The Dink Network

My Pet Death

July 28th 2015, 12:20 AM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
This is the dmod I made for the Dink's Demise Contest Entry. Or, well... was. I'm honestly not sure how much I've left the same. Pretty much the only thing that's remained the same so far is the enemy scripts. I haven't actually gotten around to testing them yet though so that might change.

Anyways here's a progress report:
7/28/15

I have 2 of the 6 map areas designed.
I think I have 9 items left to test and maybe one or two of those I've yet to make. A couple I have to implement fully.
2 spells to create, 2 spells to test, 1 spell to fully implement.
20 enemies to test/rework/expand/etc. 1 enemy to make.
1 more general mechanic to make.
And I have to write a few story scripts.

Here are some numbers for dmod scale.
Current number of files in graphics folder - 4509 (will probably change)
Current number of files in sound folder - 122
Current number of files in story folder - 205 (will definitely change)

--
7/29
Current number of files in graphics folder - 6238 (will probably change)
-The huge jump was mostly caused by me adding in new enemies. (Need to clean out the enemies I'm no longer using though.)
7 enemies left to script.

--
8/6
Haven't worked on this for a while. Busy with finals from summer classes.
15 enemies to test/rework/expand/etc. 4 enemies to make.
2 bosses to test/rework/expand. 3 bosses to make.
5 environmental/special enemies to make.
Current number of files in graphics folder - 6,819 (will probably change)

--
8/22
Figured out what the premise of the game is going to be.(That's pretty huge)
Expanded my map a decent amount. I feel like it's still a bit too small at the moment though. So I may end up expanding it even more. I only have two areas left to design.
Wrote three key scripts. (Currently have 8 key scripts)
Current number of files in graphics folder - 6,710 (will probably change)
Completed prototype of getting hunted by a cat.

Here's a screenshot of a screen that doesn't have near enough sprites on it yet.
tada *updated*
Here's another screenshot of something that doesn't really have any other purpose than to just look nice.find waldo

Here's a recording of me almost dying to a kitty.
boopboop
I think I had like one health at the end. I missed a few lunges, but at least I hit it with an exploding clone. That's probably what saved me.
July 28th 2015, 03:44 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
Will we be allowed to use the bow of uncreation?
July 28th 2015, 11:06 AM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
I don't plan on removing it. The bug it creates only seems to be visual and it doesn't crash or even slow the game. So besides the really really strange visual bug, it does work as intended.
July 28th 2015, 11:57 AM
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Whoa, that's a lot of graphics files! Definitely looking forward to this.

Now if I can just hurry and get around to playing the other new Dmods...
July 28th 2015, 02:52 PM
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DackFight
Peasant He/Him United States
Making Topics off-track faster then you can say it 
Is there going to be an option to change the color palette, It just pains me to look at it & it took me a second to notice there were guards.
July 28th 2015, 04:15 PM
peasantmp.gif
Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
Probably by just deleting the tiles or replacing them with the original ones since these are just inverted.

Unless Leprosy added more than just that...or the tiles aren't in the same slot as the original ones. I dunno.
July 28th 2015, 04:27 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Is there going to be an option to change the color palette, It just pains me to look at it & it took me a second to notice there were guards.

I changed the decorative sprites on the screen a bit so it wouldn't be so conflicting. I'm sorry if it hurts your eyes, but I most likely will not change it.

In all fairness though, you're not really supposed to see the knights very well to begin with. Seeing as how they're supposed to be ghost knights and all.
July 28th 2015, 05:18 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Probably by just deleting the tiles or replacing them with the original ones since these are just inverted.

Unless Leprosy added more than just that...or the tiles aren't in the same slot as the original ones. I dunno.


The tiles are inverted. Almost all of the sprites are recolored though. So even if you reset the tiles to what they originally were. It may actually be more stressful on the eyes. And since some of the sprites got recolored to be pretty gray, they don't exactly blend well with the original tiles.
July 28th 2015, 05:28 PM
goblins.gif
They'll definitely be more visible when they are actually in motion.
July 28th 2015, 05:33 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
They'll definitely be more visible when they are actually in motion.

