The Dink Network

It is done. Well, by 'done', I mean all the engine, game, and frontend changes are working and they're all packaged up for you to play around with and test.

Full Install Beta 1 (15.2 MB)

Patch for v1.06 and v1.07 Beta 1.1 (1.2 MB)

To do:

* Possibly add additional functionality to DFArc2 when packaging D-Mods (automatically remove save games and thumbs.db files, create a patch, etc).

* Finish the new DinkC reference (partially completed in develop/DinkC4.doc), and convert it into a plain-text format.

Now, I need your help. Yes, you, staring at the computer monitor. Hi

We need to test this thing as if the devil's child was popping around in a pinball machine.

So test as much as you can. Post a reply on everything you experience, either playing a D-Mod, running the frontend, or reading the readme or DinkC documents.

If you're playing through a D-Mod (or D-Mods) right now, back up your save game files, install the patch, and see if things work as they should.

If things work, post a reply, and say "It seems to work with Dink Smallwood and the Hungry Octopus".

If things don't work, post a reply. "Is the Octopus supposed to be flashing like a strobe light drugged up on LSD and Cap'n Crunch?"

I really, really need your help with this. I can't test everything myself.

Thank you!

Updates

November 1st: Updated the patch to Beta 1.1... somehow it was using an older dink.exe file than the full version.

Sweetness. I'll download the patch ASAP. It's great that Dink is still being updated.

Cool, it's finally done. it's interesting that the full game installer is smaller than the one for 1.06. GetRight thinks it 15.19MB not 16MB, which is odd 9unless theposted figure was a rounded figure).

Hmm, anyone else having trouble with truecolor windowed mode after the patch?

When I launch truecolor windowed (using DFArc), it starts an external .exe with Dink Smallwood in the title. But it doesn't show truecolor windowed as it switches first to fullscreen with 8-bit looking palette and then back to windowed yet rendering in that window fails (no error-message, just need to end task manually) and the palette is still 8-bit-ish.. kinda looks like it initializes DirectDraw twice but that would be weird, as the dink108.exe you released earlier runs fine (but I started that one with a .bat file, not with DFArc). Side note; truecolor mode alone works fine.

Hmm, odd. Did you install the patch? I just realized it was using a slightly out-of-date dink.exe... but I doubt this is the cause of your problem.

And curious... is this in the default Dink directory (C:\Program Files\Dink Smallwood\) or another directory?

It's indeed the patch and it's the default directory.

The new FrontEnd needs a starter... You know, a small window that allows you to start the original game or open a dmod directly... (Possibly with an option to never show that start window again.)

Other than that, the game runs well on my computer. No super-fast Dink anymore.

But have you tested all the options, like windowed mode?

Well I did and didn't get your problem. However I think the window should be moveable the the X button should be pressable. Also the window should be open in the middle of the screen not the top left corner.

I love the new DFArc that comes with it. Just out of curiosity will it be available seperately?

Well, I installed the patch and played the main dink game back up to saving Mary(Nadine's kid) and everything seems just fine.
I guess I'll go test a few dmod romps now.
*skips off merrily*

EDIT: I LOVE the new dfarc and the 'windowed' choice.They're awesome.

But when I try to punch anything in Mystery Island, the game shuts down.PLus I can't use the true color because it says true color is 8 bit whereas my computer says true color is 24 bit.I mean, I think that's why it won't work.

This is fantastic! I'm overly excited, really, this is great The true color mode is nice, the fading is done very nicely. Also the frontend rocks. The screenlock bug fix: good.

I díd experience one bug though. In my D-Mod, I experienced some graphical glitches that weren't there before. Some sprites are slightly moved from their position, it looks like the .ini properties have been screwed up (which can't possibly the case, but that's what it looks like).
EDIT: I noticed Dink walks at his normal speed again too. This is great, but I sometimes it's a but choppy. It could be my computer though.

Please fix that problem, and the other problems others will talk about and it will be totally cool.

Nice job dudes

Nope, Draconic, it's not done... this is the beta

Since you're curious about the decrease in file size, that is (among other things?) due to a large and practically unnecessary .wav file being removed from the sound directory. It only worked with the intro movie from the Dink CD, I believe.

Dunno why I felt like answering this, cooties and doodles

Here are some things i observed from some preliminary testing:

- Everything works properly on Windows XP without compatibility mode, unlike 1.06 and 1.07.
- When I choose the debug option with Windowed Mode with DFArc2 I get debug script stuff at the top right corner of screen and a black box on the pig feed in Dink's house. With full screen mode the script and box also appears, but the box os a dark blue instead. In windowed mode this script stuff covers some of Dink's mother's text.
- The new DFArc is the best FrontEnd i have seen so far.

EDIT: I'm using Windows XP Service Pack 2 and full install for Dink 1.08 beta.

Bugs I encountered on my Windows 98 compy (testing the full beta):
- Dink won't run fullscreen. It opens, flashes, then closes again.
- The game crashes frequently when playing in True color windowed mode.

Simeon: I'm currently stumped. It seems very odd that the alpha would work, but this doesn't.

Could you try launching Dink in a window manually (i.e. with the command line -window parameter) and see if it still messes up?

DaVince,

- Does it happen to minimize to the taskbar, or does it close completely? When I have some programs open, sometimes full screen games decide to minimize after they go full screen.

- Do you get any specific error messages, or does it exit without a word?

Carrie: I fixed your problems with truecolor mode and punching things in Mystery Island. I'll release Beta 2 when I resolve some of the other issues.

Christiaan:

Hmm... I can't think of any changes I made that would cause graphical glitches as you described. Does it happen in windowed and full-screen (non-true-color) mode?

Would it be possible to send me your D-Mod (or part of your D-Mod) so I can determine what the exact problem is?

