The Dink Network

Play Dink Smallwood HD, FreeDink, and D-Mods in your Web Browser!

June 18th 2018, 11:13 PM
custom_king.png
redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
Dink Smallwood HD is now playable in your web browser at http://rtsoft.com/web/dink/, complete with D-Mod support and save game persistence/importing/exporting. It's the full Dink Smallwood experience, in a browser. D-Mods and save games even stay around if you leave and come back again.

This fancy wizardry does require the latest version of a modern browser (such as Firefox 60.0.2, or Chrome 67.0.3396.87), but it even works fairly well with a newish iPhone or Android device (and will automatically use touch controls in those environments).

Additionally, there is now a 'Play' button on every D-Mod's file page which will launch Dink Smallwood HD online and install the selected D-Mod automatically. That means that you, or anyone else, can start playing a D-Mod in as little as 20 seconds without installing anything beforehand (assuming that you have a powerful device, tons of bandwidth, a new browser, etc).

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that GNU FreeDink has also been available to play in your web browser at https://play.freedink.org/. The GNU FreeDink experience is a little bit different (open source sound effects, upload your own D-Mods, translations of the main game in 12 additional languages, etc.), but it's worth checking out.

While much more trivial in nature, this situation was like when Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz both invented Calculus around the same time in the 17th century. Beuc and Seth had both started on creating new web versions of Dink Smallwood just about simultaneously without knowing what the other was doing (until Beuc posted about it on the forum first, of course).
June 18th 2018, 11:18 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
There have been some reports of issues where the game hangs on the loading screen; if that happens, try pressing Ctrl-F5 (to force a refresh). If you continue to see issues, please post about them here (include browser version and other information if possible).
June 19th 2018, 12:55 AM
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yeoldetoast
Peasant They/Them Australia
LOOK UPON MY DEFORMED FACE! 
Seth first released the web version of Dink 1.09 in 2015 so it's been around much longer.
June 19th 2018, 05:29 AM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
Yeah, but that version didn't support midis, save games, touch controls, etc.
June 19th 2018, 08:57 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Seth and redink1:
This is great news! Thanks VERY MUCH Seth and redink1 for your efforts! And thanks to Beuc for his work in this area as well!

I have a few suggested improvments though, which I think you will agree will be helpful.

#1 Can the DN web site increment the counter for downloads when a visitor to the web site starts a dmod by clicking on the [Play] button? Alternatively, can we increment another counter just for online - plays (instead of counting it as a download) that is also displayed on the "Files - D-Mod" (and any similar) pages?

#2 Is it possible to have a start up routine on the DN check to see if "Firefox 60.0.2, or Chrome 67.0.3396.87" (or later) is in use before starting the online version in response to a click on the [Play] button? In this way, more people would have a success the first time that they click on [Play] (or at least they would know that they have to "come back" to the DN with a different browser).
June 19th 2018, 01:28 PM
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pillbug
Peasant He/Him United States
Love! True love! 
Wow this is crazy. Amazing work.
June 19th 2018, 07:53 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
#1: Yes, the download counter increments every time someone clicks 'Play', even if the player already has the D-Mod 'installed' in the browser.

#2: Maybe; other browsers are likely supported, but the newer browsers generally work better for things like this. I'd hate to 'hide' the Play button for browsers that work that I don't know about. For example, I just tried playing using Microsoft Edge (which I've never intentionally used before), and it worked great, and I was able to browse for and install a D-Mod.
June 20th 2018, 02:57 AM
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liquid141
Peasant They/Them
Sons of liberty 
This is just great , i spent the whole day at work playing this on the browser until the admin got wind of it and blocked it on the network under category games haha.
June 20th 2018, 03:34 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
use a proxy.

actually, duck it. just quit the job.
June 20th 2018, 08:40 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Seth and redink1:
First, let me again thank you both for your efforts.

I have just attempted to play 'All that Glitters' using the web [Play] button.

OS & System Information
OS: Ubuntu 16.04
model name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8300 @ 2.83GHz
MemTotal: 4 Gigabytes

VGA compatible controller
Intel Corporation 82G33/G31 Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)

BIOS Information
Vendor: Dell Inc.
Version: 1.0.13
Release Date: 03/20/2008

Browser
Google Chrome 67.0.3396.87 (Official Build) (64-bit)

The player experience was, well to put it bluntly, pretty awful.

What is supposed to happen in the start of the dmod, is that text comes to a simple black screen, scrolling up (at the press of a [space bar]) while explaining a few things about game-play and introducing the player to the story. While this did (sort of) take place, what happened is that no text really scrolled up smoothly, and as I pressed [space bar] to get the next line of text, it would often be the case that one or more lines of text were skipped, making a semi-coherent series of statements.

