Dinker's View Six: Nexis - the Maestro of Dink
Okay, it's early, but since I managed to track this Dinker down (with a lot of help, thanks Dan) I realised there is no need to keep to some release schedule. So if you still up for an interview head over to the comments and find out about Nexis, the man behind POTA, WinDinkEdit, and Ultimate Cheat is doing these days.
Well here it is - a little early and hot off the internet: "Gary Hertel, the Maestro of Dink." Just so there's no confusion for the newer Dinkers out there, Gary Hertel, or Nexis , was the man behind "Prophecy of the Ancients", "Ultimate Cheat", plus "WinDinkEdit". An old time Dinker who has since moved on.
Q: So... where are you from? And what are you doing now? I think I found a reference to you about a puzzle solver - jigsaw thing, but besides that you've been a Dinker who has disappeared for a while.
A: Well currently I'm living Tualatin, OR which is very close to Portland. Before Seth moved to Japan I actually lived rather close to him although I've never met him. Currently, I'm working at a database programming job. Not the most exciting job in the least, but it gets me by for now. On the side though I'm trying to write my own game. That puzzle thing btw was just a programming contest thing.
Q: As the author of one of the greatest DMODs as well as the man behind WinDinkEdit, what was it about Dink that first attracted you to the game?
A: I actually played Dink very shortly after it came out because I had downloaded about 30 or so demos from the pcgamer website, burned them to a cd, and brought them home to play. Oddly enough though it was my brother (Tony) who liked the game enough to buy. If he hadn't bought the game I probably wouldn't have ever gotten involved in the Dink community. As I recall the original cd version had a bug in it that prevented me from even finishing the game. Seth actually mailed a disk with the patch out to everyone who bought the game.
Q: When did you first release Prophecy of the Ancients? Did it have a demo version? I understand from Ted Shutes you were thinking of revising it... can you tell me something about that?
A: POTA did have a demo, but I'll go into that in another question. I actually wasn't ever thinking of revising POTA after all these years though. Just revising one thing would require lots of testing which I don't particularly want to spend time on. On the other hand, Ted Shutes was trying to do an update for awhile. I'm not sure what happened with that though. He sent me a few updates and some new nice looking graphic images. I just stopped getting them after awhile though so I don't know what happened with that.
When I look back at POTA all I can see is how many things I did wrong or just never finished. Overall, it turned out well but there's just so many more things I wanted to do with the dmod. Like originally Dink was going to get all 4 runes, there was going to be a bunch of minigames, and there was going to be lots of humerous lines when Dink punched things. There's just lots of things I never got around to implementing. Perhaps if there's ever a Dink 2 I'll have to make a sequel or something.
Q: Can you tell me a bit behind the development of the POTA and who was involved, how long it took, how the work load was split between your brother and you, (I believe you did a practice DMOD before POTA, what was that about?) and did you ever think of doing another DMOD.
A: After I first played the Dink game I tried the editor out afterwards. I just looked around the editor and couldn't really do anything because it was so horribly slow. Go forward about half a year and Mike Snyder was hosting a contest and I had just checked out what was happening on the Dink scene after ignoring it for all that time. After looking at the entries I just knew I could do better than that and the other previous dmods that were out.
Well I had a faster computer now, Dinkedit was working fine, and I had a few dmods I could look at the source to (mainly the original game, mystery island, and Mike Snyder's doppleganger). So I spent about a week playing around just making a dmod experimenting around with how to make one. After that I was satisfied with what I wanted to do so after developing a rough storyline and map I spent the next week making a demo for POTA. Now for all of you that actually played the demo it contained an end of demo screen saying that the dmod wouldn't be finished. Somehow though, I got enough people asking about why I wasn't going to finish it that I had started again within a week.
So I worked for a few weeks in secret (I like doing that) and then started up my own website. Part of the reason for the website was just because of the problems I had with getting the demo up on other people's sites. When I first released the demo there were some bugs and it took a few iterations to fix those and it problematic getting sites to upload the new version quickly. With my own site I could easily address that problem. I also wanted to learn a bit about making a web site so there was that part too.