And yeah, sometimes Dink moves a little choppy... that was as good as I could get it without re-writing the main game loop.

I tried to play 'Pilgrim's Quest' but it just freezes up on the loading screen.
Then again, maybe I'm just being too impatient...

EDIT: I think I probably just need 'true color' to run pilgrim's quest.

"- Does it happen to minimize to the taskbar, or does it close completely? When I have some programs open, sometimes full screen games decide to minimize after they go full screen.

- Do you get any specific error messages, or does it exit without a word?"

Well, I often don't have anything open when running Dink, like in this case. It didn't minimize, either.
I don't get any messages, it just closes at the black screen...

Sure. Though I now have two Dink.exe files: dink108.exe and dink.exe - dink.exe is the original one and the dink108.exe one is probably from the downloaded earlier version of 1.08. Now, I don't know which .exe the patch updates (dink.exe I see) but when I launch dink108.exe with -window, all goes well but when I launch dink.exe with -window, it doesn't. So if DFArc2 launches dink.exe with the -window parameter, that's the problem.

But when placing both of the .exe files in a different directory and installing the patch again, it provided me a dink.exe which has the same problem when launching with the -window parameter. I'll download the full version of 1.08 as well just to see if I have the problem there as well, could be the outdated .exe (though I don't know what's outdated, likely small changes not related to windows-mode). Edit: odd, that .exe has it as well..

It has glitches in windowed and non-windowed mode, in true-color and non-true-color mode. With Dink 1.07 everything is good. I could send you the piece of the map, just with the file upload function?

Hmm... as I said... BFTG can't be played now with the straight install, as it actually uses that huge intro .wav file.

Oh, and the fade in/out speed still sucks.

I've had trouble with PQ:

On my PIII laptop it just had the blank screen. I then checked to see what was in the PQ folders and all the folders inside PQ folder had mysteriously disappeared. I don't remember deleting them - but not in recycling either.

So try it on my P4 desktop:
First using the old 1.07 engine, it worked fine.
Then upgraded with the patch and all I got to was the loading screen and then when it tries to play the animated sprite of the fire ring destroying the loading screen it crashed to windows. It did this in both full screen and windowed mode.

Have managed to play SOB, Dink Goes Boating - although I've not done extensive testing. Should give Progeny a go...

I noticed that you can go into edit on PQ though.I suppose the huge wave files or the D scripts or FF files might be part of the problem.

Hmm, looking into the PQ problem now... there seems to be a problem with scripts attached to 1000 (like start.c) not working properly.

Edit: I solved the problem... I'll probably release beta 2 with the fix tomorrow. It was a 'Sethbug', one of those bugs that wasn't a problem, until I changed a completely unrelated thing.

The entire engine is a sethbug.

Hmm, where have I heard that heeelarious joke before?

Just going through Stone of Balance in windowed mode at the moment.

Objects with black backgrounds show the black, when they didn't before.

Game crashed when talking to the man guarding the pig pen in story 1. I'll test again... see if I can duplicate this.

EDIT: yes it crashed in both windowed and non-window mode. Tried the same DMOD using ver 1.07 and I could talk to the man gaurding the pig pens without a problem - no crashes. Weird!

Just tried running my newest DMOD, and Dink seemed to run at about 3/4 of his normal speed. (With Dink 1.08 it now is impossible to get past a certain point in the game, because it is a timed challenge)

And I wasn't running it in truecolor mode. (as far as I know...)

- Once when in Window mode I had the start screen buttons and logo super imposed over the game when I used the Esc menu to try load a save. The buttons were useable to. It has only occured once. no other time has it occured.
- When Bishop nelson trasnformed it froze the game froze for a second. this did not occur for me with 1.07.
- With my dmod I had the Cancel button placed where the Start button should be. When I clicked it it started. This error can be fixed by replacing the Start.c file (which was from the Skeleton dmod in WinDinkedit) with the Start.d file from the game. However this creates the problem of the logo being placed over some of the Start button. Also with either Start file the Cancel button is gone. These problems occur in both Window and Fullscreen modes. Also in Fullscreen mode the screen flickers. This problem does not occur in Window mode.

metatarasal:

The walking speed of Dink was changed to make it more consistent on newer computers. With v1.07 and earlier, Dink would always run at herb-boot speeds without herb boots.

Hmm... Guess I'll just have to release my DMOD solely for one of the versions...

Or is there an easy way to check if someone uses v 1.08 or 1.07? In that case I can adjust the timing for each version.

You should just adjust it to v1.08. Dink runs at different speeds on different computers, I doubt you'd want some people not able to finish your quest because they have slower computers.

There is a simple command to check the version, though. Look at start.c in source.zip

SimonK:

- Which objects? I played about a half-hour into SOB, and everything looked alright to me.

- Which pig pen? I haven't played SOB in a while, but of the pig pens I saw (the one in town and the one with the big pig), there was nary a guard to cause a crash.

Christiaan: Sure, or by e-mail or whatever.

Draconic:

- That may be fixed by beta 2... some funkiness was going on.

- Are you sure the freeze wasn't caused by a midi loading?

- Uh... Cancel = Quit? It's hard to say what the problem is without seeing it.

@metatarasal: The same happened in Blood Scorpions but that was only because the speed of Dink varied on different computers. I added a button that the player could press in case they could not complete a certain part because of Dink's speed. The cutscene and all would still play, guess that's a way to solve it.

I think I'll update it so it can be played on both versions.

And thanks for the idea about the button, I think I'll implement that as well...

Always? I never had this problem so I'd hardly say always.

- Cool

- It could be but that problem never occured when I played 1.07 and got to the Bishop.

- There is no quit/cancel button. I could send you the a copy of the dmod (a test dmod for Treasury 1.2).