The Dink Network

All that Glitters v1.00 uploaded to the Dink Network

All that Glitters!

April 27th 2018, 01:14 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I just uploaded the 1.00 release of this this module for Dinkers around the globe to enjoy. Please let me know if there are any serious bugs that need to be addressed.

This adventure takes place a few years after his first. Dink is a hero, but is often not quite taken as seriously as he would like.

As our story opens, Dink has found a great opportunity to make some serious cash and then retire young. And there should not be any kinds of annoying side quests! All he must do is follow a treasure map. What could be easier? But, as usual things do not go quite as planned.


What is interesting about this dmod, you ask?

o 245 scripts are used for it.
o A (somewhat) different type of story arc is used. It begins with interactions with various characters and carrying out a few side quests while in town, followed by a large scale maze-like adventure through the mudflats, then ascent to a lost city, where the only remaining building standing is it's temple.
o Dink must make a moral decision that changes the game's outcome.
o There is a rather unique requirement for safety in Dink's journey across the mudflats.
o A detailed story is told.
o A simple clock display helps Dink stay safe if he keeps an eye on when dusk (and then nightfall) is coming and plans accordingly.
o Several fun, powerful (and sometimes dangerous) magic items are available for Dink to use.
o A few new graphics appear.

Refer to walkthru.txt in the glitters directory if you need help.
April 27th 2018, 08:32 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
where
April 27th 2018, 11:42 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
If you are asking where this dmod is available for download, then perhaps I can help by pointing out that redink1 seems to have put it into the usual downloadable place at about April 27th, 22:46.

If there is some other "where" question you have then please be more specific.

April 28th 2018, 03:46 PM
dinkdead.gif
twp
Peasant They/Them
 
First play:

During the intro sequences, when Dink is talking with Martridge, there are a series of text lines (white) which scroll upward Very fast and cannot be read.

Nothing else, so far. Will keep playing.

THANKS!
April 28th 2018, 04:27 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Hmmmm. What version of Dink are you using? Also, what else can you tell me about how things are going? Was this problem taking place right after something else (like say a save-game or a restore-game)?

So far, this does not seem to be an issue that I can reproduce.
April 28th 2018, 07:45 PM
peasantmp.gif
Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
i died multiple times when trying to leave the docks at the start after the pirates laughed at dink...had to comment out the update status line and put a big heart at the save bot.

woulda died again at the gold castle if i had talked to carnifex in the guest room first, i think. that guy really shouldn't damage you.
April 28th 2018, 10:39 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Skurn:

Thanks for getting back to me so promptly with some bug reports.

Are you sure Dink truly died and did not just get really weak? He should get very weak (down to one health point); but should not actually die in either of the circumstances you describe. When there is only one health point, the health bar almost looks empty but is not really empty.

Interesting. Dink should have been made very weak (due to sea sickness from his voyage) not dead. Did you have Dink swing the sword at something just before he "died multiple times when trying to leave the docks at the start after the pirates laughed at dink"?

Carnifex Maximus is an evil intelligent sword. While extremely useful, and very helpful to Dink throughout the game, the cost of using him is always present, but it should never mean that he takes Dink's last health point. Like any other parasite, Carnifeix should never outright kill his host. I'll look into that.

What version of Dink were you using?
April 29th 2018, 12:00 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
to all fans of SlipkDink and his dmods:

I'll look into any issues posted here soon, but there might be a slight delay due to some computer and software matters I must attend to first.

Drat!

I apologize for the delay. I'll get right back as soon as I can.
April 29th 2018, 12:02 AM
dinkdead.gif
twp
Peasant They/Them
 
SlipDink:

I'm running this using DFArc v3, running Freedink, on a 32 bit Linux Mint laptop. I have True Color, Windowed, and Sound enabled. (Good music by the way).

I don't know of any particular things I did during the initial intro sequence. It is really mostly an auto-play sequence with minimal user input allowed.

Dink is listening/talking with Martridge about getting the map/sword and Martridge is trying to explain that Dink is being, well, Dinkish.

During this dialog, there are several single lines of white text which are scrolled from bottom to top, over the scene. The scroll rate is far too fast to read. It takes about 1 second for the text to move across, bottom to top.
This text is like the text used in the game start sequence in which the situation is explained to the user, except that it scrolls upward.

This is prior to my first save, which I will do using the save machine in Martridge's room.

