The Dink Network

More nitpicking...

Cast Awakening Part 1: Initiation

September 11th 2007, 09:31 AM
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1) The slot machine is supposed to make the player win more often if &shocked has been set to 1. However, &shocked is never set to 1, no matter how many times you shock the machine.

2) Sometimes, if you attack a Cast Kid without first getting noticed by a Father, the Cast Kid will become invincible.

3) Death's theme doesn't play anymore in the latest version.

4) The Cast theme doesn't play when the spy appears near the Level 1 exit that leads to Ending 1 (once again, this only occurs in the latest version).

5) Rarely, when you attack a Cast Kid at the bar, the screen will lock then unlock immediately and the stairs at the bar will be unusable aven after killing the Cast Kids and re-entering the screen.

6) It is possible to get past the stone heads in the sewers when you're not supposed to, because the script only checks sp_dir. Maybe lines that would check Dink's x and y values should be added.

If redink1 is too busy, I should be able to fix these bugs and submit a patch myself.

Also, I noticed something funny - a Stone Giant Brain (+1STR +1DEF +1MAG) costs 50000 gold (which is extremely expensive by this D-Mod's standards) but a player who has 50000 gold could buy 5 Dragon Hearts (+2STR -1DEF) and 5 Dragon Lungs (+2 DEF -1STR) instead, which would mean a +5TR +5DEF boost. Maybe it should cost only 30000 or 35000 or 40000 gold. 50000 gold just seems too unbalanced to me.

EDIT : The readme says that the player can view the real ending only after the other endings have been unlocked. It should be updated.
September 11th 2007, 10:24 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
1-5) Ouch. I'm not sure why the music is a problem.

6) I thought that was intentional... you were allowed to push them in certain directions, but not others. Unless its possible to 'go around' the hardness and push it down even though you were to the right of it?

I am pretty busy, and if you wanted to create a patch, that would be super-awesome.

And, yes, the various health boosts are, unbalanced, and I think that's fine the way it is. I just threw some random item names and prices together.
September 12th 2007, 04:36 AM
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Regarding the stone heads - yes, it's possible to, say, push them to the right even if you're below them. You just have to move right up to the statue and act as if you were trying to push the wall to the right, and the statue will move.

I know what's causing the music problem. In the two cases I mentioned, there is no line to actually play the music, only a line that calls the external music script.

EDIT : Actually, that was an awful way to phrase it. The flawed scripts used to set a value that is used in the external script, but did not actually call it properly, so the music wouldn't play.

The last health boost still seems kinda evil to me, but fine.

I'll make the patch. It should be ready in a few days. I too am pretty busy, but I should be able to handle it.
September 12th 2007, 12:29 PM
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Just two questions regarding the patch...

I think the player should be notified that shocking the slot machine actually does something, perhaps by playing a special sound or something like that.

Also, if Dink and the Cast King die at the same time, it will mess up the ending. I can either make the game show the losing menu without spawning the ending, or show the ending normally even if Dink has 0 HP (or less). Take your pick.
September 12th 2007, 01:37 PM
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Christiaan
Bard They/Them Netherlands
Lazy bum 
I never really got into this game, but I might start playing it again after this patch. Kudos for the dedication, Ducklord.
September 12th 2007, 04:25 PM
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Well, when I really like a game, I want it to be as bugless as possible.

I replayed Initiation recently for fun and also because I wanted to mess with the scripts, but then I ended up fully replaying it and I even updated my Initiation walkthrough (which is/was indefinetely on hold, like the CC2 walkthrough); so I thought, why not fix the remaining bugs.
September 13th 2007, 11:20 AM
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Changes so far :

-The &midi = [midi number] lines in the flawed scripts (Death, Bill, Cast King) have been deleted and replaced with external("midi", "midi", [midi number]) lines instead. The music now plays properly.

-Death's script now uses &rand = sp_freeze(1, -1) instead of returning the busy value. This is to make sure Death doesn't appear when Dink sees Thumpy go up the stairs.

