The Dink Network

I'm interested in knowing what aspects of dmods people enjoy or do not enjoy. This is useful information for making future dmods. What are your preferences?

For example, I myself do not like really long cut-scenes, particularly at the start of a dmod. I like to jump right into the action. However, others seem to prefer longer cut-scenes based on the fact that many of the highest rated dmods have them.

One thing I do like is having more complex fighting (especially bosses) rather than the usual hacking away with a sword. The 3 amulets dmod is a good example.

So what do you like and what do you not like in a dmod?

I like long intros if other major story progression markers are also long cutscenes. It really makes me feel like I accomplished something. Though I'm not sure how many others actually do like long cutscenes. If the story isn't all that interesting though, long cutscenes are really really boring.

I do agree in that I enjoy more complex battles. Three amulets has some great boss fights.

I think dmods that add new graphics are generally a bit more interesting to play.

Map designs that aren't rectangular are very nice!

Cameos of dink network users adds a certain charm to dmods.

And as a personal preference, I like strangeness. I don't think there are enough strange dmods.

The only dmods I don't like are the ones that I can't play. Actually that's not true. There are plenty I can play that I don't like.

I like D-mods that start off after Dink has completed the events of the original, and has a lot of cool gear to start with. Gimped Dink doesn't make sense to me. At least give him a longsword that you take out of a chest at the start.

As far as graphics/sound goes, I like new graphics a lot. It may just be me but I really like seeing the original Dink palette, it seems 200% more seamless when I see that dithering and shadows. Music, I do not want to hear songs from other games in my D-mods. They are nice but they break the immersion. Original midis/mp3s that sound mystical and retro like the original game/classical pieces are how I like it.

Long cutscenes are fine, as long as I can skip them if i've played in the past. Not a huge fan of when someone has a very modern dialect, or breaks the fourth wall. How Seth did it is how I like it, essentially. The word "noob" is really off-putting. Characters from the DN are a nice addition, I just wouldn't give them center stage. The map design I think i would enjoy if there wasn't a large rectangular block of grassy island.

I would enjoy some large dedicated story areas with paths that fork connecting them into one-another. Maybe some completely secret areas like in vanilla Dink (i.e. the whole Herb Boots island, or Koka Isle)

I personally enjoy playing as Dink, and not as another character, mainly out of comfort and I know what to expect from the pig farmer I know and love.

Also, no sci-fi elements. Only magic.

Yes, that blockiness thing is a very good point. I've been guilty of that in the past too.

It's easy to get good endless variety from sprites, but it's much harder to lay tiles in a way that make the landscape more interesting. I've been looking at some of Simon K mapping. He is pretty good with that and I'm learning from him. Laying tiles well is a good challenge.

You've both made excellent points and I appreciate good input like this.

story , catchy music, new graphics/areas

It's easy to get good endless variety from sprites, but it's much harder to lay tiles in a way that make the landscape more interesting.

I don't know if that's necessarily true. I mean it probably helps to use tiles to help illustrate a landscape better, but I think as long as you decorate the screen well the player may not even take notice of the tiles.

I know what Skurn doesn't like -- Goblins.

I was typing a response with that, then I quit.

I was just remembering a review you wrote where you said goblins are overused in dmods. I don't know what made me think of that.

Skorn you don't like goblins? Of any kind? What about rooster/cock goblins? Do you like those?

Goblins are ducking generic and we should stop accepting dmods that feature them as a plot element in any way. All they do is talk like idiots and get killed.

They can be funny too, for both of those reasons.

I like mods with goblins in them

We need way more goblin mods

No we don't. There are plenty.

Comical, or witty story. There was one dmod where dink must learn to read first (medieval pig farmer, nice touch) in order to read sign posts. There was a dmod with a pimple cream crisis sub-story... I like eccentric stuff in dmods (unless they are overused).
Small, but compact and explorable maps with little secret areas (the isle of croth is best so far in my opinion).