Along the way my brother became interested in helping out so I had him make a little dmod to learn how to use Dinkedit. He helped make about a third of the map and filled the details in for the entire map (which was quite a bit of work). He didn't want to do any scripting though so I still had to do all of that also. He did all the mapping for the goblin area which ended up really nice. He did have to redo the goblin dungeon, but that was largely a problem of the graphics I had originally created for that dungeon not working.
When working on the dmod I would work in whatever area I wasn't sick of the most. The bugs in Dinkedit and Dinkc were a big annoyance. At one point I almost quit the dmod because Dinkedit caused the map size to jump up to 60mb and wouldn't compress much below that. I hadn't backed it up in forever (I've had that lesson many times since unfortunately) and distributing that large of a dmod just wasn't possible. The solution ended up being to copy every map square from the old map to a new one. Later on in development I encountered the same problem again. The visions in Dinkedit became particulary annoying too, as I'd often find I'd created 50 screens with every sprite having the wrong vision.
For graphics I ended up using photoshop, paintshop, and a program called a simply3d for making the rune graphics and logo. The ice effects in POTA turned out particularly nice. All they took to make though was a photoshop macro that inverted the colors or something like that.
When the release finally began to draw near I got about 6 beta testers to help out and while I got good responses from some of them (like reDink and dukie), a little from some, and I never heard back from the rest. I ended up running through the dmod about 5 times prior to the release just to fix as many bugs as I could.
Originally I had thought that I could finish the dmod in as little as a month after I resumed working on the game after finishing the demo. How wrong I was. Even today I can't predict schedules in the slightest. I started it in late July of 1998 and finished in late November. Midway through I also started my first year in college which slowed things down a bit. All told POTA ending up taking about 4 months. Over those four months I probably spent about 4 hours each day totalling some 400 hours or more working on it. As for my brother I have no idea but I would imagine another 100 hours.
Q: WinDinkEdit, where did the idea come from, and how long did it take to get to the first release?
A: Part of the reason why I made it was to learn how to make an editor for a game. I had started making the framework for an rpg game similar to Dink at one point and had gotten to the point where I needed an editor. WinDinkEdit was my attempt at learning how to make an editor. I learned quite a bit (like how bad mfc is) but I never really got WDE to the point I was satisfied with. I'm not sure what my successors have done with it but I'm sure they've fixed many of the shortcomings it had.
When I started making WDE I just started reverse engineering the formats and gradually building up the program so I could load a map and edit a few things. When I got that working I finally got around to emailing Seth and he helped fill me in on some of the specifics of the Dink file formats and some rendering code.
In total it took maybe two months to get to a release state. One of those weeks was spent redoing code after I accidently deleted a weeks worth of work when I was backing up that code (rather ironic I'd say). There might have been a few breaks in those two months when I was playing games though so I don't know how long if I included that. Just making the release was only half the work. All the updates afterwards easily took up more time than getting to that first release. Overall though, it wasn't too difficult of a program to make. Although as I did say earlier, I never really got it to a completed state as it was still missing some key features when I left it.
Q: Why have you chosen the icon/avatar you have on the Dink Network?
A: There's no special reason why. I just liked the icon better than the rest. I probably would have seen if I could use an icon of my own design if I still regularly participated in the Dink community.
Q: Have you truely left the Dink community for good, or do you pop by every so often? What, if anything, has replaced Dink for you?
A: I stop by the Dink network to look at the news posts about once a week. As for what has replaced Dink, I'd probably say just my own programming projects in general and the gaming development sites I visit.
Q: What do you think about the release of the source code of Dink. Any chance you'd want to revamp it, or is there something else that has your attention now. (If you're working on your own game engine or something like that, please talk about it)
A: I thought about revamping it, but really had to fight myself from touching it. The problem is fixing up that code would likely turn into a huge timesink and I have other projects I want to work on. It's good to see it finally released but the people involved with revising it have their work cut out for them.
Currently, I am trying to work on a game project but whether it ever sees the light of day I can't say. I've attempted numerous projects before and have never really brought them to completion. As for commenting on the current one I'd rather not at this point.
Q: Have you got anything about the early days of Dink and it's community that is the most memorable, good or bad?
