The Dink Network

Paninga development thread

December 29th 2008, 05:29 PM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
Terminal Tranquility 1: Paninga

You might have seen this title appear on the Upcoming DMODs list, but I haven't exactly told anything about it yet. The reason for this is simply that it still is far from being finished, and I feel that announcing DMODs far before they're finished will often lead to disapointments. But I already announced it (sort of) through the upcoming DMODs list, so here's an update on my latest project:

A bit of history
Back in 2005 I finished The Scourger. Though I was happy with the way it turned out I still found it lacking in some ways. I found the story too linear, the tasks too stereotype and the characters uninspiring. So after taking a DMODing hiatus I decided it was time for change. At that time I was playing Morrowind a lot. So I was inspired to make a DMOD like it, with a huge, coherent world with lot's of different things to do.

So I started a new DMOD, called Jorn (working title). It failed quite quickly, largely due to insufficient planning and a pretty unimaginative story. I never entirely let the idea go away though, and later it formed the basis of a new project, now know as Terminal Tranquility.

The story
No matter how often Dink saves the world there's always a new villain preparing to destroy the world. King Daniel realizes this and believes there must be a reason for it. If Dink stops saving the world it might become redundant to save the world altogether he argues. So Dink is pushed into retirement and spends the next seven years of his life in a small bordertown. After seven years Dink has a disturbing dream...
Might Milder be responsible for putting his mother's house on fire? Dink has to know, so he wanders off east, to Paninga. It should only be a short trip...

The series
As the title might suggest this DMOD is part of a series. It will probably contain three DMODs, though I might stop after two. The idea is that these three parts are directly linked through one continuing story. The styles of the different parts will be quite different though. The first is pretty classic, the second one is more of a gigantic journey and the third one... Well I'm not quite sure yet...

The entire series will be placed into a new country, called Paninga. I'm planning on creating most of my new DMODs into this new country in an effort to create something of an coherent DMODing universe. Originally this was planned as one huge world ready for the player to be discovered. But now I rather use portions of it to create DMODs, and to provide it with a consistent background.

Development
Well, as I mentioned on the forums a few times progress is going pretty slow. I hardly did anything for the last year or so. This had to do with the fact that I was disappointed in it. Originally the idea had been to create one large coherent world where the player had all the opportunity to walk around and discover the landscape, and to have an epic main quest to go with it.
Last week I started working on it again. I played through some of the parts I already made and discovered it wasn't so bad as I remembered it. In fact, I quite enjoyed playing it, especially considering I played through a very rough version. So I decided to pick up DMODing again, but to make the DMOD a whole lot less ambitious. I went from around seven areas to five and decided to cut a lot out of the storyline. It will still qualify as an epic, but it will be shorter than it was planned to be.

Many features I had planned will probably never make it into the game. I planned on making a lot of new weapons and magic, but I'll probably stick largely to the standard ones. And the entire alchemy system I was planning has been abandoned.

Still, I think it will be a good DMOD. It will definitly not be the best DMOD ever, but I think it will be an enjoyable epic. And considering the amount of large DMODs we are getting nowadays I think something like this is very welcome.

Features
-One continous landmass, which means you can access a large area. (Atleast it's different from the Scourger in one way...)
-A semi-linear storyline (Some tasks can be performed in different orders, and some problems can be solved in more than one way).
-Multiple endings (I think two, maybe three)
-A few sidequests (some can actually influence the endings)
-A revised level-up system. Though this is the simplest feature of them all, it's essential. I just hate to level up a single point when you have like 50 strength already.
-A journal. I had a journal in the scourger, I'm intending to do something similar for this DMOD. It'll be a little more complicated as this DMOD is only semi-linear. But I guess it makes it all the more useful.
-And hopefully the same elements that made the Scourger a good DMOD.

Practical info
I haven't set a release date, it's finished when it's finished. And that moment is quite far away probably. Currently I have a lot of things done already, but it has hardly been polished and balanced so I'll still have some work to do...

I might post a few updates as the story progresses, but I most of the time progression is just progression and nothing really exciting happens. So don't count on a lot of updates.

Oh, and some screenshots to keep you happy:

A road
A cave
Abandoned campfire
Fighting

Current progress (30-Jul-2011): 34%

Note that progress estimates are very rough and wildly inaccurate. Keep this in mind when you see the progress changing! Also keep in mind that this is the progress estimate for the first (raw) version, the final version will need some more testing and refinement...
December 29th 2008, 05:44 PM
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Sounds impressive, definitely one to look forward to! I've never played The Scourger for some reason so I'll have to get around to that soon.

I like the journal idea, because I found with some other big D-Mods (eg FIAT or Legend of Tenjin) that if I left them for a bit then I could never remember what I was supposed to be doing, and had to wander aimlessly around a gigantic map for half an hour
December 29th 2008, 05:57 PM
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Erwin
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Friendship is magic 
In the screenshot of the road Dink is so close to the sign that it looks like his face is glued to it. Or maybe he's just desperately trying to make love to it, could just be me though.