Goblins shouldn't be retarded. Not funny, boring.

I hate hard fights. When it comes to that, I cheat. No second thoughts.

Bow is something that no one used in any imaginative way in any dmod.

So, fun story (romp or quest long), good compact mapping, occasional craziness, and new stuff.

I hate hard fights. When it comes to that, I cheat. No second thoughts.

Bow is something that no one used in any imaginative way in any dmod.

I don't know what you mean by hard, but I hate when bosses are damage sponges. Not just in Dank, but all games. It's fine if I'm not playing alone, but when I am alone and it's taking a trillion hits to take out a boss, duck that. There's this game, Hyperneptunia Re;Birth 1 that might be the biggest offender of that. The normal enemies are easy and barely give you any reward. The bosses on the other hand take so many ducking hits and their break bar decreases so slow that it's virtually pointless to try and break them, that it ruins everything. I drew the line when I killed a boss, left a dungeon, and encountered a much more overpowered boss before being able to save. That game ducking sucks.

As for the bow thing, bows in Dink are horrible. I am mystified when people claim the fire bow is any good. You forfeit your movement for an 8 direction shot that doesn't do nearly as much damage as other weapons and can just be outright absorbed if it's not a power shot.

hard fightes
Since combat is not complex in this game, doing a hit n run for an hour is boring.

Bow example:

Use bow to shoot some object, sprite etc... over the river (ground that cant be accessed), and by hitting that object, unlock a secret passage or something. For combat, noooo waaaaayyyy.

Dung, I'm a creative guy, pity I don't have time and laptop...

Likes

*Nice Story
*Sidequests
*Fights that do have a slight challenge, be it a couple more hits or a secret weakness
*New Graphics, only if they manage to fit the scene within a reasonable amount. SimonK is a good example; Skurn is not so much
*Secrets, SimonK is an okay example, they should have some kind of way of knowing about them be it a piece of odd scenery or in text clues, exploration & guessing are not as fun after multiple tries.
*Branching Story, Allowing multiple endings or at least different variants of text are nice so I can be a good or bad hero/villain/Duck Murderer.
*Humor, only if it's good enough, toilet humor is debatable
*The pillbug noise(The P button), it'd be better if it'd do something, but it's a little funny as it is
*Funny Puzzles, the Bee one in Pilgrim's quest is a very funny example

Hate

*Repeating text, if I talk to someone who doesn't have options I want them to say something different even if it's just, " Leave me alone or I'll call the guards." Also it could get worse if it's a 'cutscene' that's activated by talking to them, mainly since I can't skip it.
*Invincible enemies, at the very least I'd like to be able to kill anything even if it'd take a hour of doing 1 damage points.
*Timed Events, unless it is really part of the story I don't like it since I want to be able to explore if necessary
*Bad Grammar, unless it's intentional I don't want to try & decipher what the person/thing is saying unless I can have how ever long to read the text, like a map item.
*Very complicated puzzles/events, I want to be able to solve it in my head, if I have to get a pen & paper or a walk-through then it might be too much.
*Hardness Errors/Bugs, it takes away from the overall experience, it could be redeemed if there is a secret behind it.

Preference: A nice redhead who is good enough at video games & wouldn't mind the occasional snuggle. Body preference is private. This was female preference right?

It isn't just hard bosses either. I don't like endless fighting of pillbugs and slimes either.

*New Graphics, only if they manage to fit the scene within a reasonable amount. SimonK is a good example; Skurn is not so much

Does this mean I am Nega-Simon?

This is a very interesting thread; thanks for asking the question.