A: I think the most memorable moments on the Dink community involved Mike Snyder. Wherever he went controversy was almost sure to follow. He was the cause of numerous debates on the board ranging from the Dinkanoid contest cheating to him trying to charge for dmods. I'm not sure if that was the reason for his leaving but he did seem to leave shortly after all the commotion about charging for dmods.
One rather funny moment that doesn't really involve the Dink community was when Seth made a news post on his site titled something like "Gary Hertel Makes History!". Well one of the guys I was going to college with stumbled upon that news item(he was an old LORD player I think) and being who he was got it into his mind that whenever he saw me he would just yell out "Gary Hertel Makes History!". Since he was in many of my college classes (we were both computer science majors) I got lots and lots of confused looks from other people after he saw me.
Q: Have you played any DMODs recently? What was the last one you played?
A: I haven't played one since that stone of balance one came out, and that was a rare occurence as well. I haven't really played any dmods since I shut down my Dink website. Honestly, after completing my own dmod the last thing I really wanted to do was play more dmods. I had enough exposure to Dink to last a lifetime. Maybe I'll come back in another ten years after I can't even recognize my own dmod and play a few dmods.
Q:As the author of that DMOD I'm interested to know what your thoughts were about it.
A:Actually I think it was only the demo I played and I didn't get too far into it as it had some rather difficult puzzles.
Q: Okay, enough about Dink and DMODs, let's see... what is your favourite movie?
A: Well I don't really have a favorite movie. But my favorite TV series is Babylon 5.
Q: Next would be, what is your favourite computer game? And why?
A: That's almost an impossible question for me to answer given how many I play every year. I've played hundreds of them over the years. Of course that's also one of the reasons it takes me so long to finish any project since I'm always taking breaks from them to play the newest game. I am a big rpg fan though so of the last few years I'd probably say my favorites were Wizardry 8 and Deus Ex.
Thanks for that Gary, as an old Dinker who has created milestones in both DMODs and development tools for this crazy game we all play, I think you are truely a "Maestro of Dink", and I look forward to playing your next game, whatever it's genre/format.
Well here it is - a little early and hot off the internet: "Gary Hertel, the Maestro of Dink." Just so there's no confusion for the newer Dinkers out there, Gary Hertel, or Nexis , was the man behind "Prophecy of the Ancients", "Ultimate Cheat", plus "WinDinkEdit". An old time Dinker who has since moved on.
Q: So... where are you from? And what are you doing now? I think I found a reference to you about a puzzle solver - jigsaw thing, but besides that you've been a Dinker who has disappeared for a while.
A: Well currently I'm living Tualatin, OR which is very close to Portland. Before Seth moved to Japan I actually lived rather close to him although I've never met him. Currently, I'm working at a database programming job. Not the most exciting job in the least, but it gets me by for now. On the side though I'm trying to write my own game. That puzzle thing btw was just a programming contest thing.
Q: As the author of one of the greatest DMODs as well as the man behind WinDinkEdit, what was it about Dink that first attracted you to the game?
A: I actually played Dink very shortly after it came out because I had downloaded about 30 or so demos from the pcgamer website, burned them to a cd, and brought them home to play. Oddly enough though it was my brother (Tony) who liked the game enough to buy. If he hadn't bought the game I probably wouldn't have ever gotten involved in the Dink community. As I recall the original cd version had a bug in it that prevented me from even finishing the game. Seth actually mailed a disk with the patch out to everyone who bought the game.
Q: When did you first release Prophecy of the Ancients? Did it have a demo version? I understand from Ted Shutes you were thinking of revising it... can you tell me something about that?
A: POTA did have a demo, but I'll go into that in another question. I actually wasn't ever thinking of revising POTA after all these years though. Just revising one thing would require lots of testing which I don't particularly want to spend time on. On the other hand, Ted Shutes was trying to do an update for awhile. I'm not sure what happened with that though. He sent me a few updates and some new nice looking graphic images. I just stopped getting them after awhile though so I don't know what happened with that.
