The Dink Network

I considered writing this without spoilers, but that would really limit what I can say. So instead I'll put a warning here at the start: If you haven't played it yet, I recommend that you do that before reading this review. I've shown my partial scores and the weight I give those categories; those weights are just how important I consider that part and has nothing to do with this D-Mod.

Story:
Very well designed. It was an interesting and unpredictable story. Most of the unpredictability was just that I didn't know where the story would go, but the main turn of events was also a complete surprise to me. Also when Seth remarks at the end that Dink will come back, I had already forgotten that he would, so it felt completely natural for me that he did indeed forget.

All the details were done right, which was impressive. For example, the boatman is missing after you leave the church the first time; I thought that was a bug, but it turned out to be part of the story. Also how the timeline is explained, with the delay for getting to Goodheart is also something that could easily have been forgotten.

Score: 9 (weight: 8)

Map:
Impressive. There is a lot of it. And to me it all looked good, but that doesn't mean much, as my standards are low in that regard. When I entered the gods place, I thought I was about to finish the game. But there was still a large part to come. Lots of maps, some duplicate with the Other Plane, made the game larger than I expected. Lots of variation, too.

The fact that I had to fight every monster I killed at the start a second time made me think twice about killing all the monsters, which was a nice effect. I did kill them all anyway, though.

There were several nice puzzles in the game, which were more involved than just fetch quests. They weren't too hard, perhaps a little too easy.

Score: 10 (weight: 5)

Sprites:
Several non-standard sprites are used, which gave the game more variation. It's also nice to see awesome sprites like shady stranger get some use.

Score: 8 (weight: 2)

Sound:
I generally liked the music. I don't usually care that much about it, so I easily like it. But anyway, not much repetition, that kept it good.

Score: 8 (weight: 1)

Secrets:
Other than the fractured key, I did not find any. But that doesn't mean they don't exist, of course. The fractured key thing is a bit weird, because you need to use it long before the end; I had expected to be able to use it after the game was over, but that wasn't possible.

I didn't kill the god behind that door yet, so I may have missed the extra-awesome ending. The ending that I saw was pretty good though.

Score: 7 (weight: 3)

Bugs:
Nothing major. Most things I thought were bugs, were actually part of the plot. I think I saw a misspelling somewhere, and at one point the rift should have existed but didn't. In other words, nothing major, and that made sure the story wasn't interrupted by them, so that's very good.

Score: 10 (weight: 5)

Overall:
Excellent game, very impressive work.

Score: 9.0