to keep you going for that little while longer.
December 30th, 2018
v2.02
Score : 8.5 good
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spinnerweb
Peasant She/Her Australia rumble
(?・ω・`) 
Oh, Skurn. Has any man in a tiny cult community been quite so legendary. And the versatility! From troll and creator of helplessly bad D-Mods to self-aware troll who uploads bad (and more recently, just plain unfinished) files with a nod and a wink. The reason I explain this, and indeed why I'm reviewing this piece-of-shit D-Mod when it's been over three years since it mattered - if it ever did - is that this D-Mod is one very big in-joke that you'd have to have been a regular on the Dink Network forums from at least 2011 to 2014 to understand. I have mixed feelings about having been in the middle of this ridiculous inner circle of flaming, trolling and shitposting and Sour Gummy Worms is a really good way to look back at it all. That's twice I've said 'shit' now, will this review get thrown out? Oops, I said it again.

The preview image and messed-up title screen alone make it clear that this is going to be not the usual 'Dink, you have a quest!' experience. Dink does have a quest, and it's to stop Skurn from making terrible D-Mods. Collect gems, kill fanatics chanting for Skurn, question your sanity, does it all really matter? The game throws you in at the deep end of craziness. Nothing is right. Nothing is put together correctly. It's all a shambles. And yet, somehow, when you can grasp enough to make a tiny smidgen of sense of what this D-Mod is all about, it's fun. Make no mistake, as intentionally awful as Sour Gummy Worms is, it's a unique D-Mod and very enjoyable to play on a bored afternoon. There was quite a bit of experimentation going on with this D-Mod - the kind where Skurn just threw everything together and made abstract art. The enemies are all sorts of tile and sprite graphics mixed up with different sizes and sometimes go invisible altogether. The surroundings are jarring mixes of different tile-sets, numbers talk (literally), giant bushes cast fire magic, and the musical choices are either jarring because they're beautiful or badass pieces in a D-Mod that's the gaming equivalent of a meth-head on the run, or the creepy musical motifs nudge you closer into believing that yes, you will go crazy if you play this D-Mod for too long.

The combat system, where the stats for both the player and the enemies can go impossibly high, is extrapolated to the point that it's barely even an RPG anymore, and therein lies what I found to be the most enjoyable aspect of Sour Gummy Worms: you can't really make sense of what anything is, but it is something. I did end up using cheats so I wouldn't have to grind so much, but later bosses made me think that making the player use cheats was Skurn's plan all along. Certainly, by the time I'd raised Dink's stats so much that the ATK/DEF/MAG had four number boxes instead of three, it was crazier than ever.

The humour in the game lends it a twang that made it much, much more enjoyable than any seriously designed D-Mod of a similar quality could have ever hoped to be. Skurn's self-awareness and the sheer dumbness of it all drag your standards down to the point that even the simplest of things is hilarious. When every single line of dialogue is misspelt and scrambled, and Dink spews anger and desperation, it's just funny to see a large number '1' being calm, articulate and acting like a proper English gentleman. You also meet several Dinkers of the era (including yours truly), and fight the really famous ones, and that was the in-joke that made the game way more enjoyable for me than it would be for new Dinkers, who were fortunate enough not to be around in that weird time. It's bittersweet really - the humour, the craziness and the feeling of being stuck somewhere between a nightmare and an acid trip are the best part of Sour Gummy Worms, and yet someone who downloaded the D-Mod without being aware of what goes on in the Dink cult would not understand any of it. Then again, I hope the blank, messed-up title screen itself is enough to turn them off.

Sour Gummy Worms is an underrated D-Mod. Even when it came out, reactions were mixed. It's a wild ride, yet I doubt anyone unfamiliar with Skurn's self-mythology would touch it with a ten-foot-pole. Skurn simply went crazy with this one, did some accidental experimentation, and the end result was better than even he expected. This was Skurn at his terrible best, before the rot of My Little Pony set in.
August 7th, 2015
v2.02
Score : 4.5 tolerable
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
As I played Sour Gummy Worms I often felt as if Skurn was sitting upon my lap facing me and his face was crawling with variously colored gummy worms. Every now and then Skurn would lean into my ear and whisper very romantically "Hail skruin.". And I don't know why, but for some reason I felt obligated to cringe and with light aggravation reply with, "Stupuid Fnaatacs!.". At this point Skurn would back away slowly and he'd rip part of his gummy worm face off and stick it into my mouth while making fart noises with his face-crevice. The face-gummy is more sour than limoncello- and that stuff is quite sour. Now, that's enough about where the title comes from. Let's get onto to game aspect of this.

First off, I'll talk about the map. It's quite bland. There are no decorative sprites at all. My only guess is that Skurn wanted to forgo worldly possessions- finding them restricting on the soul and freedom of the Dmod. The tile placements are unnatural to say the least. Often times the tiles make very little sense. This is clearly the work of a genius I couldn't hope to understand fully. My only guess would be that the nonsensical nature of the tiles was meant as a way to force players into imagining something better. Something of such awe and wonder that this Mr. Skurn character would become akin to a God to us. Anyways, that's enough about the map.