The dmod runs ok, so far, with no other visible problems as far as I've played.

God save us, there are ponies...

Don't worry about a quick reply to this, the games DOES play.

[edit to update system description]
April 30th 2018, 12:57 PM
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Toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
43.67 Mb ?!?!?!
I thought this was retro gaming
May 1st 2018, 05:17 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@all:
Okay, so "I'm back".

So, what's happening Dink fans?--> Are you enjoying the story line? What about the quest across the mudflats? What do you think of the new ideas I added, the graphics I used and the extensive redeployment of existing DN development resources? What do you think about the big moral decision Dink needs to make? Did you find the land of Amazin fun to explore?

Regarding the size of the glitters-v1_00.dmod file --> Sorry for the long download. I'm hoping that for most folks it's not too much trouble. A number of the graphical elements are rather large (totaling to 85M uncompressed), and, I've got 47M (uncompressed) worth of interesting sound files. I thought it more fun to include all of those, and I hope you agree with me.

Status of [All that Glitters] --> I have attempted to address the two concerns raised here:
(#1 Dink dying "multiple times when trying to leave the docks at the start".
#2 A "series of text lines (white) which scroll upward Very fast and cannot be read".)
But as the above issues do not seem to be preventing game play, I will hold off uploading the new version in case there are more matters to deal with that come up soon.

In case you wondered what was causing the delay in my response --> I was attempting to upgrade my PeeCee to Ubuntu 18.04 and I had a few difficulties. Chief among those were problems with my graphics card no longer being supported for Linux by the manufacturer. Eventually, I had to revert back to 16.04 for now, and then restore all my backups, etc. Unless someone develops the graphics card driver I need, I'll stick with 16.04 for a few more years. Sigh...

May 2nd 2018, 03:54 AM
peasantm.gif
shevek
Peasant They/Them Netherlands
Never be afraid to ask, but don't demand an answer 
Are you enjoying the story line? What about the quest across the mudflats? What do you think of the new ideas I added, the graphics I used and the extensive redeployment of existing DN development resources? What do you think about the big moral decision Dink needs to make? Did you find the land of Amazin fun to explore?

Yes, I do indeed like the story. The beginning is too much of an info dump for me, with almost no user input, and that takes a bit too long. But once the game really starts it's fun! I particularly like the morality in the game.

Exploring while needing to watch the time is fun too, although it would be nice to have an option to wait for dark in a place where you don't need firestones (without actually waiting).

And of course I have some bug reports:

First the output of my editor when parsing the ini file. There are several load_sequence_now lines with a filename and sequence number, but without any extra info. This will probably work fine, but following the main game, I would add NOTANIM to them.

There are a few bugs in the main game's ini file which you have copied (as does almost everyone): there is a "NOTANIN" that should be "NOTANIM" and the sprite info for 31 18 forgets to specify that this is about frame 18.

There are two real bugs in it that probably cause things to not work the way you want them to: on line 1114, you say "set sprite_info" instead of "set_sprite_info", and on line 1183 you have added an extra - sign.

Finally, on line 1161 you say BLACK NOTANIM; you should only use one of them, in this case BLACK. Given Dink's lax parsing this will probalby work fine.

Here's the output from the console (converted to lowercase):
ignoring ini line 97 load_sequence graphics\effects\arrow\arrow- 25 75 notanim
ignoring ini line 458 load_sequence graphics\struct\island\isle- 424 notanin
ignoring ini line 770 set_sprite_info 31 26 49 99 -49 -10 51
ignoring ini line 998 load_sequence_now graphics\title- 453
ignoring ini line 1114 set sprite_info 844 24 51 30 -20 -45 -20 45
ignoring ini line 1122 load_sequence_now graphics\sdink- 854
ignoring ini line 1153 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\rat1- 861
ignoring ini line 1154 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\rat3- 863
ignoring ini line 1155 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\rat7- 867
ignoring ini line 1156 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\rat9- 869
ignoring ini line 1157 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\rat2- 862
ignoring ini line 1158 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\ratx- 871
ignoring ini line 1161 load_sequence graphics\goldb- 872 black notanim
ignoring ini line 1182 load_sequence graphics\wheel- 875
ignoring ini line 1183 set_sprite_info - 875 1 128 128 100 -100 -100 100
ignoring ini line 1211 load_sequence graphics\shdow- 882
ignoring ini line 1227 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\stone\rat1- 961
ignoring ini line 1228 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\stone\rat2- 962
ignoring ini line 1229 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\stone\rat3- 963
ignoring ini line 1230 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\stone\rat7- 967
ignoring ini line 1231 load_sequence_now graphics\rats\stone\rat9- 969


Moving on to things I encountered while playing:

It was good most of the time, which means that it was fun to play the game. There were occasional bugs, but not so many that it was annoying me. So that's good.

