The Dink Network

Four staff members have played through the Failure Contest D-Mods, and the results have been tallied. Look!

1st place

Basilisk Smile, by SabreTrout.

2nd place

Fall of Tahmar, by Marpro.

3rd place

Prelude, by joshriot.

Congratulations!

For the rest of the results, staff comments, and the voting methodology, check out the comments.

1. Basilisk Smile (7)

"Good implentation of failure as a concept."

"Rather sad, and it really feels like a failure D-Mod. Sadly, it is a really quite on the short side, and a bit buggy (hardness errors, etc)."

"Mystery Island-esque. A tad longer would've been nicer, but given the time restrictions, I'm glad it went to killing bugs than length."

"While the puzzles are interesting, the storyline is better. It at least kept me wanting to figure out how to save the village."

2. Fall of Tahmar (11)

"Not bad, but more like a regular DMOD with some tougher elements."

"Music fits extremely well. The work put into mapping is complete, but the scripting has work to be desired."

"Flopper the Killer Fish is awesome. And the rest of the (fairly large) D-Mod is really quite good."

"Once you reach the final area, it becomes painfully obvious how the rest of the story is going to play out... but Marpro provides an excellent environment for it to take place in; you can really tell he put a lot of work and detail into that map. Very rarely in Dink is it a joy to just explore an environment."

3. Prelude (11)

"The introduction was quite excellent, with the moon rising with a nice graphical effect. The new inventory system worked surprisingly well, and I like how I was rewarded for exploring every nook-and-cranny of the map."

"Way too long intro. Lots of new stuff here, music, graphics, but the dialogue and cut scenes are way too long. Still the dmod made me laugh a lot."

"Saves are limited to scrolls that disappear when you use them... this is enormously bad design choice in my book. Because of the game requires the slightly unstable Dink Aural+.exe to hear the .mp3 music, the game crashed at least once on me... well between points where I could save."

"A tad too much running around (no pun intended), but overall the story flows well."

4. If Ducks Ruled the World (15)

"Okay. Too much running around through giant mazes."

"Still it was at least kind of fun... if you did follow the walkthrough. I did enjoy killing the endboss, and the music was pretty good."

"This D-Mod is very well made, with a glaring flaw: there is no way I would have the patience to complete it without the (superb) walkthrough."

"Liked this one a lot, but once again it felt more like a normal DMOD. Could've had a timer counting down all the time that would've helped with the need to complete by a certain time."

5. Honor Quest (17)

"The premise of the story is kind of interesting, but a breaks a lot with past characterization... especially with Dink. On top of that, there's very little direction in what the player is supposed to do."

"...mostly interesting puzzles, decent music, the mana bar looks cool, and it probably has the most interesting story out of all of the entrants. But, it is frustratingly unbalanced... I wished the mana bar would refill gradually, or maybe pillbugs would drop little blue hearts to help."

"Very Good as an alternate Hero DMOD. Liked the mana etc, but as a Failure DMOD it didn't ring as true..."

6. Return to Rathor (23)

"Extremely unclear objective from the beginning... Author seems to favor elves, which isn't very nice. "

"...the plot doesn't really make much sense. Why does Dink get the snow scroll? But, some of the screens looked pretty good, there were a few goodies to find, and some of the music was interesting."

"Just when you're expecting a little more, it suddenly ends with no real explanation."

"Beavers were interesting."

"Bonus points for beavers... loss of points for a reference to a naked joshriot."

7. Ex-Peppermint (29)

"Post-modernism arrives to Dink Smallwood. But, it is sadly lacking in the entertainment department."

"Unclear why the player is playing this d-mod."

"It's kind of like the author was aiming for something like Dry or The Quest for Cheese... but ended up hitting somewhere around Baywatch Isle."

"Hmmm, way too funky and I got stuck on a screenlock which didn't seem to have an exit, early on in the game. Sense of failure came from very tough monsters and little life to start with."

8. Attack of the Evil Wizard (21)

"This dmod was too broken to review sufficiently... Sorry."

"Multiple hardness errors, and signs can't be talked to. 0 health does not kill Dink. Unclear objective."

"If you die on a screen but have a small heart from one of the enemies still there you can collect that and keep playing, which I believe is a bug."

"Sadly, unplayable in the version released for the contest."

Voting Methodology

Eligible staff members were given a choice to vote for the D-Mods, ranking them from 1-8. Values were assigned for their choices from 1 to 8, the results tallied, with the lowest overall score winning fame and fortune. In the case of the tie for 2nd place, my vote 'counted' more (as mentioned in the original rules).

The votes:

	Merlin	redink1	SimonK	Striker	Total
Basilisk Smile	1	3	1	2	7
Fall of Tahmar	4	1	5	1	11
Prelude	2	2	3	4	11
If Ducks Ruled the World	5	5	2	3	15
The Honor Quest	3	4	4	6	17
Return to Rathor	6	6	6	5	23
Ex-Peppermint	7	7	7	8	29
Attack of the Evil Wizard	8	8	8	7	31

I'd just like to say that deciding which dmod would be my #1 pick and which would be the #3 pick was extremely difficult.

