The Dink Network

It's been a while and I haven't really kept up with the developments over the last few (8?) years. What dink editor are people using for their dmods now? I recall there has been a few new ones made but which one is most useful? Is there still no cross-platform editor?

I hope you are all doing well

First, let me just take a moment to thank you for all your contributions to the Dink Network over the years.

As a Linux user, I use:
a) WinDinkeditPlus2.exe on wine-9.0 (simulating Windoze 10) over Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS for quick runs/tests.
b) martridge_V0.8.3.0_net8.0_linux-x64 over Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS for serious debugging. Martridge is great for that!

All this supports the latest version of freedink bundled with Ubuntu.

I've been using WinDinkEdit Plus 2 Drone Edition, which has some nice improvements over WDE2.

What do you use for scripting?

Mostly I've been using Kate, though it doesn't have really any advantage over any other text editor with basic code editing features.

My general workflow for D-modding is a bit of mess though, as I do graphics and on Linux (using Blender and Gimp) but then I have to boot to Windows for map editing.

I really would like to make a Language Server Protocol thingy for DinkC some day, but I don't think I'll ever have time...

I use WDE Drone+ version 2.5.13.0 for mapping, Notepadd++ (with the DinkC language modeule) for DinkC scripts and the DinkC Reference website when I get stuck or want to check my understanding of why something isn't working the way I thought it should.

I use DinkHD for testing and then Martridge to launch YOD and check things in that. I no longer use freedink and Necromancer will not be playable in that as I use more than 50 images in various slots which I believe freedink doesn't support. 50 plus images I think is only supported DinkHD and YOD. I'm also using PNG images with an alpha channel for sprites and PNG images for tiles.

I am currently experimenting with YeOldeToast's photohard.exe file for redoing hardness of certain tiles via an image with an alpha channel.

For graphics I mainly use Gimp and Blender now, sometimes occasionally Krita.

I'm running things on a bootcamped old macbook pro using Windows 10.

There has been a vague plan between drone and I to potentially port WDED to the other major platforms, due to it using SDL2 for many things under the bonnet, however in the last six months, the macOS build of YeOldeDink has received only one singular download with no feedback as to whether or not it even works. During that same period, the AppImage has received between 10 and 20 downloads. The interest in cross-platform ports simply isn't there.

Oh, and in case you are interested, I use gimp and Kolourpaint for graphics (on Ubuntu Linux of course).

I should mention that there is an update to WDED to V2.5.14.0, featuring some bug fixes to tile selection and other fixes / improvements at Seseler's suggestion. (Including transparency settings for hardness rendering!)
Edit: Wait nevermind, I'm a dumbass, the transparency stuff was added in V2.5.13.0 already! What the heck, I guess I wrote it in the changelog twice ahaha! Oups! I guess V2.5.14.0 just has some fixes (I did accidentally break the screenshot thing in V2.5.12 or V2.5.13 and that is definitely fixed at the very least)

I don't think Scratcher has gotten around to announcing the update, but the file is on TDN

Edit: By the way Iplaydink, you can read about the new stuff in my WDED release in this thread: https://www.dinknetwork.com/forum.cgi?MID=210702&Posts=3

And you fixed the ability to edit properties on sprites that are over the 50 frame slot number, thanks!

Thank you all for your help, I've been checking out all the new tools and stuff you are suggesting.

What is the state of dink lua in Yeoldedink? Has anyone released a dmod yet requiring it? I experimented a bit with an old project but I had forgotten how limiting dinkC can be. The lack of proper math functions, expressions and floats is really crazy.

Gonna try it out and see how it is to work with but it'd be cool to check out what other people have made with it.

In case you don't want to go trawling through old threads, Phoenix came back and troubleshot the existing issues meaning just about everything should work. A few things are a bit odd, such as setting sprite hard to false being true, along with a few other nonsensical DinkC leftovers of a similar nature, but those can be worked around for the time being.

