The Dink Network

Scourger (The)

The red guy is the titular villain. He's apparently the scourge of walls. From the COTPATD project.
September 4th, 2009
1.1
Score : 9.8 exceptional
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This epic-sized DMOD is excellent. It does not overwhelm you with its massive size from the outset; you begin on a small island, seemingly with a relatively easy task to perform. As you progress, you find out that many smaller tasks need to be done in order to achieve the main objective, and slowly, the story unfolds, each time in bite-sized chunks, except that each bite often turns out to be much larger than it sounds at first.

The Good:

The story structure is excellent. While the plot isn't really deep and engaging in the way Cloud Castle 2: Scarab is, for example, it is also well-presented, and often in the way of funny setbacks to your main objective. Each puzzle appears simple at first, but you quickly discover many sub-tasks and other side-quests as you go---this gives a real sense of adventure and exploration rather than a narrowly-scripted story (even though that's what it really boils down to).

There are also many lands to explore, and many interesting characters to meet. There are several different lands that you visit; each is a refreshing change from the previous. It gives a good sense of depth to the game.

The puzzles aren't especially complicated, often involving finding very cleverly-hidden things. They are more-or-less on the right difficulty level (although repetition of the same kind of puzzles, like mazes, detract a bit from this---see next section). Except for one or two harder puzzles, they don't involve brain-racking convoluted solutions, which makes it nice for casual play.

There are also many secrets and bonuses to find; this encourages the player to explore the map thoroughly, which is something very helpful in a game with many maze puzzles and find-the-object puzzles.

The new graphics are also very well done. The desert spike creatures are especially good. The way they flip and flash their spikes make them appear quite threatening---this is a very nice effect. The red wizard, however, I found a bit disappointing: he looks like just a regular wizard sprite passed through a greyscale filter and then color-shifted to red. A little more effort on using slightly different tones of red, for example, would be a great improvement.

The monster difficulty is also quite good: not too simple to be trivial, but not overly hard either (esp. if you take the time to explore and find the hidden bonuses). The monsters in the last maze are a bit ridiculous, though; IMHO other monster types should have been introduced, instead of just using the same ole boncas (with only a color change), pillbugs, and slimers, just endowed with ridiculous speed and damage. A well-placed dragon or two would add a lot, as would a couple of stone golems, say. (Or one of the many new monsters introduced by other dmod-ers.)

The Bad:

The recurring "find the location" or "find the object" puzzles get a bit tedious, especially with a large map laid out in the way of a maze. Examples include finding the leaking cave, finding the roadblock, finding the slayer, finding the gold rock, and finding the last temple. (Yes, yes, it's the a-MAZE-ing village, but really, how many mazes can you solve in a single game before it becomes a-MAZE-ingly annoying?) Finding the 12 stars is a maze/treasure hunt puzzle of an acceptable size. But the other ones, mentioned above, are just a tad too tedious. Besides, there is no real twist to each successive maze, so it really adds no additional interest to the game. If some of the mazes involved unexpected surprises, however, (such as, say, a one-way trapdoor somewhere, or needing to do something special to cross a chasm, say) then there might have been a good justification for them.

A few hardness errors, especially in the last maze, are very annoying. Those 1-pixel errors are especially bad, since it gets tricky to "unstuck" Dink if you accidentally walk where you aren't supposed to be able to. Overall, though, the game is quite good quality, and besides these few errors, don't have nasty problems that make it unplayable.

Some of the NPC interactions could be improved: often, an NPC will say something to the effect of "OK, I'm going to/we're going to do X now" but simply continues standing there as if nothing has happened. This breaks mimesis. It would be better if they actually went and did what they said they were going to. Of course, given the size of this dmod, something like this may be too tedious to script; a good compromise is to have them walk off the screen before Dink is unfrozen---that gives a visual cue that they're off to do X (even if X itself isn't actually scripted).

