The Dink Network

As the title says, I'm new to DMOD making. More specifically, I haven't even started yet.

I'm looking for an easy-to-follow tutorial for someone who is entirely new to making games of any kind, and thus has no idea of the language used.

I'd like to think that I'm a quick learner, but I'll never really know until I try.

Any tools to make the process easier would be greatly appreciated. I think I can write a passable story and dialogue, I just need to work on actually making the DMOD.

For scripting, you'll need to read some tutorials about DinkC and writing scripts. And you can also look at the source scripts of existing D-Mods or the original Dink Smallwood game to see how they scripted something (for example, you can download source files here or you can look at the scripts of the original game in the develop directory: source.zip file).

For mapping, you'll need to get know how to use either DinkEdit (the original map editor) or WinDinkEdit (a Windows version of it). There's a small tutorial in the develop directory about it but I'm sure there are better tutorials out here The main difference between the editors is that WinDinkEdit is completely Windows based where DinkEdit requires more button pressing and such.

In the Development section of this site (only a few that I'm gonna list here, other tutorials can be useful as well):

For scripting:
- The Rudiments of Scripting (tutorial about DinkC discussing the basics)
- DinkC Reference 3.1 or the WinHelp version (listing of all commands and additional information about it)

For mapping:
- Skeleton B or Skeleton S (starting kits with the basic set of files you need to start)

And then there's also the forums in case you've got questions or problems.

Great! Thanks.

That's a lot of information to digest, but I think I can handle it for now. I'll definitely be in again when I have a problem.

I have a loose plot worked out, and a bit of the map done already. Next, I will look into adding sprites to the map.

Actually, there's another question: I've just loaded the base Skeleton B so far, how do I add sprites? For example, say I want to put in a burnable tree, how would I do that?
I'm working in WinDinkEdit.

For WDE:

Press 'E' and then browse with page-up and page-down through the sprite library. Click on a sequence you want to pick a sprite out of, then you can click on the specific frame you want.

You might have to search around a bit to find the sprites you want. The king, for example, is in the food-sequence. Also, when placing a burnable tree, place the tree of sequence 32 frame 1. The tree of sequence 20 won't work.

Thanks for all the help, but my computer died the very next morning after starting to make my D-Mod, it just wouldn't turn on. I'm a bit worried that I might crash this brand new machine as well, so I'm being a bit cautious.

It was probably nothing I did, the computer was kind of old when I bought it five years ago, but I'm not taking any chances.