Apart from the demomods that come with every release, nobody has bothered releasing anything. One you may be interested in is available on this page (not the tar.xz) which came with the 0.92 Martridge bundle.

Haha, that is great!
I've played around a bit with the lua scripting today and it really is a game-changer! I'm surprised nobody has made a full dmod taking advantage of it yet.

I'm guessing partly because DinkHD is probably the most used engine version, although it is only a guess.

I would like to know which engines are the most used these days...

For something more conventional in nature, you may want to investigate the SFX and music mod which contains all of Phoenix's rewritten base scripts with a few bugfixes. His scripts demonstrate the "include" feature which saves you from having to copy and paste reusable snippets if you're making something large (which I haven't).

I'm guessing partly because DinkHD is probably the most used engine version

I feel like the 10-20 people likely to play any new dmod would go along with installing the engine you require, as long as you pur that info in the description and in a nice message on startup explaining why.

Maybe there are a bunch of casual fans I'm not aware of but I think most people playing past the main game and trying new mods are active on the forum and aware of the different engines and stuff.

There's definitely a silent group that just plays stuff without engaging with the community in any way. The download numbers are indicative of this (although definitely not accurate, there's bots and redownloads and stuff).

I think when you make something difficult to install, you're primarily cutting down on this group of people. When you make something REALLY difficult to install, you can cut it down almost completely so you just have a few core fans left who are willing to jump through a few fire hoops and do flips on a pole to get stuff to work.

I would like to say the vast majority of Dinkers are like this (the 90-9-1 rule, ie. 90% of people tend to be lurkers, 9% engage with the community, and 1% actually create something), but I don't know... it kinda reads like delusion / hopium to think there's totes hundreds of people playing your stuff when you get no confirmation of it at all.

I guess I think the 90% (or more) just play the original dink HD and never touch any dmod.

Out if the people who are in deep enough to be playing new dmod releases (even if they never post on the forums) I think most would
be willing to try a new engine for it. As long as the game looks good and different and has a good review score.

>There's definitely a silent group that just plays stuff without engaging with the community in any way. The download numbers are indicative of this (although definitely not accurate, there's bots and redownloads and stuff).

I was definitely part of that silent group (majority?) when I was playing over a decade ago I probably played over 60 DMODs at the time but never made any posts or anything.

I think the best course of action would be to have DinkHD also support the DinkLua stuff...

I fear having DMODs only work with one version but not the other would somewhat split the community, but who knows. At the same time I am curious what kind of crazy things people could make with that

Out if the people who are in deep enough to be playing new dmod releases (even if they never post on the forums) I think most would be willing to try a new engine for it.

Personally, as someone who checks in every month or so, I haven't tried any new engines besides Dink HD, and still use 1.08+.

As a developer, new engine features like PNG sprites, different programming languages and so on, sound exciting, but as a player they don't mean much.
I also want to be able to download a dmod, double click the pack to install it, then play it. If you want me to do more than that, you have to offer something really good, or have an engine that completely replaces 1.08+ without issues, so I only have to worry about backend stuff, compatibilities, installations and updating of tools once. Also don't forget dmods still have to compete with Steam backlogs, nostalgic emulators, phone games and apps, and more.

Maybe being more tech-savvy than the average person, devs get excited about these things, but for most people those are just complications. Unless a game uses a new engine to make an unprecedented and fun dmod that just couldn't be done with 1.08+, I'm skipping it tbh.

The download numbers are indicative of this (although definitely not accurate, there's bots and redownloads and stuff).

i still wanna know what happened here to make fish dot dmod right behind pilgrim's quest in download count and dink and the duckin CHINS being not too far behind, either.

in any case, it's hilarious that dink and the chins has something over cloud castle 2.

@castman

For me PNGs are exicting as a player too, since they introduce all kinds of possibilities for visual effects that can't be achieved with BMP. Like imagine lanterns but with transparency, or sprites for nicer weather effects, or making some light dimming effect with semi-transparent dark sprites.