The story of the game is something the average human couldn't begin to comprehend. A dolphin might be able to, but not a human. It creates this sense of realism between our indescribable lust to be dink and our seemingly obvious desire to get Skurn to stop making bad Dmods. Skurn seems to have naturally tapped into our subconscious desires. It's very hard to tell though, because the language used is so broken and messy that you'll never know whether you fully understand the meaning behind it or not. When all is said and done and you've beating the whole thing, you will uncontrollably voice "My god, what brilliance". But that's enough about the story.

Moving onto the game play aspect. Skurn had set the bar pretty high with his previous masterpieces such as Long Dmod Name, Dink and the Chins, and Pokemon: Bible Version. All outstanding mods that will most assuredly stand the test of time. Yet, somehow- he manages to surpass them. And should you combine the game play of all three of those mods together, Sour Gummy Worms would still stand on a pedestal well above them. Reaching heights even the Everest of Mediocrity is scared to climb.

And lastly yet definitely the most important aspect is the music. Personally I played the game muted, but one with any player who has sanity held within their inventory must assume that an individual with a mind such as Skurn's must have made a game with a score so epic that aliens light years of light years away were tearing up from whatever form of eyes they doth possess.

Well, either that or...
The map is the work of a madman and Skurn should be institutionalized- or perhaps just given that toy babies are given. The one where they have to fit shapes into the correct holes.
The story being nothing but the ramblings of poor delusional teenager who possesses issues with self-esteem.
The game play being the Dmod's sole redeeming quality.
And the music- well I didn't listen to it so I've naught to say on that matter.

Truly no better example of a Dmod worthy to be both enjoyed or despised, and maybe on occasion both, hath ever existed.
July 26th, 2015
v2.02
Score : 8.5 good
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DaVince
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Olde Time Dinkere 
At the start, I was set with low expectations. I was thinking "Sheesh... How could you even mess up the title screen?" to "wtf am I playing here and where is all the health and what is with these maps". Then I discovered you have ALL weapons right from the start... and there's a whole bunch of silly fun right ahead.

The Good
I love the silliness of this D-Mod, and how everything is all messed up and glitchy. I love how Skurn took Dink's battle system, and devise a way to make it fun again - through pure mayhem and ridiculous level and stat gaining. The reset orb was a clever addition too - it resets your level to 1, but all your stats remain... so you can begin the ridiculous stat gaining all over once again. There are TONS of enemies taking up the entire screen, making TONS of damage numbers appear over it, and they all drop RIDICULOUS amounts of experience. It's silly, it's crazy, it's fun.

There's a plot here, and it's nuts, funny, and meta as all hell, and it involves all the well-known people here at the Dink Network. I like it a lot.

The Bad
But then there are some battles which are plain tedious if you don't think to level up your strength early enough... and there are some areas that are pretty much instakill unless you figure out how to handle them. Another not so good thing is that you've basically gotta focus on leveling your strength - this isn't really mentioned anywhere, just make sure to stop putting points in defense when you have like 1000 of it. I had to grind later on because I put too much into defense at first.

There are some glitches (besides the intended fun ones I mean) that can break the game. Basically, don't press space too much during boss cutscenes. Also, there's an enemy in here you can defeat only in one way: with your fist. (Spoiler: it's the slime)

The Ugly
The maps themselves are obviously done REALLY quickly, although I understand it was done this way because it's not exactly the focus of the game to have you stand around when you could go around murdering all kinds of weird exotic creatures.

In closing
It is completely worth it to play this game from start to finish.
August 6th, 2015
v2.02
Score : 0.9 horrible
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DackFIght
Peasant He/Him United States
Making Topics off-track faster then you can say it 
Story: Dink gets mad at Skurn since he was put into another Dmod made by him, that's it
Music: There were a couple of tracks & they were good, but the only problem is that they seemed a little too loud for me
Bugs: I'd say there were none, but hardness counts for me & there were many things that could be fixed easily.
Graphics: The tiles could of been made better by most people, I'd say the only good things were the fact that enemies changed their sprite which looked great.
Length: For me it wasn't too much, I admit I didn't beat the first boss who I presume was Skurn, but he was too difficult & would've had to lead to a lot of grinding even with the big stat up per level. Grinding seems like the main thing that makes the game long unless there was a very hidden secret that I couldn't find.
Notes: Skurn did do good by managing to change what Dink said if you press space, but I didn't totally like the fact that the grammar was horrible.

For: I would only suggest people who want to see a joke, fans or Skurn, or just anyone who doesn't believe programming could go bad.
August 4th, 2015
v2.02
Score : 0.7 horrible
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This is a poorly made dmod typical of what Skurn produces. typically there is a lack of proper hardness. There is no effort to make tiles match up. Every screen looks like a disaster. There are no good design elements. The enemies you fight are mostly random things given a 9 brain. There is no interesting, coherent plot or storyline. You just go from one ugly, boring screen to another, fighting uninteresting items and the fighting is tedious and boring. There was nothing in the game from start to finish that I enjoyed. The reward for getting past one boring, ugly area is to make it to another boring, ugly area. There is not even good dialogue or jokes to redeem this monstrosity.

I am giving this disaster a 0.7, but please know that even that is an extremely generous score.