Things I like:
- An interesting storyline that develops as you play. As part of this, (possibly long) cutscenes are welcome.
- Philosophy. For example, in Friends Beyond 2, there's an optional scene where a kid dies and Dink ponders the meaning of life. Or the ending of Solstice. I love that.
- Secrets, if there's something to find so I feel like it was worth searching for it. That something may even just be a message telling me how great I am, as long as it feels like Dink would believe it. The point is that it should make Dink feel good about himself.
- Variation. That can take many forms. Allowing different paths to the goal; having different goals; playing with different abilities; people saying different things when you talk to them. Those kind of things. I like Cast Awakening for this (among other things), for example.
- Clever fights. The boss with the wall in three amulets is my favorite: I have to think about how to beat him, then it's a slight challenge to actually do the things I thought of, and once I got it figured out, it doesn't take too long to actually kill him. Perfect.

What I don't like:
- Seemingly endless fighting. Fights should be interesting; just doing the same thing all the time is no fun. This is about an army of low power monsters like pillbugs, as well as a boss that is just the same all the time.
- Useless walking: searching a large area for something, or walking between two places that are far away with no action in between (repeated fights do not count as action). If there are large distances to be walked, I want herb boots. Better yet, give me herb boots and keep the distances short anyway.
- Empty places. This includes the useless walking thing, but also houses you enter when nothing there can even be examined.
- Long cutscenes in a boring story. Cutscenes make the game a bit like a movie. I want it to be a good movie.
- Weird things without an explanation. The explanation may come later (in which case Dink should wonder out loud that he doesn't understand what's happening), but just "this is weird, because it is" annoys me. I want the world to be potentially predictable; if I can't predict it, it must not be because things are just crazy, but because I didn't know about something that caused it.
- Grammar and spelling errors. I'm not a native English speaker, and I don't blame people for bad writing if they can't help it. But it does bother me. Intentional errors, for example from goblins, don't bother me, but also don't really add value to the game for me.

Useless walking: searching a large area for something, or walking between two places that are far away with no action in between

Weird things without an explanation.

Does this mean you hated moon child? ;(;(;(;(

The Goblins are just speaking Dutch. It's not a spelling error.

Something I thought while writing in the dmod reviews thread: Dink's Personality.

Some dmods get it right. In Back From the Grave or Crosslink, for example, Dink is pretty cool. But in many of the highly rated epics, including but not limited to Initiation, PQ and CC2, he's a dumb-as-a-brick, unsympathetic, unlikeable and wholly irredeemable little shitwad. I hate that. I'd like the main character to be someone whom I actually WANT to succeed in their goals, rather than hoping they get stampeded to death by the nearest sounder of swine. In the original game, while Dink definitely had some rather questionable character traits, I still found him likeable and relatable, on the whole.

For the initial Dink Smallwood it would make some sense why he might not have such likeable traits. He just started as a hero after he became homeless for about a day & he didn't have much opportunity to be helpful in the village, there were like 9 people(counting Quackers) & they seemed like they were pretty self sufficient. Also since he was bullied & didn't have a father he didn't entirely have much kindness or mentor-ship.

Yeah, every author has their own take on Dink and it's always fun seeing what aspects of his personality will be emphasized in an adventure. I personally rather like the jerk-face Dinks.

I'm not sure which kind of take on Dink I prefer. I do find it funny when he abuses his heroism by mingling with the women, but also his serious side is quite nice to know he honestly wants to help the kingdom, whether money is involved or not can only make it better.

I like his serious side but I still want him to be the imperfect hero. The one who would rampage against the gods of a small town, or kill the neighbors pet duck, or tell a small girl that he just saved from a cult that he is the leader of an even worse cult.

He's a strange, complex character, and that's what makes him fun.

i would love to play dmods that allow you to play as other characters as well , i loved how in some dmods you could play as the enemies , darkside of dink and what not.

That being said only a good story tend to bring in that sort of stuff.

when the pirates of Caribbean came out first i thought "here we go , soon there will be a ton of dmods based on this"...well

Does this mean you hated moon child?

There are very few things that I hate. And I always try to look at positive things; there's enough in it that I do like. I just ignore the things that I don't. I've found this to be a very good way to treat life; it keeps me happy.

The Goblins are just speaking Dutch.

