The Dink Network

Here they are, all six entries for the Non-Combat D-Mod contest!

Play them all and decide which is your favourite while the judging is going on over the next few weeks

Agatha Smallwood's Will, by Iplaydink!

Corporate Managerialism, by Yeoldetoast!

Furball, by MsDink!

The Day After the Middle Night, by Skull!

The River, by Synbi!

And...

Where's Likko?, by DinkDude95!

Enjoy

Tsk... So much time to write a post. I had expected something at least three times as long. Even if you did have to repeat yourself four times.

CONTEST MODS!
A shame I have to leave for course; 7-8 hours before I can start playing these!

Mine has without a doubt already won in the length of the names!!

Awesome, i'll play tomorrow.

Sorry, been pretty busy At least they're here now!

Repeat myself?

Well, you could have mentioned every DMOD four times to gain some length.

Oh, right.

Well the results will be announced with a longer interesting post to make up for this (and Sabre will do that one, hehe ).

Sabre has no time to clean up your messes, Sparrowhawk!!

Couldn't wait til tomorrow so I played through Furball today, I loved it! The clever mapping together with the new graphics was outstanding.

I hope the other dmods are good too.

Who are the designated judges then?

Also, I played through yours Skull, and you forgot to disallow pushing! When I push against something, the playable character changes back to Dink pushing. It was otherwise pretty damn good.

Thanks for posting this, Sparrowhawk.

YeOldeToast: The judges are the DN staff. In the event of a tie, my vote counts more.

I found out that there's an, ahem, leftover object with a script in my D-Mod that, when activated, jumps Dink back to the intro sequence and starts the game all over again (and it's even right in front of a savebot so you'll be sure to touch it out of curiosity at least once).

So for your convenience, I suggest you delete the "debug-7" script from the story directory before playing to prevent this strange anomaly from happening...

Moooogles! I know which Dmod I'll play first tomorrow.

Going to try them all later on.

Wow, that's great. Six new Dmods.

Now I played them all. My favorites are:
Agatha Smallwood's Will
I loved the super made story, the graphics and the riddles.
The river
Much more to do for the player. Super graphic, very long, challenging story
Furball
Really cute graphics (sometimes its a bit empty), interesting story

Thanks to all dmodders for their hard work

I'm glad you liked my dmod!

Of those I've tried The River and Furball are my favourites.

Furball have some amazing mapping and new graphics while the river have nice cutscenes, innovative gameplay and it's really big.

The Day after the Middle Night was really good and gave me some shivers, but it did confuzzle me a little though.

Where's Likko is my favourite. I just think it's excellent in every aspect.

My favourite is that pig training game that was never released.

I'm impressed by the quality of all these contest entries

It's interesting to see how "non-combat" doesn't necessarily mean "nice" - for instance polygamy in "The River"

Both "Fur Ball" and "The River" made use of bombs.
Both "Corporate Managerialism" and "The River" introduced financial sims.

I didn't remember "Hotel of the Middle Night" well so I couldn't appreciate this pre/sequel well, although the ambience was still great.

Fur Ball's rooms are well designed/decorated.

SimonK's graphics for the new player in Likko are mind-blowing.

Btw I fixed a couple FreeDink crashes under GNU/Linux (that platform is less tolerant to some memory errors from the original Dink code).

Also it's cool to see Corporate uses FreeDink's support for the .xm/.s3m/.mod audio trackers formats. The audio library hangs on "alcatraz.xm" though, when you enter Dink's basement, do you also experience this?

I... need... attention...! xD

Hey Beuc, yes I did note that on the 2009 release, but I upgraded to the 2010 release and it worked fine. Is there any way to internally detect if you're using freedink or not? Sort of like get_version?

If you experience problems with it, just delete alcatraz.xm. I'll also eventually send you a message detailing some bugs I have found.

Oh sorry, I played Agatha first and it's well-balanced. Burning bushes was cool too >
I think that's the one I enjoyed most

Haha, thanks!

Though it wasn't as good as mine. Right, Beuc, right?

Not a chance, Skull

Well, at least we know both of our D-Mods are gonna beat Corporate Managerialism.

Yea, that's true.

Oh really Skull? Because walking around and watching cutscenes for two minutes certainly is riveting gameplay isn't it?

And changing duck into fµck and otherwise around is your sense of humor? And hey, you should have heard the claps my game got, and the boos that your game got.

Honestly, what is there to do in your game that isn't walking and watching cutscenes? There is no deviation at all. No skill required, no challenges, no side quests and little to no interactivity. How is it even a game at all?

There is not indeed. And there is not supposed to be. I am not looking to win this contest. I just uploaded the D-Mod to go into this contest because it fitted the theme. Now, I don't know what you have against me, as I was just throwing the comments about your D-Mod as a joke.

If playing the music file froze in 2009 and works fine in 2010, it must be related to "libmikmod", the library to read tracker music files. Something changed in the way SDL (the game library I use) interacts with libmikmod recently, and possibly this doesn't work the same on all platforms. I have to check how the windows versions perform.