As the next scene in the Terris bar unfolded, the same problem continued, parts of dialogue were occasionally missed, though eventually things "smoothed out" and I lost fewer points of dialogue. However, when it came time for the scene to shift to the interior of Martridge's house, it seemed that the game, just "locked up" as I waited more than 10 minutes trying to get the browser to take the game forward.

All of this took place without any swapping starting on this Pee Cee.

Now, I'm a pretty patient guy. I think it is safe to say that I can tolerate slow performance in software that might be over-burdening hardware much more than the average computer user. So, (to a large extent) this means that as long as everything eventually works, I don't mind. But my experience here was rather flawed in that things seemed so sluggish as to significantly reduce "playability". I strongly suspect other people experiencing what I did would discourage them from ever playing any dmods again.

My point here is that it might be wise to label that [Play] button as experimental, or to have some message pop up suggesting what kind of system requirements are necessary for a good player experience. I may just be seeing myself in all of this, but I suspect that many who decide to play Dink Smallwood are drawn (at least in part) by the price (free) and probably do not necessarily have the latest in computer hardware to run software on.

Of course, I could be wrong about assuming that those with less money to spend on hardware are attracted to the DN site, and I admit my system is over 10 years old. But, I think we can assume that everyone would prefer the [Play] button experience to be as slick and fast as any other method of playing a dmod.
June 20th 2018, 02:27 PM
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liquid141
Peasant They/Them
Sons of liberty 
That 10 year old system hardware might be the issue , if this was the original dink smallwood running online , it would run the way you expected it but hd has a much higher requirements , i am not sure what exactly runs it smooth but even with a i5 processor and intel hd 3000 graphics i cant get dink hd to run smoothly with dropping frames.
June 20th 2018, 03:27 PM
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RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
Running Firefox and Windows 10 here. When I click on Browse it hangs up.
June 20th 2018, 04:58 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@ liquid141:
This same 10 year old system supports DinkHD version 1.91 using Wine quite nicely. In fact in comparison to the web version performance level, things move like lightning!

I think that the browser version of DinkHD is the issue here, unless we decide to put up a notice stating some tested minimal hardware requirements that pop up when the user clicks on the [Play] button.

June 20th 2018, 09:04 PM
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Seth
Peasant He/Him Japan
 
Yeah, maybe a little javascript pop-up after clicking play, or a "?" info button next to the play could be good to explain the requirements and how to download the native version instead if stuff is slow/broken.

If something freezes up, it's probably due to a program crash/assertion - if you bring up the javascript console in your browser it will often give the reason/error code. (in Chrome, it's More Tools->Developer tools) It might be the browser just refusing to allocate any more memory.

Does Beuc's web port may run better? ( https://play.freedink.org ) I wouldn't be surprised, HD uses OpenGL 1.X surfaces pretty heavily to squeeze better performance out of old iOS/Android devices, but it doesn't translate that great to webgl as it requires an emulation compile setting.

Oh, if you can get into the HD options, there is a "show FPS" button, that might give you an idea of why text is missing and such, I assume hardware acceleration is failing and it's like 3 FPS or something.

EDIT: Huh, this DMOD (All that glitters) crashes on me during the opening intro scene too, so I don't think that is connected to computer speed, more likely an HD bug being triggered. Will check it out
June 21st 2018, 05:29 AM
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Seth
Peasant He/Him Japan
 
Just a note that the web dink was updated just now:

- I think I fixed the crash issue I had earlier (assert when persistent data mirroring had an issue)
- fixed an audio issue I noticed with playing .mid files in a DMOD that were in the original Dink dir (could result in no music)
- got rid of a "text background shadow" that could show over dink if he said " " (all spaces).
June 21st 2018, 10:36 AM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
@redink1 so that's why there wasn't any word from you in my thread, sneaky you

How about a button to play with FreeDink?
I added the lil' "download from the DN" feature, e.g.:
https://play.freedink.org/?dmod=dinknetwork.com/download/dmods/boatdink.dmod
June 21st 2018, 01:34 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
Yay, I was going to ask you about that.

Will do.
June 21st 2018, 04:55 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Seth:

EDIT: Huh, this DMOD (All that glitters) crashes on me during the opening intro scene too, so I don't think that is connected to computer speed, more likely an HD bug being triggered. Will check it out

Just a note that the web dink was updated just now:

- I think I fixed the crash issue I had earlier (assert when persistent data mirroring had an issue)
- fixed an audio issue I noticed with playing .mid files in a DMOD that were in the original Dink dir (could result in no music)
- got rid of a "text background shadow" that could show over dink if he said " " (all spaces).

I'm not certain if you were talking about DinkHD or the DinkHD Web version or both. However, when I run DinkHD 1.91 for "All that Glitters" under Wine on Unbuntu 16.04 on my system I've never had it crash (yet).
June 21st 2018, 09:58 PM
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Seth
Peasant He/Him Japan
 
>>I'm not certain if you were talking about DinkHD or the DinkHD Web version or both. However, when I run DinkHD 1.91 for "All that Glitters" under Wine on Unbuntu 16.04 on my system I've never had it crash (yet).