Anyway it sounds very promising, I always wanted to play a D-Mod that contains a big world to explore like Morrowind. Keep up the good work.
December 29th 2008, 09:18 PM
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I agree with Erwin, unless the NPCs, too, are modeled to be as "inspiring" as in Morrowind.

It would be neat if the forecoming dmods went together so that once all 2/3 are out, you could play them at once, similar to the Morrowind expansion packs. Possibly way too much of a hassle though.
December 30th 2008, 04:22 AM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
Well, it won't resemble morrowind a lot. There just aren't enough screens available... 768 Might sound like a lot, but right now I have only 190 still left for interiors/dungeons. So it's more like I got my inspiration there. It's going to be much more 'standard' than I had originally envisioned.

Don't think that 588 screens already occupied is a good measure for progress though. Most of them aren't finished yet. Here is a nice map, where you can see what's already been done...
February 3rd 2009, 04:21 PM
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carrie2004
Peasant She/Her Canada
*chomp* 
The screenshots look good. I've been missing playing
Dink lately. My computer is over 10 years old now and it's getting tough to download anything too big.
May 15th 2009, 04:56 AM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Oh, I wanan so click that map to zoom in.

Any progress on this lately?
May 18th 2009, 11:16 AM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
Well, I've done a little bit of mapping, a little bit of bugfixing, and possibly some other thingies I can't remember right now. So not really a great deal of progress.

A little status update:

Right now I 'finished' one world (The area north-west of the large forest), but It will require some extra tweaking. I'm busy finishing up the main quest in the areas belonging to the two villages next to the ocean. But they will still require a lot of tweaking. Right now the eastern part is so buggy and unbalanced you can't even play through it without using some very specific cheats... The western part is playable, but doesn't have any enemies yet.

And I'm also planning on making some side quests in these areas. Plus I still need to do just about everything inside the large city you see on the map. And maybe I have to figure out how to make the story a bit less boring...

Ah, well we'll see what happens...

I'll probably bump this thread again if I reach some sort of milestone in the future.
May 18th 2009, 11:19 AM
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Christiaan
Bard They/Them Netherlands
Lazy bum 
Glad to hear you're still working on it. We could use another epic!
July 7th 2011, 06:52 AM
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Godley
Peasant They/Them
 
Now meta, go finish it.
July 30th 2011, 10:44 AM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
Update 2:

For those of you curious about how far this DMOD has progressed so far... Here's a little status update.

I haven't worked very hard on this thing for quite some time. Back in August 2010 I posted an estimated 32% completion estimate, right now I estimate it to be around 34% completed. But this estimate is really a much more rough estimate then it appears. This is because I haven't fully determined the ending(s) for this DMOD yet. I don't exactly know how it's going to end nor when it is exactly going to end. I'm contemplating a adding a final world, but I'm just not sure yet...

This 34% is a relatively conservative estimate so if the ending will be placed more early on in the DMOD the progress might actually be above 40%, I wouldn't count on it though. Also keep in mind that this progress estimate is for the first alpha version. The final version will take quite a bit of extra work to refine everything.

This DMOD consist out of 6 major parts, three of which are done or almost done. But there is still a lot of generic things to be done and I'm afraid the last three parts will be larger than the first. There will also probably be one or two more parts dedicated to the final world so there's plenty of work still to be done!

I'm planning to use this thread for new updates a bit like I did for the Scourger 2.0 thread earlier. Though the updates will likely be a bit less clear as I can't refer to an earlier version of the work. Anyway, update 3 shouldn't be taking two years.
July 31st 2011, 02:06 AM
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pillbug
Peasant He/Him United States
Love! True love! 
Yay! Progress fives!
April 25th 2015, 06:20 AM
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Godley_ghost
Ghost They/Them
 
Finally a DMOD worth playing.

Unlike the shit the Paki dude and that Steam group country music sensation(whats his name? Skurn Skorn or whatever) put out.
April 25th 2015, 07:47 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
You're very kind.
April 25th 2015, 06:42 PM
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zeddexx
Peasant He/Him New Zealand
I'm pretty sure I'm worth atleast SIX goats... 
Kind and also easily understandable. Is there anything godley cannot do? Simply amazing. Bravo sir, such wit and gusto.
April 25th 2015, 06:45 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
I've never felt such a surge of happiness than I felt when he called me a country music sensation.
May 11th 2015, 02:16 PM
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RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
Hope this DMOD will get released sooner than tomorrow. Also, could you fix the naming of the screenshot links? E.g. the one called fighting currently directs to the screenshot of the abandoned campfire.
May 11th 2015, 04:27 PM
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zeddexx
Peasant He/Him New Zealand
I'm pretty sure I'm worth atleast SIX goats... 
Yeah meta, I hope you're able to finish this! Im a huge fan of the elder scrolls series, so I'm looking forward to a dmod with a similar vibe
May 11th 2015, 04:36 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
Woah, this was supposed to be like an Elder Scrolls game?