When I look back at POTA all I can see is how many things I did wrong or just never finished. Overall, it turned out well but there's just so many more things I wanted to do with the dmod. Like originally Dink was going to get all 4 runes, there was going to be a bunch of minigames, and there was going to be lots of humerous lines when Dink punched things. There's just lots of things I never got around to implementing. Perhaps if there's ever a Dink 2 I'll have to make a sequel or something.
Q: Can you tell me a bit behind the development of the POTA and who was involved, how long it took, how the work load was split between your brother and you, (I believe you did a practice DMOD before POTA, what was that about?) and did you ever think of doing another DMOD.
A: After I first played the Dink game I tried the editor out afterwards. I just looked around the editor and couldn't really do anything because it was so horribly slow. Go forward about half a year and Mike Snyder was hosting a contest and I had just checked out what was happening on the Dink scene after ignoring it for all that time. After looking at the entries I just knew I could do better than that and the other previous dmods that were out.
Well I had a faster computer now, Dinkedit was working fine, and I had a few dmods I could look at the source to (mainly the original game, mystery island, and Mike Snyder's doppleganger). So I spent about a week playing around just making a dmod experimenting around with how to make one. After that I was satisfied with what I wanted to do so after developing a rough storyline and map I spent the next week making a demo for POTA. Now for all of you that actually played the demo it contained an end of demo screen saying that the dmod wouldn't be finished. Somehow though, I got enough people asking about why I wasn't going to finish it that I had started again within a week.
So I worked for a few weeks in secret (I like doing that) and then started up my own website. Part of the reason for the website was just because of the problems I had with getting the demo up on other people's sites. When I first released the demo there were some bugs and it took a few iterations to fix those and it problematic getting sites to upload the new version quickly. With my own site I could easily address that problem. I also wanted to learn a bit about making a web site so there was that part too.
Along the way my brother became interested in helping out so I had him make a little dmod to learn how to use Dinkedit. He helped make about a third of the map and filled the details in for the entire map (which was quite a bit of work). He didn't want to do any scripting though so I still had to do all of that also. He did all the mapping for the goblin area which ended up really nice. He did have to redo the goblin dungeon, but that was largely a problem of the graphics I had originally created for that dungeon not working.
When working on the dmod I would work in whatever area I wasn't sick of the most. The bugs in Dinkedit and Dinkc were a big annoyance. At one point I almost quit the dmod because Dinkedit caused the map size to jump up to 60mb and wouldn't compress much below that. I hadn't backed it up in forever (I've had that lesson many times since unfortunately) and distributing that large of a dmod just wasn't possible. The solution ended up being to copy every map square from the old map to a new one. Later on in development I encountered the same problem again. The visions in Dinkedit became particulary annoying too, as I'd often find I'd created 50 screens with every sprite having the wrong vision.
For graphics I ended up using photoshop, paintshop, and a program called a simply3d for making the rune graphics and logo. The ice effects in POTA turned out particularly nice. All they took to make though was a photoshop macro that inverted the colors or something like that.
When the release finally began to draw near I got about 6 beta testers to help out and while I got good responses from some of them (like reDink and dukie), a little from some, and I never heard back from the rest. I ended up running through the dmod about 5 times prior to the release just to fix as many bugs as I could.
Originally I had thought that I could finish the dmod in as little as a month after I resumed working on the game after finishing the demo. How wrong I was. Even today I can't predict schedules in the slightest. I started it in late July of 1998 and finished in late November. Midway through I also started my first year in college which slowed things down a bit. All told POTA ending up taking about 4 months. Over those four months I probably spent about 4 hours each day totalling some 400 hours or more working on it. As for my brother I have no idea but I would imagine another 100 hours.
Q: WinDinkEdit, where did the idea come from, and how long did it take to get to the first release?
A: Part of the reason why I made it was to learn how to make an editor for a game. I had started making the framework for an rpg game similar to Dink at one point and had gotten to the point where I needed an editor. WinDinkEdit was my attempt at learning how to make an editor. I learned quite a bit (like how bad mfc is) but I never really got WDE to the point I was satisfied with. I'm not sure what my successors have done with it but I'm sure they've fixed many of the shortcomings it had.