The Cast Kid bug is more complicated - it seems the screenlock and alarm scripts sometimes interfer with the Cast Kids' scripts, and I'm not sure how to fix this. The fact that I can't really trigger the bug on purpose doesn't help either.

The Slot Machine is proving to be harder than I thought - in fact, I'm not entirely sure what redink1 was trying to do with &shocked. I'm going to re-read the script and write down exactly how the script works in order to properly make the player win more often. I might have to ask redink what he intended to do, though.

The stone head bug will probably take a bit more time to fix than the midi bug, but it should be fairly easy. I intend to have the script check both Dink's sp_dir and his x and y values. That way, he can't push a stone head up when he's to the left of it, or something similarly weird.
September 13th 2007, 11:01 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
- Just so you know, the &midi variable was used to enable midi-looping before v1.08 supported it directly. So, you could just do the normal playmidi("blah.mid"), and not mess with the midi.c script at all. It won't make any difference, though.

- Cool.

- Cast Kid, hmm, I dunno.

- Slot machine. The key is the lastRandomIcon function. This chooses the actual slot graphic that is chosen by the slot machine on its final iteration. &abc1 is the value of the first slot, and &abc2 if the value of the first slot. For Slot 1, &abc1 will be 0, so it chooses a random graphic. For Slot 2, it will choose a random graphic, but there is a 25% chance that it will be set to the same value as Slot 1. For Slot 3, it will choose a random graphic, but there is a 66% chance that it selects the same graphic as Slot 2.

So, from the looks of it, the &shocked check *should* work. If the selected graphic is always set to the value from Slot 1 when going through Slots 2 and 3, Dink should win every time.
September 14th 2007, 04:33 AM
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Just so you know, the &midi variable was used to enable midi-looping before v1.08 supported it directly. So, you could just do the normal playmidi("blah.mid"), and not mess with the midi.c script at all. It won't make any difference, though.

Yes, it would make a difference. If I only add a playmidi line, the level music will not play after Death goes away. It's much easier to properly call midi.c twice.

Slot machine. The key is the lastRandomIcon function. This chooses the actual slot graphic that is chosen by the slot machine on its final iteration. &abc1 is the value of the first slot, and &abc2 if the value of the first slot. For Slot 1, &abc1 will be 0, so it chooses a random graphic. For Slot 2, it will choose a random graphic, but there is a 25% chance that it will be set to the same value as Slot 1. For Slot 3, it will choose a random graphic, but there is a 66% chance that it selects the same graphic as Slot 2.

So, from the looks of it, the &shocked check *should* work. If the selected graphic is always set to the value from Slot 1 when going through Slots 2 and 3, Dink should win every time.


Thank you, that saves me a lot of work (though I'm not sure what you mean by "&abc2 if the value of the first slot". Typo perhaps?)

So, um, Dink is supposed to win every time if the slot machine has been shocked? That sounds almost like cheating (unlimited stat boosts), but if you're sure that's what you want the slot machine to do, I'll do it.
September 14th 2007, 06:43 AM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
"&abc2 if the value of the first slot" should state "&abc2 is the value of the second slot.

And, yes, Dink was supposed to win every time. If someone shocks the machine, I thought they deserve it because the shock magic is fairly difficult to find, the player isn't told that they can shock the machine, they aren't told that shocking the machine does anything, and it takes a little bit of creativity to think about shocking the machine to begin with.

Granted, now that we're talking about it, it does lose some of its allure.
September 14th 2007, 05:30 PM
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MadStalker
Peasant He/Him Finland
tag line 
Ducklord... You're the betatester from heaven.
September 16th 2007, 03:54 PM
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Christiaan
Bard They/Them Netherlands
Lazy bum 
Yes, but he is still French.

September 18th 2007, 04:04 PM
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MadStalker : Thanks, I try.
Christiaan : Certes, mon frère!