Of course, someone needs to make such a DMOD first

As for the engine itself, I have been playing almost everything lately in DinkHD. I don't know if some of the newer DMODs released recently even run on V1.08 properly?

(Also I love the shadow effect in DinkHD)

To actually answer your question, I have a corresponding fork of Freedinkedit you could use if you have Homebrew/Macports installed and are willing to compile it.

For me PNGs are exicting as a player too, since they introduce all kinds of possibilities for visual effects that can't be achieved with BMP. Like imagine lanterns but with transparency, or sprites for nicer weather effects, or making some light dimming effect with semi-transparent dark sprites.
LUA support in YeOldeDink is also something to be excited of as well, you could pretty much do some major stuff with it, let alone do some improvements such as storing your stats in a simple table, proper loops, etc.

Although what would be also great to have is having a light source in the game and be able to set up how dark the screen is along with adding overlays into it or heck, changing the hue/saturation/lightness for sprites.

Setting a png sprites opacity on through code and using different blend modes (addition and multiplication of pixels) wouls be really cool for making spell effects or lighting effects.

Having now played around with yeoldedink for a week I have to say it's fantastic. Png support and the lua coding is so much fun. It's amazing what's possible with such little effort compared to other dink engines. I can't see myself going back to dinkc!

Maybe we should hold a yeoldedink dmod contest to showcase what can be done!

For my own d-mod making, I'm going to stay v1.08-compatible. I primarily test for compatibility with 1.08, HD and Yeoldedink (though I'm trying to make sure things work with Freedink as well), using YOD during the mapping process and then playing the sequence/scene/whatever through on 1.08 and HD.

Excluding YOD's debugging features (which are incredibly helpful, but don't matter for compatibility with the other engines) and Dinklua, I'm not aware of engine capabilites in any Dink port that I'm really exited about from development perspective*.
Wider image and audio format support is nice for saving disk space, and PNG gives translucency support (though both HD and YOD just averages the gamma-encoded values), but they don't feel like they're worth of breaking v1.08 compatibility IMO.
Increased sequence limit is nice I guess, but I'm hopefully not running out of sequence numbers soon.

Now the Dinklua, that is rather exiting, but there's lack of engine support and, well... it feels like it takes something away from the spirit of d-mod. Like, if I am using a sane general purpose programming language, why am I using Dink Smallwood engine in the first place? I guess that there is the shared world of the D-mods (is the "Cinematic Universe" the term kids these days use?), but is that it? Couldn't I just use some less shitty game engine with Dink graphics?

*From playing perspective, fast-forwarding in HD and YOD makes D-mods with unnecessary amount of walking around much better.

Edit: was there some D-mod that used its own engine? I think I played (or at least looked at) something like that at some point?

Edit: was there some D-mod that used its own engine? I think I played (or at least looked at) something like that at some point?

I remember that. It was like Martridge killing pigs or something, and you could stuck inside rocks? I can't remember the name of it though.

EDIT: GoldSeeker

> Maybe we should hold a yeoldedink dmod contest to showcase what can be done!

Hoho, I tried that with the Dev Jam but nobody took the bait.

Unfortunately I don't think it's possible to modify individual graphics per sprite, as the graphics system (in all dinks) is designed to load an image once and then reuse it over and over, meaning any changes would have to apply to the entire sequence. Anything good would require a complete rewrite which I can't be bothered with.

Couldn't I just use some less shitty game engine with Dink graphics?**


Yeah I've thought about that for a while this year...

What makes playing Dink and dmods, Dink-like?

Is it actually defined by the limitations of the engine? In addition to the beheading of ducks, burning of trees and bent humor?

With Necromancer I'm currently aiming to replace all the graphics... but it has struck me that this may take away from the whole experience. No pillbugs, no boncas, no gnome wizards... At the moment I'm no longer sure this was a good choice, but the die is cast and I've made too many graphics already to go back so I will press on.