I was talking about the HD web version. (HDW?)

Although, the other two fixes would apply to the native builds too whenever 1.92 is released.
June 21st 2018, 10:07 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
we have an assload of versions now. we should have a page that lists and describes each, with links to them all, too.
June 22nd 2018, 09:41 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
That is an excellent point Skurn.

There may be value in changing the "Files - Official" page to use a different title (while still including a list of official files labeled as such) and also a list of all "system" Dink software, including FreeDink, the various versions of dinkedit/windinkedit, windinkeditplus, windinkeditplus2, HDW, whatever we call the "other" freedink web version of Dink(FDW?), versions for other operating systems, etc., etc.

I know all these can be found here and there on the DN, but there seems to be some merit in grouping them together, so that players can see all their options in one place, and read the reviews of each to help them choose which one is best for them.
June 22nd 2018, 05:29 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
so how about a page for all the versions and editors, descriptions of each and a damn skeleton that doesn't blow and make it the only skeleton available.

like "wanna make a dmod? here's a basic-ass skeleton dmod for you to use"

also links to all the tmods and an introduction to dmod making. and robj's videos. make the ultimate go to page. yes.
June 23rd 2018, 03:36 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
June 28th 2018, 08:09 AM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
@redink1
Will do.

ping
July 2nd 2018, 06:58 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
Sorry! Been a bit distracted lately. Will try to get this done in the next couple days.
July 8th 2018, 04:35 PM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
Hey, it's been 2 weeks and a half now.
What's the matter?
July 8th 2018, 11:00 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
I was thinking about how to cram more info onto the file page elegantly.

I think I ultimately failed (it is a bit clunky), but I've updated it to provide more info about playing in a web browser (as SlipDink mentioned), and there are now rather large-ish links to playing with DinkHD and FreeDink.

Also, I tried playing Jesus Island with both, and sound worked with DinkHD, but not FreeDink? Same version of Chrome. Maybe it is just midis that aren't working?
July 9th 2018, 04:07 AM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
Thanks!

I made it so you can start the game / load a D-Mod / etc. while the MIDI soundfonts and .ogg files (which are large) are still downloading (they are then used when available).
I now added extra checks to make sure the Play button is disabled until the D-Mod is done downloading, normally you can't get that issue unless you click-spam the play button while data are downloaded for the very first time.
If there's still an issue I can enforce full download.
July 9th 2018, 07:31 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Beuc:
IMHO it would be best to "enforce full download", so that the player never thinks some things are not working.

I know this next part might be pretty elaborate to implement, but if possible, you might be able to keep the player from loosing patience while waiting with separate progress bars for each type of download that is going on, (etc.) to reassure the player that the browser is still doing something worthwhile while the player is waiting.
July 9th 2018, 11:56 AM
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toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
Works in Opera browser just fine. Loading isn't slow at all.
July 10th 2018, 05:03 AM
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Beuc
Peasant He/Him France
 
@SlipDink: it is true the loading progress report could be even smoother.
Since the music works as soon as the download is finished, even if the game is already started, I figured that would be a more ergonomic experience for the user.
But we've got already one case of user who thought the music was entirely broken if there wasn't music in the very first seconds of the D-Mod, so let's revert that.
March 9th 2019, 12:21 AM
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EmilyApricot
Peasant She/Her United States
The world isn't small; it's dinky. 
I tried playing a mod using the web version of Dink HD on my iPhone, using a convenient link from a mod page on this site, and I was truly impressed with how well it worked. It was very close in experience to the Dink app on iPhone, also with touch controls. I trust the app more because web browsers can have funny issues with resources, cookies and caches, but the web client could be a way for iPhone users to keep playing if RT Soft can't keep up the maintenance Apple requires to keep it on the App Store (Fees, OS Update Patches).
April 9th 2020, 11:35 AM
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HughDick
Ghost They/Them
 
https://www.rtsoft.com/web/dink/

Dink Smallwood HD V1.92 Build 1.

It sometimes crashes when moving to the next screen in-game. Happened a few times, tried restarting/reloading the game and same thing happens randomly. I would pray that the auto-saved game didn't lose too much progress...

I'm using the Yandex browser version 20.3.2.242. It's based on Chromium but in my opinion superior to Chrome. I also have Firefox installed, might try playing on Firefox and see what happens.

Playing on a Windows 10 64-bit PC.

---
I discovered this game on playclassic dot games. It feels like Zelda meets Monkey Island, with a bit of Diablo. Graphically, it felt like Seven Kingdoms or KKND, then again most games published in the mid-late 1990s are like that.