Woohoo, congratulations, Trout!
Congrats to Pro and Riot, too.

Congrats SabreTrout, Marpro and joshriot!

The results are exactly in order how I would rate them Congrats to the winners!

*ahem* according to the results... IF DUCKS RULED THE WORLD got THIRD PLACE because prelude and tahmor have the same score of 11

am i missing something here?

Yes.

"In the case of the tie for 2nd place, my vote 'counted' more (as mentioned in the original rules)."

Well, congradulations to the winners
Still, I wonder why Tal didn't get the chance to vote

Woho! Second place
Congrats Trout!

if thats the case then tahar got first place being that your vote, counting more, gives him first place WOHHOOOO MARPRO CONGRATULATIONS on winning first place!!

GO MARPRO... GO MARPRO

Congratulations all! I guess I should play some of them

"In the case of the tie"

Congrats.

Basilisk's Smile was definitely my favourite... Congratulations sabretrout.

Congrats Saber,Marpo and Josh! Woohoo!

Congratulations to all the winners...

And it's about time for me to start playing prelude I think.

Wow, thanks guys!
I thought I might get in the top 3, but I never thought I could win. I be a happy fishy.

EDIT: Ooh, does this mean I'm going to get my hands on a lovely DinkC Reference book? Yeah, baby!

Also, it's interesting to see how FoT divided opinion so greatly. Most of the d-mods were rated about the same by the judges, but there is a great difference of opinion over Marpro's d-mod.

These results really suprise me actually. Not how I would rate them at all. Oh well. How Marpro didn't win, I'll never know. Nice job to the entries though.

EDIT: I wouldn't mind some clarification on these points, if for no other reason than so I can avoid similar issues with future releases

"Okay. Too much running around through giant mazes."

• I really don't get this comment... the only large mazelike area is probably the Rockies Region and I guess I thought it would be better to make you explore a bit and to just walk a few linear screens to the village... plus the warp stone gets you past pretty much any walking around...

"This D-Mod is very well made, with a glaring flaw: there is no way I would have the patience to complete it without the (superb) walkthrough."

... for the failure dmod contest

"Liked this one a lot, but once again it felt more like a normal DMOD. Could've had a timer counting down all the time that would've helped with the need to complete by a certain time."

• Normal DMOD? No offense to the other entries, but I feel this entry (and Sabre's) best interpreted the failure concept... It didn't have a successful ending with a bad result (not really failure if you ask me). It had a good ending with a (high chance) to fail your task and get a bad ending.

I didn't want people to realize they were timed, so I didn't include a timer, I feel that would ruin the effect.

Any responses appreciated

One of the key features for me was while Dink's failure is theme of the contest, failure at making a fun dmod wasn't. What I was looking for was making failure a lot of fun. Most of the mods did decently in that regard.

I personally didn't like the fact that what ending you recieved, of all things, was based on how long it took you to play. If you wanted to see the good ending with all the special features, you had to play the whole dmod over again. It's a cheap trick found often in older games as way for the developer to milk replay value out of a game with minimal effort. The timing features in the dmods that used them were much more of an annoyance rather than something that enhanced the experience... especially in the instances where the player is completely uninformed that he is working against a clock.

Speaking of which, there were bugs invovling the guard, where if you didn't follow the walkthrough exactly, would prevent you from completing the game without cheats. I remember during play, that at a certain point, I got past him while he was sleeping and grabbed the sword. When he was awake, he noticed my sword, but wouldn't let me through. When I gave him a book to make him sleep even more of the time... I still couldn't get through.

EDIT: Just a sidenote, even though I'm trying to explain certain reasons for things, none of those quotes are from me

I was going to answer some of this... but I'm not a judge, so I shouldn't. Maybe I'll write a review instead

I wanted that booooooooook... D'OH!
To bad you didn't have 2 of them... I guess I'll get the cd then

I will be modifying the awarding of the prizes a little bit. Because the DinkC Reference and the Poster can be created more than once, any of the winners can request them. But, if anyone wants the CD, then the person who ranks higher will get it, because there is only one.

Aww, how sweet! Now Marpo can have the book too! Yay!

So... can I get the DinkC Reference too?

ill get one and you can have mine

$120

donkey.

points taken striker ... although the ending didn't depend on the completion time really, you either won the game or you failed.

Also, concerning the failure being fun thing... I guess I just have a different interpretion of the contest. To me, most of the entries didn't have a failure option... they had success which ended with undesireable results. To me that isn't 'failure' so to speak.

"It's a cheap trick found often in older games as way for the developer to milk replay value out of a game with minimal effort."

It can be looked at that way, but I was trying to come up with some original way to fail, not just a typical straight-forward DMOD. Still, I appreciate the feedback.

One of my personal favorite "failure" endings was in a game called Torin's Passage. You're sneaking up behind the villainess, you've got the powerful item you've assembled to defeat her, and then, you can opt instead to whip out your bagpipes and start playing. She promptly zaps you to ash. The lead developer was impressed that you thought of doing something stupid like that, that he even gives you a personal message congratulating you for doing something really dumb.