What I did encounter:

When I talked to Errat, he said I could safely try to hit anyone except him. I tried this immediately on the woman on the same screen, and he responded as if I hit him.

When I went to go get the purple crystal, I found the chest but then made it invisible again without getting the crystal. After that, it would no longer let me make it visible until I was sent out to the castle. (Sorry for the cryptic language, I'm trying not to spoil it for those who haven't played yet).

The first time I entered the screen where the map is found, it was late and I was asked immediately if I wanted to spend the night there. I said I did, but in the morning I remained frozen and had to restart the game.

Every now and then a random sprite, usually one of the digits from the time, will move up and off screen. This seems to be the script that is used to move text up, grabbing the wrong sprite. Normally not a problem, but once it happened to my own sprite (#1) and I was unable to recover other than by restarting the game.

The hardbox of the rats is horrible, which makes it very hard to hit them properly. Looking at the lines in the ini file above, you don't define a hardbox so it uses the default. Please define a proper box.

The "large predator" seems to be a boss fight, so I expected the beast to stay dead after I killed it, but that was not the case. Not sure if this is intentional.

When coming back from the highlands, it would be nice if it would automatically be morning, because you won't have firestones anymore, so you should have time to find them.

That's all for now. Conclusion: I like the D-Mod and am having fun playing it. I've reached the end, but am now looking for the key as instructed.
May 2nd 2018, 10:04 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Thanks very much for your comments about the content of the dmod and the bug reports. I'll look into those issues, see if I can reproduce them, see what I can do about them, etc.
May 3rd 2018, 10:54 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@shevek:
Yes, I do indeed like the story. The beginning is too much of an info dump for me, with almost no user input, and that takes a bit too long. But once the game really starts it's fun! I particularly like the morality in the game.

Good, I'm glad that you enjoyed the bulk of the game. I acknowledge that I seem to be unable to get a story started without a fairly long intro though, and I appear to be rather helpless to try to avoid that. Sigh...

Exploring while needing to watch the time is fun too, although it would be nice to have an option to wait for dark in a place where you don't need firestones (without actually waiting).

I originally thought that forcing Dink to wait until dusk (or later) to camp would be more challenging and fun. But, based on your comment, I have changed the [C]amp capability to allow Dink to wait "all day" (without actually waiting) if he wants to do so "in a place where you don't need firestones".

And of course I have some bug reports:

Based on your comments, I made some changes to the Dink.ini file and (where needed) subsequent changes to the various aspects of the game affected by those changes.

Moving on to things I encountered while playing:

It was good most of the time, which means that it was fun to play the game. There were occasional bugs, but not so many that it was annoying me. So that's good.

Hooray!

What I did encounter:

When I talked to Errat, he said I could safely try to hit anyone except him. I tried this immediately on the woman on the same screen, and he responded as if I hit him.

Hmmm, yes, you are right. I meant to have him say that he would likely "respond as if Dink hit him" if Dink hits the nearby lady too. I'll add the missing explanatory text.

When I went to go get the purple crystal, I found the chest but then made it invisible again without getting the crystal. After that, it would no longer let me make it visible until I was sent out to the castle. (Sorry for the cryptic language, I'm trying not to spoil it for those who haven't played yet).

Thanks for keeping the spoilers out of your bug report as much as possible. I admit I was a bit confused at first by your careful efforts to not spoil the game for those that have not played. :-} But I'm quite grateful that you did your best not to give any of the fun of the game away! Anyway, I think I made some logic improvements that should allow you to "make it visible" again without being "sent out to the castle".

The first time I entered the screen where the map is found, it was late and I was asked immediately if I wanted to spend the night there. I said I did, but in the morning I remained frozen and had to restart the game.

Sorry, I don't seem to be able to reproduce this one. Can you tell me anything else about this issue?

Every now and then a random sprite, usually one of the digits from the time, will move up and off screen. This seems to be the script that is used to move text up, grabbing the wrong sprite. Normally not a problem, but once it happened to my own sprite (#1) and I was unable to recover other than by restarting the game.