Now that I'm done with DinkDude95's duck script, I'll start working on this again.
September 19th 2007, 09:02 AM
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Finally! This cursed slot machine bug has been fixed. It literally took hours, and even now, I'm still not exactly sure what it was. Apparently, there were at least two major problems with setting the &shocked variable, and the workaround is quite twisted; but it works. However, the slot machine doesn't "stay shocked", so to speak. It is reset every time the player enters the screen. Not that I mind. How about you, redink? Do you think I should try to make the slot machine stay shocked or leave it as it is?

Anyway, now that that's taken care of, I'll be moving on to the stone head bug. Still not sure what I'll do about the Cast Kid bug, since I can't really trigger it on purpose. We'll see.
September 19th 2007, 03:57 PM
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The patch is done. I just have to test the slot machine and the drunk fight a few more times to make sure they're ready, then I'll edit readme.txt and change.txt; and then I'll send the patch to redink1.

I'm going to bed right now, but I expect to have the patch ready tomorrow (in fact, barring a disaster, it *will* be ready tomorrow, since the script files and the map file are ready).

(...And if you want to know, the Cast Kid Bug was caused by timing issues related to the alarm.c file.)
September 19th 2007, 06:39 PM
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dinkmega
Ghost They/Them
 
Sweet!! Awesome man, and thanks
September 20th 2007, 07:45 AM
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The patch has been sent to redink1.
December 8th 2007, 02:29 PM
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razor
Ghost They/Them
 
how to get a fire sword?
December 9th 2007, 10:03 AM
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carrie2004
Peasant She/Her Canada
*chomp* 
I never knew you could shock the machine.
Now just what would you say to shock it anyways?

1) The price of electricity just quadrupled!!
2) There is no electricity!
3) 2 plus 2 equals 5! Muahahaha!
4) The answer is NOT 42!

December 9th 2007, 10:05 AM
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carrie2004
Peasant She/Her Canada
*chomp* 
How to get a firesword?
Well, you just get yourself a regular sword and
then light it on fire.
January 15th 2011, 05:23 PM
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Since we're nitpicking,,,who's the one with the nits?

1)Matrice's walkthrough doesn't seem at all clear on how to get the SabreTrout weapon.

2)The knight puzzle seems to be glitched. Bottom row,,, (17733) 1st hit on #7 doesn't do anything. Doesn't this puzzle open up the training area? (FireSword?)

3)The "coin 'back+forth' puzzle" doesn't seem at all apparent to someone not wanting to use a walkthrough! The 3rd clue (LOTS?) is vague at best.

Now,,don't get a hair across your azz people, I don't author D-Mods! But a D-Mod of this caliber should have a clear and concise walkthrough 1,,,2 There will probably be another generation of gamers who wanna go 'retro' and they should be able to have a fun time with this mod. Editing a text file for a walkthrough isn't rocket science.But fixing hardness errors and other glitches is I bet! My hat goes off to you modders, but on the highly rated mods, I wish you would take the time to perfect them for posterity!
I've modded my own planes in MS Combat Flight Sim and I know what's involved! (Code changing in Notepad)

Sorry if it seemed like I was ranting..Starlynx57
January 15th 2011, 05:45 PM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
*sigh* Would you stop reviving old threads? This is a thread that's about 4 years old and many of the nitpickers aren't even on here anymore. It's a waste of time.
January 15th 2011, 05:48 PM
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MsDink
Peasant She/Her New Zealand
Tag - Umm.. tag, you're it? 
^ what he said!
January 15th 2011, 05:48 PM
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JugglingDink
Peasant He/Him United Kingdom
Streetfish 
Necro!! Arg!!
January 15th 2011, 07:28 PM
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Absolution
Peasant They/Them
The Dark Lord of the DN. 
Stop it Starlynx; Now!
January 15th 2011, 07:31 PM
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Wow! 3 'different' dinkers responding at one time!!That's pretty dang weird!!
January 15th 2011, 07:32 PM
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Absolution
Peasant They/Them
The Dark Lord of the DN. 
If you don't want people to tell you to knock it off, don't revive every thread on the damm board! And do you want to know who decides when it'd dead? Mr. Timestamp does a nice job of that.