It freezes on the version in the "all-in-one installer" (from way back I think), but works on the latest version.

yeoldetoast does have a point here Skull. With this kind of story it would be much better to write a book instead of wasting your time creating a gameplayless D-Mod.

I'd say it's better to create a D-Mod such as the one Skull made rather than a game that don't work.

Erwin, I won't say anything to that. I am just assuming you haven't played Yeoldetoast's D-Mod yet.

Glenn: That was my feeling too... Why you'd make a DMOD exclusively for a version of Dink that only a minority of the Dinkers are using and that still has quite a few bugs to be ironed out is beyond me.

EDIT: Note I haven't played either DMOD yet so I can't say anything substantial about them. (I did play Corporate Managerialism for about 5 minutes, but not enough to say much.)

Erwin, I won't say anything to that. I am just assuming you haven't played Yeoldetoast's D-Mod yet.

As a matter of fact I have and I enjoyed it. But this is beside the point. Whether Yeoldetoast's D-Mod is good or bad doesn't have anything to do with your D-Mod having no gameplay.

Enjoy it? Bwhahahahahaha!!

Shhh, Erwin.

Indeed I did. It has some great background story which I rarely encounter in D-Mods. Since we're going to compare D-Mods anyway let's just compare Corporate Managerialism to The Day After the Middle Night. TDAtMN has little to no background story which makes the events in TDAtMN nearly completely uninteristing and also slightly comfusing. Why would I care what hapens to some random people I don't know. If a story takes time to build up and lets you get to know its characters while being interesting enough at the same time you'll want to know how it goes on. If you show a random fact about a random person no one will be interested. This really removes the horror from TDAtMN which it should aparently have.

Then there are plenty of things Corporate Managerialism have that The Day After the Middle Night doesn't have such as gameplay and humor. Corporate Managerialism's gameplay isn't the greatest since simply pushing a couple of buttons is one of the things to do but atleast there's isn't much of it and I haven't seen it in other D-Mods before. I did enjoy the little game at the end when you're the new CEO and although it was quite easy I played around with it a couple of times and enjoyed myself. I love how Corporate Managerialism punishes violent Dinkers so I went and attacked nearly everything I saw .

So in my opinion Corporate Managerialism is obviously a better D-Mod than The Day After the Middle Night, mostly because Corporate Managerialism is a game and The Day After the Middle Night is not.

The Day After the Middle Night has background, if you only played the first in the series. Stuff wouldn't be uninteresting and confusing if you played the first in the series and wait for the third part before saying that. Why would you care what happens to Richard in Corporate Managerialism? Why would you care what happens to every Jackie Chan's character in his movies. That's just stupid to even think about. You're the only one that I've heard saying it's not interesting, except for Yeoldetoast, who we all know has some problems accepting his personality. I wonder why others were interested in it, then. There shouldn't be horror in this one, the first one focuses on horror and mystery, the second one focuses on mystery and telling a story, the third one will focuse on gameplay and mystery aswell as a little bit on horror.

Now, Middle Night 2 isn't supposed to have humor. And all the humor I see in CM is BAD. Corporate Managerialism has a dull map, which I can admit my D-Mod has too, but atleast it isn't too big unlike in CM. Indeed, CM's gameplay is not great at all, it's annoying, which I surely haven't seen in too many D-Mods before. I wish I had gotten that far, but when you warp from going out of the door you came in from, and end up in a completely different place, was the end of me for that one.

Oh wait, but I forgot. You obviously like sucky D-Mods cause you have failed to create a FULL D-Mod. And you hate the better ones cause you are just jealous for others creating a good AND FULL game, and not just demos.

I should have explained myself better when I said little to no background. I have played the first in the series and what I meant to say was that the entire trilogy has little to no background so far. In Middle Night and Middle Night 2 there's talk about vampires and god and other fantasy stuff (let's not start discussing whether or not god is fantasy ) which makes me wonder in what kind of world the story takes place. This isn't really explained in the D-Mods, yet Corporate Managerialism gives you a clear view of its history and location. Obviously MN is trying to be mysterious but it doesn't give any reasons to be interested in whatever is going on. It would be interesting if you had to achieve something and needed parts of the story line to achieve it for example. All you need to achieve in MN and especially MN 2 is to go from place A to place B. If MN 2 is just background story for MN 3 I guess it could work but why would you be able to control any characters at all if the story is all that matters? This is what left me confused; I wondered what the point of the D-Mod was. In a trilogy it does make sense I guess though it's annoying to have MN2 as a separate D-Mod. Wouldn't it be better to let MN 2 be the intro of MN 3?

At least you didn't do anything wrong if MN 2 shouldn't have any horror. But I couldn't tell from the description that MN 2 was just a piece of story and nothing else. Also it's obvious that MN 2 isn't supposed to have any humour so maybe that was a bad comparison but it does make CM so much more amusing than MN 2. The only form of amusement MN 2 offers is a bit of story and I thought CM's story was better. This could be because CM is more complete I guess.