Anyway, in spite of its flaws, this DMOD is an excellent choice for a light-hearted epic-sized adventure. There's a lot of fun to be had, and you won't regret giving it a try. I give it a 9.8.
March 29th, 2006
1.1
Score : 7.5 good
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chipsje
Peasant They/Them
 
Well,
not too bad, some fun for a day but nothing special. Same old, same old.

Good things: 1) Found only one or two bugs (could walk over water in the maze at the end but could only sometimes by using a trick come back to land again. This was very annoying since there is no savebot in the huge maze until you reach the end so it happened more than five times that I almost been through and then stuck in the water and had to make my way throgh the maze all over again)
2) everything is logical, it is at no time unclear what to do. Scripting is solid.
3) Music is cool, often created a smile upon my face

Not so good: 1) There are only a few really original ideas. 2) Monsters are only a few well-known ones. 3) Magic doesn´t seem to play a special role, although you can increase your magic you only get the normal fireball. 4) you really have to search for fine humour, since there hardly is any.

What got on my nerves: It is never especially difficult to solve the tasks.You always know exactly what to do next (I know I said this is a good point before), BUT it takes quite a time simply to DO the things. I hate it when there can no herb boots be found (Can they?). So you have to walk slowly to the one person, she tells you who you need to talk to, you walk to that person, he tells you something new to do, you do it, go back, get a new task and so on. It´s not difficult, you only have to spend a lot of time. The only really hard thing is killing the scourger at the end. This is an improvement to some of the end-enemies in other D-mods which are often easy to kill.
My Score of 7.5 may be a little hard when you look at the other scores given. But honestly I was disappointed about these (in my opinion) too uncritical scorings since they were in the first place the reason for me to try this D-mod out. And (again in my opinion) there are many D-mods around which deserve a 9+ scoring. If everything is better than nine then there will be no differentiation anymore. And the authors may not feel to create something really special and new.
January 2nd, 2015
1.1
Score : 9.9 exceptional
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I'd loved play this game.
For once, rather impossible on other, I did it without using a walktrought. No hidden place to mysticly divine to catch what we need. Lot of explications about what to do next (poeple, books, etc)
Thank you for this. I'm out to give a try on Gem!
Brigitte
June 20th, 2014
v2.0
Score : 8.8 good
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ThePunisher
Peasant He/Him Australia
(Tag Line) How long is this line. 
Negatives:
This Dmod is easily worth playing but there a few very annoying things
-I absolutely hated the desert area I had to keep walking back and forward for certain things like collecting pans and finding water.
-Inconvenient areas that should of have savebot there should been a savebot say... the obstacle course
There should of really be a save bot near that course
-No herb boots
The previous criticism could of been forgiven if it just had those herb boots in some part of the game.
-Screen locking enemies-ARHHHHH! this ones annoys me alot especially towards the end with those coloured slimes.
Positives:
-The red wizard was a pretty good idea
-Long enough not too short
-Pretty good final boss battle.
October 6th, 2011
v2.0
Score : 9.4 exceptional
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Raven
Peasant He/Him Sweden
 
The Story:
The king sends Dink on a new mission to investigate some troubling goblin activity in the kingdom...

Metatarasal must have spent a considerable amount of time on this DMOD, and the result is excellent!

The main strong points of the DMOD are:
Solid game design: I did not encounter any bugs or hardness errors. The game is well-balanced,
not to hard and not to easy, and this is true all through the game. The mapping is nice and believable.

The tasks / sub-quests are easy to understand. If you get stuck it is because you can not find
some item or place, but there are no far-fetched puzzles and you know what you are supposed to do.

There is also some enjoyable humor in the dialogue/story. The humor is well-balanced, not overly crazy and not dirty.

Since the Scourger is an epic, I think it is suitable to compare it to the other epics:

The world is explored in a similar way as Stone of Balance, traveling from land to land, and
there is no coming back to old territories. There are both benefits and drawbacks to such a
world design. It is a benefit when you don't have to look for something on the entire map, and it is drawback when you want to more freely explore the world. The scripting is above average, there is a lot of things to do, but the scripting is not as advanced as for instance Cloud Castle 2 or Cast Awakening: Initiation.
I specially like the maze in the in the final part of the DMOD.