"These results really suprise me actually. Not how I would rate them at all." - Wesley

Your reviews seem to largely agree with the results, the only exception being that The Basilisk Smile won instead of Fall of Tahmar. You placed Prelude 3rd, which is where it came.

Surely the results aren't too big a shock? Admittedly, The Basilisk Smile winning might seem odd, given it's length, especially when compared to Marpro's entry. But I like to think it was pretty well made. And the intro on the boat rocks.

There's no doubting Marpro was a tad unlucky.

Unlucky? What do you mean? I joined this contest for that DinkC book!
I'm lucky! Thanks redink1!

Maybe you should give the DinkC Reference to the worst entries, so that the authors learn how to properly make a D-Mod. *sneer*

Joking, of course.

"I joined this contest for that DinkC book!" - Marpro

Ditto. Though how much I'll actually use it is another thing.

The CD would be very cool, for sure. But when I get started on the more complicated aspects of my next d-mod, methinks having a DinkC Reference would be pretty darn useful.

well if either of you dont want the cd... i guess i just got myself a new drink coaster

as far as basilisk winning over a much larger dmod with probably much much more work put into it

dmods dont strike a chord by just being large, epic, general, vague, like every other single RPG IN THE WORLD. ill tell you the reason i think my dmod did so well. it had a bug in the sword which made pretty much the whole boss scene worthless, which i think was scripted out pretty well to do cool unique things that get negated when he dies in one strike with a 100 power sword. it didnt have much diversity in terms of what to do. no side quests. no hording items and weapons and questing and npcs and et cetera. i think it was appreciated for the vast DIFFERENCES it brought about. the completely complicated new menu screen that pretty much took up a week to make that a lot of people probably just take for granted because unlike the voters they have no idea what doing that entails for in using dink c. or the dragon flies. the falling in the holes. things like this get appreciated more that 1000 more of the SAME THING of just copy pasting sprites and modifying original source code. i spend so much more work just on tiny little details and i think the voters here could appreciate that. not some big long game. although that deserves its due credit, as we see merlin and simonk prefer prelude to tahmor 2-4 and 3-5! but redink1 and striker prefer tahmor 1-2 and 1-4. i think the reason for this is the fissure between the two styles. long and typical (although not all that bad) and short and unique. and here i think the bottom line is sabretrout shows us that something short and unique is far far long lasting over something 10000000 years long that delivers not much of anything at all.

its a matter of style, i would say. and style can be appreciated in many angles, aspects. its relative to the appreciatOR. what makes a good, highly received game? is it just one thats very big with lots of quests? well, look at the best dmods out there. they are the ones that fuse lots of content with LOTS OF new, fun, creative, funny, and innovative stuff. with this contest length, it just wasnt possible to do BOTH. because while my dmod was short, it took an incredible amount of time. pick a card, one or the other. and i think sabre won for picking the one he did. which was to pick style over length.

I agree. Your momma has style, too.

Prelude obviously took a lot of effort to make, but TBS looks like it was just quickly slapped together... I think they chose concept over effort.

i havent played it much myself honestly too much talking not my thing but it seems like not typicalish of a dmod

The Basilisk Smile was rushed, but I definately picked style over size. I really wanted to give the d-mod a more depressing feel than is usually found in a d-mod. Saying that, I wouldn't have time to have made a lenghty d-mod, so the decision was kinda thrust upon me.

The flies hovering over rotten meat, anti-climactic endings and the lack of NPC interaction... it all just contributed (IMO) to a rather "different" d-mod. Which is what the contests seem to produce - Lyna's Story and Cycles of Evil were both completely different from your average d-mod.

EDIT: And the intro with Dink in the lifeboat did rock.

actually, some of the most depressing dmods are probably by simonk (like the one where you shoot wads of sperm at naked women)

The shooting of digital sperm at digital women is rather depressing, it must be said. Not as depressing as shooting actual sperm at digital women, but the less said about that the better.

Ick. You people disgust me.

Sabre! *ewwww*

youre right, thats absolutely disgusting. i prefer to shoot my josh juice at REAL naked women and or tals

Why didn't Tal vote? Isn't he a staff member anymore?

Because my will to do anything has been nil lately.

You Snorlax.

I got a total of 31 points!! YAY, I win!!

Oh wait, whats that... oh. uh... sorry `bout the outburst.
I am considering reworking my D-Mod by adding more padding to the story, Adding more dimension to the characters and fixing that darn dragon script.

I know it was not clear in the D-Mod how to get point A to point B, and I did that on purpose to add to the challenge. (Yeah, I know its cheap and aggravating, but this is what happens when i'm rushed ) That is also why you have to talk to characters seemingly unrelated to the story in a certain order to progress...

Oh, and Sabre- I wanna know what's beyond that bridge in Basklisk's Smile!!

There's nothing beyond the bridge. Jus a void of un-mapped tiles.

Sorry to disappoint.