No they aren't. I wouldn't have trouble understanding that.

Dink's Personality

I talked about Dink (and specifically Solstice) to a friend recently and she said that it bothered her that in many games, heroes are allowed to do all sorts of bad things (such as insulting women, or killing people (and in Dink's case, ducks) just because he feels like it) and they are still liked because they save the world. I think she has a point: behaving like that should have social consequences.

Jawel, dat doen ze wel.

Something that tries to be unique or different in any way, or add new elements to enhance the original game. (This is a good thing about PQ, for example - with the throwing stars and extra stats.)

Something that doesn't get tedious, doesn't have you grind for experience. Doesn't have you walk around a whole bunch of samey screens. Doesn't make you get stuck with convoluted character puzzles.

Something that has a lot of little secrets, easter eggs and hidden content or things like multiple endings.

Something that either has a strong story, or great humor, or doesn't take itself seriously, or becomes all surreal and meta on you (Moon Child)...

@Shevek, it just means he's the better of two evils, just think of what Seth would of done. He might of made the people make more lawn mowing sims.

@DaVince, would ABC fall under the "Doesn't take itself seriously" category?

Certainly, it would, but it's extremely low effort. I was thinking more about how the original game doesn't take itself too seriously. There's a somewhat epic plot, but plenty of silly stuff happens along the way. Clichés are subverted, it sometimes breaks out of the seriousness of a situation, stuff like that.

Is it better to announce an upcoming dmod? Are there any advantages to this?

I think the use of Say vs Say_stop vs cut scenes, should reflect how important the information is. Cut scenes can be used for entertainment in some cases, but the longer we are stuck in a conversation it should increase the dramatic impact rather than simply make it take longer to get through the experience.

From playing the original DMod Seth provided with the engine, I don't recall having to bash the spacebar 73 times to finish talking to a single npc, and I don't recall any one conversation being so long that I forgot the important bit of info, long before I could move again.

I think too, that when we have a task to complete then the npc that gave us a clue, should be able to repeat the essential bits in case we couldn't decipher the clue the first 2 of 50 times.

I think obstacles can have a positive impact on combat when used rightly, but not excessively. Compare the first slime we encounter in the original game to some of these over-grown forests with several enemies. That 1 slime got my adrenaline up a bit as I learned it's combat style. On the other side, I detest dying to a monster I can't see because there are 300 trees piled into a screen leaving almost enough room to inch about.

On Graphics, some of the new stuff is cool some seems cartoony. My ability to paint or draw is equivalent to a 3 month old baby trying to peel a banana ... even my stickmen don't resemble a stickman.

On music, I am a musician and also an IT tech in my day job. I frequently play with sound off, but have tons of respect for any author who can make the game more enjoyable with proper use of music. Certainly for dramatic effect and to get my pulse racing when entering a risky or dangerous situation, makes the game more enthralling.

I like to relate back to Seth's original offering. There have been some awesome add-ons produced over the years, but he managed to "Keep It Simple S..." yet produced a respectable experience with few glitches. In a mere couple of phrases he established that he was single, lived with his widowed mother, looked after the family pigs, was taunted by the neighborhood knight-hopeful, was somewhat misdirected yet morally sound, and had a desire to accomplish something great.

Many of the follow-up stories seem to take long strides to define a character while others completely ignore why a character is there. I think we should define a character just enough that we can have a reason to either trust or not trust them sufficiently to make sense of the clues they lead us too like, Dink's mother just happening to send Dink outside in time to be taunted by Milder, who in the next screen is said to be leaving to join the Kings Army and we have a desire to follow him.

Dang, I'm writing a mini-novel here I think but I've covered much of what I wanted to answer with.

Mm

Is it better to announce an upcoming dmod? Are there any advantages to this?

Uh, either way. Up to your personal preference I'd say. I think the buzz it generates will help motivate you for about a week or two. But it's also really really cool to just release a dmod out of nowhere.