Afterimage and a healthbar also help.
July 28th 2015, 06:26 PM
knightg.gif
DackFight
Peasant He/Him United States
Making Topics off-track faster then you can say it 
It doesn't physically hurt my eyes, it's more of I'm used to the usual colors of other Dmods, & it seems a little confusing.

When will we get to see some of the story, like is Death actually Dink's pet?
July 28th 2015, 07:22 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
When will we get to see some of the story, like is Death actually Dink's pet?

A couple incarnations ago this was my contest entry for Dink's Demise. In that unfinished tragedy of awfulness lay a story about Dink seeing a wizard guy walk around with a little pet death. Dink immediately grows jealous of this. He also got angry at the fact that this wizard's pet death was larger than Dink's nonexist pet death. To remedy this, Dink sets out to find a pet death of his own. He already had a name in mind- Little Demise.

Hence Dink's Death became a possessive.
(The theme for this contest is Dink's death. This means that your DMOD entry must be dealing with Dink's death in some way, how you do this is entirely up to you.)

So, the story might be along similar lines. Though seeing as how this is pretty much an entirely new dmod and I have no restrictions I'll likely do something else entirely.
July 28th 2015, 07:42 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
DINK'S DEATH.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
July 28th 2015, 08:49 PM
goblins.gif
*Airhorn spam*
July 28th 2015, 10:31 PM
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DackFight
Peasant He/Him United States
Making Topics off-track faster then you can say it 
@Leprochaun, thank you, it'd be a little troubling to manage to find the topic that said that since there isn't much organization around here. Will Dink's death be able to do anything to help/hurt him in combat or on the field?
July 28th 2015, 10:59 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Will Dink's death be able to do anything to help/hurt him in combat or on the field?

I dunno, maybe. That's post-game though. I don't really want to worry about post-game right now.
July 31st 2015, 03:58 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
I've had this bug I've been trying to figure out for a while and I'm wondering if someone can help me solve it. Here's a video of the bug. Essentially what happens is that I have this bow that shoots lightning arrows, and the arrows will creates little lightnings that will bounce off enemies.

The bow script determines whether or not the arrows should be lightning arrows and if they are assign them a script. The bow script also assigns the arrow a gold value which determines the total amount of bounces the lightning can have.

The assigned script checks the brain of the sprite it damaged and if it's of brain 9 or 10 it will look to see if there are any other brain 9 or 10 sprites and shoot another bolt of lightning towards it and then explode. If any of the above checks fail it will explode.

this is a pastie with both scripts.
Please forgive any redundancies or generally ugly scripting on my part.
July 31st 2015, 11:36 PM
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Striker
Noble She/Her United States
Daniel, there are clowns. 
Ugh... bounce stuff. The newer versions of Dink don't handle it well at all. I've actually been sitting a script for a grenade that bounces off walls since 2007, back when 1.08 was in Beta, but I couldn't quite get it to work quite right in all instances so I just left it alone. It seems like since then, Dink has only gotten worse at handling that stuff and now the same script which worked most instances now barely works at all.

I've found that Dink just really hates it when complex missile scripts get called over and over. There are too many things that could interrupt the process and make it go wonky. Never had the screen go completely black though.
July 31st 2015, 11:52 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Well I suppose *technically* it's not really a bounce, as it creates a new sprite every time. I just call it a bounce because that's what it looks like.
July 31st 2015, 11:54 PM
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Striker
Noble She/Her United States
Daniel, there are clowns. 
Yeah, just noticed that. Looks like you did things a bit differently than me but came up with a new problem. That rapid creation of missile sprites over itself looks like it could be problematic, though I'm not exactly sure why.

EDIT: You *definitely* don't want to fire another arrow while one is still in play using those globals like that.
August 1st 2015, 12:01 AM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
It does seem like that would have an effect, but I tried adding a wait prior to getting the new target and that had no noticeable difference. I found it really weird that it didn't make a difference, because altering the total amount of times the lightning can *bounce* does seem to affect the chance of getting a black screen.
August 1st 2015, 12:02 AM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
You *definitely* don't want to fire another arrow while one is still in play using those globals like that.

That is a good point and I will change those to locals.
August 1st 2015, 12:38 AM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
After switching to local variables I haven't had the blackscreen issue happen to me once. I've set the bounce counter up to as high as 100 per arrow and it hasn't happened.