That has happened to me in test-play too. It seems to have something to do with the clock as those sprites (digits from the time) are the ones that usually go floating away. I never had it happen to sprite #1 though! That must have been irritating. At present, I'm at a loss to know for certain what to do about this, and I'm still investigating it. However, I made some changes that I think might fix it though.

The hardbox of the rats is horrible, which makes it very hard to hit them properly. Looking at the lines in the ini file above, you don't define a hardbox so it uses the default. Please define a proper box.

Ooops. I meant to get the proper SET_SPRITE_INFO lines into place before the release. Funny, I just put up with the faulty hard boxes during testing and figured that was part of the challenge.

The "large predator" seems to be a boss fight, so I expected the beast to stay dead after I killed it, but that was not the case. Not sure if this is intentional.

Good point. I have made the appropriate fix there.

When coming back from the highlands, it would be nice if it would automatically be morning, because you won't have firestones anymore, so you should have time to find them.

Okay, I have made change to accommodate that.

That's all for now. Conclusion: I like the D-Mod and am having fun playing it.

That's all for me too, *right* *now*. I'm delighted that you had fun playing "All that Glitters". Next, I'm going to test all of the changes I made before releasing another build of the dmod.

I've reached the end, but am now looking for the key as instructed.

Hmmm, it sounds like you missed some of the clues that should have made it much easier to find the key the first time. I could make a change that should make it easier to find (if you are using the right tool to look for it) even if you miss it the first time. But If you look around you should find it. Please let me know how that goes.
May 3rd 2018, 02:00 PM
peasantm.gif
shevek
Peasant They/Them Netherlands
Never be afraid to ask, but don't demand an answer 
Hmmm, it sounds like you missed some of the clues that should have made it much easier to find the key the first time. I could make a change that should make it easier to find (if you are using the right tool to look for it) even if you miss it the first time. But If you look around you should find it. Please let me know how that goes.

I looked everywhere, so I finally checked the code and found the problem: it had already appeared, but I hadn't noticed it so I walked through the screen without taking it. I think it would be nice if there would be another message when entering the screen later. Now nothing happened, so I just went searching everywhere. Another option would be to lock the screen until you pick the key up.

This did lead me to some more bug reports:

I chose the unlimited hellfire and had to work hard to make it usable. I later found that the magic wand was pretty close and it would have been usable immediately. Was that intentional? In that case I suggest to give a hint about it. If not, I'd make it much harder to reach it (i.e. don't put it so close to the entrance).

When getting out of the mudflats to see if I should go back to town, I was locked out. Trying to go to town gave me a message that I shouldn't do that. Trying to go to the mudflats told me I still needed to do things in town.
May 3rd 2018, 02:19 PM
peasantm.gif
shevek
Peasant They/Them Netherlands
Never be afraid to ask, but don't demand an answer 
That has happened to me in test-play too. It seems to have something to do with the clock as those sprites (digits from the time) are the ones that usually go floating away. I never had it happen to sprite #1 though! That must have been irritating. At present, I'm at a loss to know for certain what to do about this, and I'm still investigating it. However, I made some changes that I think might fix it though.

I've checked the code. You use a global variable (&dinklogo) to store the text sprite id, then use external() to scroll it. I think (and hope) no scripts can run between the call to external() and the external function being run. However, when you use say_stop (in intro croll_text), other scripts can run. They may change the value of &dinklogo, which you use later. So you need to store the value of &dinklogo that you received in a local variable before you do anything that lets other scripts run. Then use that local variable in the rest of scroll_text.
May 3rd 2018, 05:59 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Yep, that is part of the solution I applied already. I think that part of the issue relates to the way I wrote intro.c/scroll_text() too, so I made some changes there as well.

But, thanks very much for your input.

If I don't see this "floating sprites going away" issue happen again during my testing, perhaps the applied solutions will be proven to work (at least most of the time).

May 4th 2018, 12:09 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@shevek:
I looked everywhere, so I finally checked the code and found the problem: it had already appeared, but I hadn't noticed it so I walked through the screen without taking it. I think it would be nice if there would be another message when entering the screen later. Now nothing happened, so I just went searching everywhere. Another option would be to lock the screen until you pick the key up.

To avoid spoilers, I have saved a detailed reply to this matter to be in a "private" posting to you. However, suffice it to say that I have taken your comment seriously and have made a change or two.