When I started making WDE I just started reverse engineering the formats and gradually building up the program so I could load a map and edit a few things. When I got that working I finally got around to emailing Seth and he helped fill me in on some of the specifics of the Dink file formats and some rendering code.
In total it took maybe two months to get to a release state. One of those weeks was spent redoing code after I accidently deleted a weeks worth of work when I was backing up that code (rather ironic I'd say). There might have been a few breaks in those two months when I was playing games though so I don't know how long if I included that. Just making the release was only half the work. All the updates afterwards easily took up more time than getting to that first release. Overall though, it wasn't too difficult of a program to make. Although as I did say earlier, I never really got it to a completed state as it was still missing some key features when I left it.
Q: Why have you chosen the icon/avatar you have on the Dink Network?
A: There's no special reason why. I just liked the icon better than the rest. I probably would have seen if I could use an icon of my own design if I still regularly participated in the Dink community.
Q: Have you truely left the Dink community for good, or do you pop by every so often? What, if anything, has replaced Dink for you?
A: I stop by the Dink network to look at the news posts about once a week. As for what has replaced Dink, I'd probably say just my own programming projects in general and the gaming development sites I visit.
Q: What do you think about the release of the source code of Dink. Any chance you'd want to revamp it, or is there something else that has your attention now. (If you're working on your own game engine or something like that, please talk about it)
A: I thought about revamping it, but really had to fight myself from touching it. The problem is fixing up that code would likely turn into a huge timesink and I have other projects I want to work on. It's good to see it finally released but the people involved with revising it have their work cut out for them.
Currently, I am trying to work on a game project but whether it ever sees the light of day I can't say. I've attempted numerous projects before and have never really brought them to completion. As for commenting on the current one I'd rather not at this point.
Q: Have you got anything about the early days of Dink and it's community that is the most memorable, good or bad?
A: I think the most memorable moments on the Dink community involved Mike Snyder. Wherever he went controversy was almost sure to follow. He was the cause of numerous debates on the board ranging from the Dinkanoid contest cheating to him trying to charge for dmods. I'm not sure if that was the reason for his leaving but he did seem to leave shortly after all the commotion about charging for dmods.
One rather funny moment that doesn't really involve the Dink community was when Seth made a news post on his site titled something like "Gary Hertel Makes History!". Well one of the guys I was going to college with stumbled upon that news item(he was an old LORD player I think) and being who he was got it into his mind that whenever he saw me he would just yell out "Gary Hertel Makes History!". Since he was in many of my college classes (we were both computer science majors) I got lots and lots of confused looks from other people after he saw me.
Q: Have you played any DMODs recently? What was the last one you played?
A: I haven't played one since that stone of balance one came out, and that was a rare occurence as well. I haven't really played any dmods since I shut down my Dink website. Honestly, after completing my own dmod the last thing I really wanted to do was play more dmods. I had enough exposure to Dink to last a lifetime. Maybe I'll come back in another ten years after I can't even recognize my own dmod and play a few dmods.
Q:As the author of that DMOD I'm interested to know what your thoughts were about it.
A:Actually I think it was only the demo I played and I didn't get too far into it as it had some rather difficult puzzles.
Q: Okay, enough about Dink and DMODs, let's see... what is your favourite movie?
A: Well I don't really have a favorite movie. But my favorite TV series is Babylon 5.
Q: Next would be, what is your favourite computer game? And why?
A: That's almost an impossible question for me to answer given how many I play every year. I've played hundreds of them over the years. Of course that's also one of the reasons it takes me so long to finish any project since I'm always taking breaks from them to play the newest game. I am a big rpg fan though so of the last few years I'd probably say my favorites were Wizardry 8 and Deus Ex.
Thanks for that Gary, as an old Dinker who has created milestones in both DMODs and development tools for this crazy game we all play, I think you are truely a "Maestro of Dink", and I look forward to playing your next game, whatever it's genre/format.
WOW!
We sure are getting flooded with interviews, I just hope Simon doesn't burn out!
But anyway, great job, it was very interesting to learn more about the man himself.
We sure are getting flooded with interviews, I just hope Simon doesn't burn out!
But anyway, great job, it was very interesting to learn more about the man himself.