Now, if using globals was the cause of the bug.... why did that cause the blackscreen issue? Are globals more straining than locals? I remember in earlier versions where I had accidentally set the bounce counter at 25 per arrow dink would slow to a crawl. Now with locals I've done 100 per arrow and there doesn't seem to be any noticeable difference.

So someone, anyone, would you kindly explain the blackscreen to me?
August 1st 2015, 03:53 AM
peasantmp.gif
Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
Yes, I'll explain it. It was your friend and you killed it.

You monster.
August 6th 2015, 08:57 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
I'm scrapping my old story so you're free to read some of the scripts I had written for it. Should give an understanding of what the dmod used to be.

intro scene

run away from game

some warp thingy

dnotalk

escape.c stuff

ending scene

I want the game I'm making to have a more serious tone to it.
August 6th 2015, 09:00 PM
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DackFight
Peasant He/Him United States
Making Topics off-track faster then you can say it 
Is it still going to involve Dink getting a pet Death? Also will it involve glorius side-quests like killing other people's deaths or Quakers?
August 6th 2015, 09:21 PM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Is it still going to involve Dink getting a pet Death?
I'm not really sure. Currently Dink and Death are intrinsically linked. Not sure if I can call the relationship as pet and master though. We'll see.

Also will it involve glorius side-quests like killing other people's deaths or Quakers?
Eh, not really. I have no plans to add in npcs. Mostly because I don't know if I even have any sequences left that could store animated directional sprites.

For the most part the game is about survival, strategy, and combat. It'd be more akin to playing dark souls than anything else.
August 6th 2015, 09:25 PM
knightg.gif
DackFight
Peasant He/Him United States
Making Topics off-track faster then you can say it 
Will it involve Dark Souls' death system at all or only one time death?
August 6th 2015, 09:43 PM
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I am impressed by the scope of this project!
August 23rd 2015, 02:49 AM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Updated!

I included a video of some of the things I made today.
The forest was made today. The lunge and clone abilities were made today. And the mechanics behind the cat hunting me across screens was partially made today.
August 23rd 2015, 03:33 AM
peasantmp.gif
Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
Almost dying to a kitty? Are you sure you didn't? It cuts off right when your bar empties.
August 23rd 2015, 10:19 AM
wizardg.gif
leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
I did not die. You can see the 305 pop up from the cat towards the end of the video. That's the experience. I cut the video just before leveling up occurred because the lraise.c script needs to be edited.
August 23rd 2015, 12:29 PM
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DinkDude95
Peasant He/Him Australia
The guy with the cute D-Mod. 
It's good to see some intense modding still going on here. Looks great, leprochaun!

And I'm quite flattered to notice what appears to be my rapier graphics from way back in the day. Or do my eyes deceive me?
August 23rd 2015, 12:35 PM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
It is indeed the rapier!
October 31st 2015, 08:56 PM
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Looking forward to this one. Any kind of ETA at all?
October 31st 2015, 10:04 PM
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Leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Haven't worked on it in a while. I'm pretty busy at college right now and don't really have the time to work on it. Don't expect this soon at all. It probably won't be until summer when I can start putting a decent amount of time into this again.
December 23rd 2015, 11:56 PM
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Leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
In all honesty this is looking like it probably will stay unfinished forever unless I get some partners on it. I really need someone who's willing to write complex scripts. Over my next semester I'm going to be really busy but I could probably finish the game over the summer if I got someone to write the more complicated scripts and save me the time. There's not too many I need at the moment. I think just like 5 or 6 boss scripts. The other thing I need, though not as badly at the moment, is someone who wants to write lore and do story building with me. Send me a private message or reply here if you're interested.
December 26th 2015, 09:57 PM
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DackFight
Peasant He/Him United States
Making Topics off-track faster then you can say it 
Dibs on lore.
November 14th 2018, 12:55 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
done yet?
November 14th 2018, 10:00 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@ Leprochaun:
In all honesty this is looking like it probably will stay unfinished forever unless I get some partners on it. I really need someone who's willing to write complex scripts. Over my next semester I'm going to be really busy but I could probably finish the game over the summer if I got someone to write the more complicated scripts and save me the time. There's not too many I need at the moment. I think just like 5 or 6 boss scripts. The other thing I need, though not as badly at the moment, is someone who wants to write lore and do story building with me. Send me a private message or reply here if you're interested.