This did lead me to some more bug reports:

I chose the unlimited hellfire and had to work hard to make it usable. I later found that the magic wand was pretty close and it would have been usable immediately. Was that intentional?

Yes.

In that case I suggest to give a hint about it. If not, I'd make it much harder to reach it (i.e. don't put it so close to the entrance).

Okay, I've added a hint or two. I hope I did not make it too easy now!

When getting out of the mudflats to see if I should go back to town, I was locked out. Trying to go to town gave me a message that I shouldn't do that. Trying to go to the mudflats told me I still needed to do things in town.

Okay, I needed to correct some comparisons to fix some logic. That should work better now. The basic idea though is that once Dink leaves town he cannot go back. I've added some text to the next release that would explain that a bit.

Now, I've got to keep testing my changes a bit more, but if things go well, I should have a new build ready for release before the middle of next week. THANKS very much for all of your help. I'm glad you enjoyed the game.
November 3rd 2020, 12:37 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I just uploaded the 3.03 version, which should make the game a bit more fun and a little easier to play in the mudflats.
November 5th 2020, 10:52 AM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I'm about to upload the 3.03a version, with my final improvements in game play now in place.

If you were not able to finish it before, try it again!
February 16th 2021, 11:00 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I just uploaded the 3.04 version, with some minor requested improvements in game play now in place.
February 17th 2021, 05:13 AM
custom_king.png
redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
3.04 is now available to download.
February 17th 2021, 11:15 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Thanks redink1!
February 22nd 2021, 11:21 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@all: Note; an update is coming, thanks to the assistance of RangerLord (which takes the form of his pointing out some flaws and offering some ideas for improvement). Hooray!

@RangerLord: Please be sure to read my recent reply as a part of our ongoing conversation in the private message section on this topic.
February 23rd 2021, 03:56 AM
anon.gif
Gidon147
Ghost They/Them
 
OOh. This looks like a good entry point to start playing DMods! I wanna play this right now, but looks like I should wait for that update now. got any ETA?

As a child i only ever played the original DInk and I loved it. DMods at that time could'nt win me over; there weren't like the Dink Smallwood I loved. Now that I'm reading Tim and that I have played the Dorinthia Remake, I can't wait to play more and also contribute at some point!

Looking forward to playing this.
February 23rd 2021, 12:49 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Gidon147:
OOh. This looks like a good entry point to start playing DMods! I wanna play this right now, but looks like I should wait for that update now. got any ETA?

...

Looking forward to playing this.

Well, I'm hoping to test (and the release) some of my changes before the end of next week.
February 26th 2021, 01:10 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I'm about to upload version 3.50.

It contains many fixes, textual corrections and updates. Hooray!

BTW, This is all thanks to RangerLord and his valuable testing help!
February 26th 2021, 02:35 PM
custom_king.png
redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
February 27th 2021, 05:45 PM
milder.gif
I got to the gold castle, and upon pressing space at the savebot there, my game crashed with a fatal error, corrupting my save file.
It might have something to do with me trying to play this on Windows XP with an older version of FreeDink, so this might just be a problem on my end.

I will give "All that Glitters" a retry tomorrow though, because the entire Idea of this Utopia entirely based off shitloads of gold was very enjoyable to read. I couldn't wait to finally go into the mudflats to unravel the Island's mysteries, but at this very moment I'm too bummed out because I have to watch the entire Intro all over again.
February 28th 2021, 12:52 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@gidon147:
I got to the gold castle, and upon pressing space at the savebot there, my game crashed with a fatal error, corrupting my save file.
It might have something to do with me trying to play this on Windows XP with an older version of FreeDink, so this might just be a problem on my end.

Hmmm. I am unable to reproduce that issue.

I will give "All that Glitters" a retry tomorrow though, because the entire Idea of this Utopia entirely based off shitloads of gold was very enjoyable to read.

Okay, let me know how things go. And if the problem comes up again, see if you can tell me any other possibly unique things about your environment AND what specific savebot you tried to use (unsuccessfully). There are several in the Gold Castle.

Also, note that there are savebots in Murtridge's house, along the road past the flowers that Dink passes after getting off of the boat and heading to the Capital City of Amazin AND a few more savebots atop the grey stone castles that you passed on your way to the gold castle. If you can use any (or all) of those you should be able to avoid having to "watch the entire Intro all over again".