I think the Scourger is most close to World of DinkC and Historical Hero if you compare it to the other epics.

As for the drawbacks of the DMOD, I have to say that some items are very hard to find. I think the game design could be improved by only seriously hiding items / treasures that are not mandatory for solving the main quest. At one time you are supposed to find a cave with slimes, and I could hardly find it even when reading the walk through. It would also be nice with herb boots.

If you like the Dink main game, and want a solid, typical rpg adventure, you should play the Scourger!
May 12th, 2009
1.1
Score : 9.2 exceptional
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skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Good D-Mod from good author.

Story: Dink is sended to a village to find out if Goblins are attacking. He suddenly discovers a new enemy named Scourger, a red wizard. After this, Dink is being send on many quests and to finally meet Scourger.

This is not a standard and boring story as usually, but neither is this original. I don't really know what should I call it.
8.5.

Map: Map is pretty much the same as in Quest for the Gems. Nothing special.
7.0.

Graphics: Well, Scourger looks nice. It is a basic wizard turned into red, something pretty much anyone with a slight bit of computer-art talent could do (so I couldn't ), but it's still nice. Aswell, the ice-castle was done the same way with the walls being turned into blue. That was cool aswell.
8.5.

Music: It fits nicely, but not something I would pick. I don't remember hearing these MIDIs in many D-Mods, so that's always a plus.
7.7.

Gameplay: There were a few goodies and secrets. The enemies were good balanced, the quests were nice and well made up, aswell. Only thing I didn't enjoy was that Scourger came too fast to the scene in the very end. And after this long adventure, I thought I would see a long and good ending, but that wasn't.

Good: The story was cool, map is standard, graphics were something anyone could do, gameplay was pretty well made, and the music hasn't been used much in D-Mods. (Even most of it IS from "Dink Music Packs")

So, there were good things, but sadly, there are a few bad things aswell.

Bad: Scourger comes in too fast after you get the ice-sword. Also, the ending is just poor for so long D-Mod.

Overall: 9.2. Great D-Mod with nice story, graphics and gameplay.

Fit for: There is no need for this. Anyone should play this!!

Final notes: This should be in Epics. Why didn't Metatarasal put it there?
September 20th, 2006
1.1
Score : 9.6 exceptional
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Erwin
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Friendship is magic 
Wow! This is just like a Dink good normal Dink game supposed to be not anything very special but just great. It has many little quests and a journal so you can remember what you're doing, it proved really useful. There is also a T key witch makes you able to throw stuff away. It also has a C key for skipping some parts. The game also has some nice scripts attached to things and there are also some nice effects at some places. Well let's just get this lined up.

Story: 9.0
Dink is sent to stop some goblins but then a red wizard shows up. Dink has to find out more about the wizard and how to beat him. Later he finds out that he needs an ice sword to beat him. To use the sword he must first find two crystals.
The story is like something happens and it's got to be solved but to solve that something else has got to be solved first. This way you'll find many quests.

Map: 9.9
It has everything in it and is well done. There are many towns, a desert, an ice region, caves, mazes, forest to much to name it. The map is great if you like exploring because there are many ways to go.

Music: 10
just great. Only the music itself was good enough to get a big smile on my face. It also fits right into the game.

Gameplay: 9.5
Very nicely done. A bit hard you would think in the beginning so you'll need to get used to it but it's just because most other D-Mods are easy. It also fits right in and builds nicely up. It's also nicely balanced so you won't get into much trouble. The endboss is nicely done and has some nice powers. It was only a bit too easy because it just had too low defence and hitpoints, I was just doing more than 60 damage! There are potions to be found, weapons to be bought and a fireball spell.