If you don't like CM's humour that's just your opinion. Don't call something 'BAD' because of just a different kind of taste.

The map in both D-Mods is pretty bad that's true. CM is Yeoldetoast's first D-Mod so I can imagine he doesn't have any great mapping skills yet. I'm just curious about why your mapping in MN 2 was so bad. There are improperly placed walls for example. Surely you're able to map properly by now?

Seeing as you haven't finished CM yet I'll stop comparing the two for now. You should finish CM first. I didn't encounter any bugs while playing it. Did you download and use the newest version of FreeDink? It's not like it's any kind of problem to do something so simple.

To say I dislike your D-Mod because of my creations is just senseless and hasn't got anything to do with it. In fact I have created a full D-Mod, The Treasure Battles, it sucks, just like so many of your D-Mods. A full D-Mod doesn't mean it's a good D-Mod. I prefer to play a good demo instead of a finished piece of crap. I'm not saying that all your D-Mods are a piece of crap though. It's just not relevant if they are or not. I don't feel any jealousy because of what you've created and don't have any reason to either.

Don't just try to attack me as a person based on irrelevant and pointless thoughts you come up with. I was simply comparing two D-Mods that's all. It's nothing personal what so ever.

You have good points, and I'm not gonna start arguing about this any more. I'm just gonna go with my own thoughts (most other peoples' thoughts aswell ) and leave it there. Indeed, nothing personal... just business.

EDIT: Also to let you know, I am quite disappointed with MN2. But I am hoping the third one to recover any mistakes I made with the second one.

"Don't just try to attack me as a person based on irrelevant and pointless thoughts you come up with. I was simply comparing two D-Mods that's all. It's nothing personal what so ever."

I'll have to second that. Discussing DMODs in question is okay, personal insults are not.

Good

Moving on... nothing to see here

EDIT: I've only been critical of The Day After the Middle Night so far and didn't mention what's good about it like I did for Corporate Managerialism. Know that I did sort of enjoy MN 2. (By 'sort of' I mean that MN 2 didn't annoy or frustrate me in any way but that there are far more enjoyable D-Mods to play.) I'm guessing (It's just a hunch, is this true? ) that you can't take critisism as well as I can. (I always look back at what I created and try to find out what's bad about it so I can improve it, this is probably why I haven't finished any good D-Mods yet.)

I just finished playing through The River, and I must say, for Synbi's first D-Mod, it's insanely awesome!!
I loved the farming. And everything else.
Very nice work.

I'm stuck in 'the River', but from what I've played I can say that it might very well be the winner (except Agatha Smallwood's Will, of course).

In what part, exactly? I might be able to give some hints

Ohhooh heh heh, watch so the glory won't rise up to your head.

Who's to say it hasn't already?

Perhaps I should be making Hotel of the Middle Night 3 for ya, Skull.

Hotel of the Middle Night 3? How can you make one if there's not Hotel of the Middle Night 2 yet. The only game I know that has come after Hotel of the Middle Night is The Day After the Middle Night.

I'm stuck after saving the town from the monsters. I've found satans lair but he can't help me. I've also talked to the wizard girl who I was suppose to meet at the bar, but she's gone.

Yeah, that part was a bit hazy, I should've made things more clearer. You'll have to talk to the guy in green pants at the bar, get wasted, and then when you come back you'll have to ask the barmaid about the wizard girl. After that you'll find her some screens to the southwest... So there

Skull, so how's your sequel gonna be called then? Day After The Hangover After The Contest Winning Day After The Middle Night? Hell, I can make that for you too, but I don't think I'll be able to fit all that into its title.bmp

Aha, I loaded a saved game after getting drunk as I wanted to keep my gold.

Or if you don't want to spend any gold, just go southwest from the village to the screen with the wide bridge (I made it so it advances the story upon entering that screen), then come back to talk to the barmaid. I was having such a lazy day scripting that stuff back there

I did talk to her in the forest earlier, but I'm stuck after that. Can't remember what she said though as it was more than one week ago (a)

I don't remember what she said there, but Dink thought it'd be a good idea to have a little chat with that guy she was having her conversation with earlier, in the house next to the prison building.

Who says nothing of importance, he only have the option "Who are you" which doesn't reveal anything.

Will we know the results today?

Not likely

I mean... um... soon.

August 31st is when the results are going to be out. And don't even try to deny that.

August 31st is soon, right?

What have I missed?
You said "Voting will be conducted by eligible staff members during the month following the deadline." and it's been a month now! I never heard anything about August 31!

That would be the month following the deadline for judging, not the deadline for submitting D-Mods

But really, should be soonish.

Oh. I'm sure it will!

Now I just need something to do for the next 6 months while waiting :/

Six months, by far, isn't long. That's about the time Hotel of the Middle Night was pending when it was first released.

I vote MsDeenk! *non official vote*

Apologies for the delay with this. Real world issues have kept me away from my computer and I haven't been able to finish all the d-mods yet. I'll get this done in the next week.

Again, apologies for keeping you in suspense.

Don't you try to deny you did it on purpose!!