I'm definitely someone who:
a) is "willing to write complex scripts" (as evidenced by all the fund I had writing the lengthy and rather inefficient checkbit.c just to store up to 31 boolean values in one DinkC integer!)
and
b) likes to "write lore and do story building" (as evidenced by the long winded story telling I do in all of my own dmods!).


November 14th 2018, 11:35 AM
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Toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
Im pondering upon those two statements actually. If someone does scripts for you, while someone else does the story for you, what's left for the original author? To be a dmod's synergy inspector?
November 14th 2018, 01:35 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Toof:
Someone will still need to provide the mapping. And someone will need to create and manage and new graphical and auditory elements.
November 14th 2018, 01:49 PM
wizardg.gif
LeprochaUn
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Okay, let me reply to all three of you:

@Skurn, I was wondering when you were going to bump this. The answer is no.

@SlipDink, I don't remember where I left off. iirc I had a bunch of things planned out. This was years ago though. I've thought about releasing it as unfinished and more of just a resource/showcase but I never tried to get it into a good enough state for that. I need to move the project off my old desktop and onto my laptop so I can actually open it on rare occasions. Sorry, I rambled a bit. Uh, I'm going home this week/weekend so I can probably throw everything into a drive folder and share that with you if you're interested. The scripts will be a complete mess but at least then you and anyone else will be able to look at them and just take the project off my hands if they want. Also I think it might be neat to have an unfinished dmod and all the development notes I made for it up. It'll at least be an interesting look into my development process.

@Toof, So one of two things happened. Either you didn't understand what I was asking for, or I didn't phrase the request well enough. What I was requesting was that someone write me a few (5-6) complicated scripts. I wasn't asking them to do all the scripting in the game. I believe when I made the request I was writing up the enemy scripts, which is something like 20+. I was also writing several mechanic scripts and I needed to write up the story scripts. They were definitely not going to write up all the scripts for me. For the lore thing I wasn't very clear with that. One of the things that killed the project was the fact that I knew what I wanted to do for certain things, but I couldn't come up with a good plot/plot I enjoyed to explain them. So I wanted/needed someone to help me come up with a good story aka reason as to why certain things are happening. I was in no way wanting them to write the whole game for me though.
November 14th 2018, 02:16 PM
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toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
@SlipDInk

I stand corrected. But in that case, the crediting should sound something like:
This modification of the Dink Smallwood game, is a product developed by highly competent, professional team of coders, designers and writers who continuously participate and contribute a cutting edge solutions to the Dink Network development project, which is a market leader and major corporation, that is making the world a better place, each and every day.

@LeprochaUn
One of the things that killed the project was the fact that I knew what I wanted to do for certain things, but I couldn't come up with a good plot/plot I enjoyed to explain them.

Now that is hard. My previous attempts at dmoding were killed because I couldn't present what I wanted, how I wanted. Guess that's the hardest part of any art (call me an artist now). So I cut back on some ideas, simplified a bit, thought about of what I'm capable of actually doing, did that, judged my work earnestly, ended up dissatisfied, published that anyway. Now I'm drowning in alcohol and cigarettes at the local craphole of a bar, explaining to younger generations of enthusiastic visionaries, how and why their hopes and dreams are useless, so that they shouldn't even try, and doing so, grant themselves mercy of avoiding a painful slap of reality... Like I said, call me an artist
November 15th 2018, 11:21 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@all:
It is a lot easier to start with a good story FIRST, and then come up with mappings, monsters and mayhem. But it is not impossible to come up with some kind of story after other elements are already in place.

@LeprochaUn:
I'd be pleased to take a look at whatever you make available, (some time after you make it available of course.) For the present time, I'm concentrating on my "Before..." dmod, so I may not do much about what I see you upload as an unfinished dmod (or make available through some other means). I admit I was going to take a more thorough look at all the unfinished dmods too (with an eye towards selecting some to complete and/or modify), after I release "Before...".

BUT, all of the above does not mean that I will not seriously review your unfinished dmod while thinking about how I might finish it. In fact I look forward to doing that.