Overall: 9.6
The Scourger is a game you must play it has everything it needs only the end could have been a bit better. The special thing about it is that there are so many little quests witch makes a lot of situations of pleasure. It made me feel good, when I was feeling a bit bored or down The Scourger totally cheered me up and almost made me dance because it's just what a D-Mod supposed to be like.
August 8th, 2006
1.1
Score : 9.3 exceptional
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slayer4990
Peasant He/Him Canada
Foppery and Whim! 
Goodness: Great gameplay, good music, good amount of savebots, great overall skillz, (thats right, i said skillZ)

badness:had to redo the maze a horribly uncountable amount of times, what with the if you change screens near the top of the land, you'll walk into water, and i tried to equip my elixer during the last boss fight, and accidentally changed to my clawsword realized my mistake, changed back to the ice sword, lo and behold, my attack went up 20, tried it again, attack went up 20 more, and when you unequip it, it doesnt go back down, should get that fixed.

Overall:lets see heaa... 9. .....3
December 11th, 2005
1.1
Score : 9.2 exceptional
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Kat
Peasant She/Her Canada
We can out-drink most Americans! 
The Scourger 1.1 by metatarasal

The Good: Lots and lots of places to go, lots of walking, nice scenic views, villagers actually saying something, sometimes giving me clues. The usual monsters to kill (I really hate those fast slimers).
Save bots where there should be save bots, mazes that made me crazy. Nicely hidden “goodies”. (especially when I would hit a dead end) nice music (when I heard it…bad speakers). So many quests to do, I forgot what the main plot was...lol

The Bad: A few hardness spots and I was able to walk on the side of the mountain, and over a few trees. Only froze once, no new monsters except for the red wizard. Seems I had lots of money, but not much to buy. (wish it was like that in the real world)

Overall: A very good dmod, which was bigger than I thought. I would recommend this dmod to everyone.
November 25th, 2005
1.1
Score : 9.6 exceptional
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One of the best DMOD's I've played in a while! I found no errors, Very good mapping, Good music, Enemies were a chalange from the start, Very clear on what to do, Never woundering where to go next, and best of all there's no stupid riddles. Seemed a little long to call a quest but a little short for an epic.

Dink come across a red wizard and learns that he must accuire a special weapon in order to defeat him. In search for this weapon Dink comes accross many mini quests he must complete in order to move on.

I would have given it a 10 for 10 except I was a little disapointed with the end. My grade a 9.6 out 0f 10.
November 22nd, 2005
1.1
Score : 9.5 exceptional
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cypry
Peasant He/Him Romania
Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice. 
The Scourger is certenaly a great DMOD. On my opinion it's more an epic than a quest, because it requires several hours to complete and it has many towns to visit.

Story: 9.5/10
A strong wizard has been resurected, and the only weapon that can defeat him is a unique sword, found in an ice castle. Dink must get the sword to save the world from that wizard(did I mentioned that it was a red wizard?).

Map: 9.9/10
It has everything a great map requiers: Villages, ice regions, desert regions, forest regions, caves, catacombs, mazes, even a puzzle room. It's well-decorated, no hardness errors(I hope).

Music: 9.5/10
What can I say about the music? It's good, fits the situation... that's all.

Gameplay: 9.5/10
The monsters are just strong enough for the current powers of Dink, the fighting is really balanced. Maybe the end boss was a bit too strong, but it's an end boss: don't expect it to be weak. There are a lot of potions to find, some weapons to buy, a spell(the fireball) to find(it can be found in two places, but one of them is secreat).

Scripts: 10/10
Metatarasal made cool scripts in this DMOD. My favorite one was the reunion of the two crystals, which was a great visual effect. The puzzle room contained some great challenges, including some reaction time tests. The end boss was also great scripted. The author added three new buttons:
-the "T" button is used to throw away unuseful items. Very useful.
-the "J" button opens Dink's journal which reminds player what is the current quest. This is quite usefull, because the game has many quests and subquests.
-the "C" button is used to skip the part with the obstacle course in the desert, for players with slower computers. I didn't used it.

Style: 9.0/10
As I mentioned before, The Scourger has many quests, subquests, miniquest, microquest and so on. Some of them are great and original, but some are a bit boring. The conversations were well-done and funny.

Overall: 9.5/10
Maybe it's not as good as sob, pota or pq, but I think it's still one of the best DMODs ever made. Meatarasal did a great job.