Well, it should've been out really quick. All you have to do is make a huge world that doesn't have much to do, place a few enemies, don't test it, and then rely on the community to fix it.
May 11th 2015, 07:12 PM
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zeddexx
Peasant He/Him New Zealand
I'm pretty sure I'm worth atleast SIX goats... 
a huge world that doesn't have much to do have you PLAYED Skyrim!?

Besides I don't think meta meant exactly like elder scrolls but trying to achieve a sense of expanded universe.... If that makes sense...
May 11th 2015, 07:41 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
Yes, I have played Skyrim. It sucks so bad.

The "not much to do" easily applies. First, there's the guild quest lines. They're short, give little to no reward, and doesn't affect the world. The main quest is bland, has no originality, and forces you to succumb to a boring prophecy that...doesn't affect the world either. The sidequests are randomly generated to be one of the following -

-Kill <x> in <y cave>
-Get this item

The dungeons aren't worth raiding. At most, the "treasure" will be a handful of coins or a useless potion like "Potion of Resist Fire" or some crap.

Now let's talk smithing. It all boils down to buying the same materials over and over again to craft the easiest thing you can to spam levels to make that overly heavy armour you think will help that will probably just make combat even worse. That's pretty much it too.

Or is there a game in here that I'm missing? I just see a bunch of bland adventurer chores.
May 11th 2015, 08:33 PM
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If Skyrim doesn't have much to do, can you give an example of a game that does? I'm hard-pressed to think of anything meatier than TES.
May 11th 2015, 08:51 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
The entire Sly Cooper series has plenty to do. Each mission is it's own unique thing. Even the repeated ones such as the rail shooter missions have differences such as different attacks to have to deal with and they're spread out enough to not become stale. Plus, each stage has several things to collect to unlock various things especially in 4 where there's a hell of a lot more you need to collect.

If you like to spend hours upon hours to earn something really good, the Final fantasy series has a lot of things where you have to destroy a miniboss to acquire an ultimate weapon, or you might have to make your way into an optional dungeon to unlock a class or do terrible chocobo racing in X to be able to get one of the things you need for Tidus's Caladbolg which I do not recommend you do. And there's Gold Saucer.

The original Spyro games on PS1 have a lot to do as well. Like Sly, the levels have a lot of variety to them. Not as much in the first game, but the second one introduces missions you will need to finish to earn eggs or orbs.

The Saints Row games have tons of variety too. You can customize a ducking bus to look like a rainbow rectangle and go into a virtual world where you become a toilet. The side missions too offer a lot. In Saints Row 2, there is a mission where you must spray diarrhea on buildings. Just...mix my points from other games, pretty much.

Skyrim has random quests with piss poor rewards and a world you cannot affect. The only thing you do is prevent the big bad from eating the world which he probably couldn't do anyways since he is the same size, looks the same as any other dragon, and does the exact same stuff the others do. It's like it was a big hoax set up by the Daedra because they were bored. Skyrim may technically have a lot to do (lots of generic sidequests for a handful of coins), but there is no variety whatsoever, so I can't honestly say it has a lot to do. I guess I can say it has a lot of the same thing to do, but even that doesn't feel right.
May 11th 2015, 10:41 PM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
Hmm, let's compare some other open world rpgs with Skyrim. That seems fun.

Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning:
The repetitive side quests in Amalur are way worse. The game gloats on its hundreds of hours of quests, yet I can tell you that at least 90% of them follow the same exact pattern of go into dungeon, kill thing, loot thing. The combat system is fun enough that it doesn't stop being fun until the lack of monster variety gets to you. The main quest is okay. It's nothing special but it's not better than Skyrim's.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen:
The only time the dragon that's supposedly going to destroy the world appears in the game is at the very beginning and very end. I found the storytelling really weak, but I still ended up playing through the end because the combat system is addictive and when you're fighting some huge monster like a hydra it's pretty damn exciting. I actually kind of want to say that the main quest line of Skryim was better than this one and the Skryim's was really disappointing. There are some really great aspects of this game but storytelling isn't one of them.

Divinity II: Ego Draconis
'Bout halfway through the game the villain does actually destroy the world- or at the very least show that he will. The area you were in before gets covered in a poisonous fog and above the fog lies an armada of flying fortresses. So the game goes from a typical do these receptive quests for this one village and get to know these people. Care for them. Now they're dead and there's nothing you can do. The quests get reminiscent of Oblivion when you go into gates to kill some antagonist goon. It seriously feels a lot like entering a gate of Oblivion. If the game cleaner mechanics and a more expanded dragon form it'd be fantastic.

I could do more and/or expand but I'm tired and feel like going to sleep so that's what I'm going to do. Bye.
Side note. Hello Meta, you should make this if you want to. Goodnight.
May 13th 2015, 03:30 AM
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zeddexx
Peasant He/Him New Zealand
I'm pretty sure I'm worth atleast SIX goats... 
How to give zeddexx an instant heart-boner: mention spyro

Thanks skurnykins. <3
May 13th 2015, 05:08 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
  .:::.   .:::.
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  ':::::::::'
    ':::::'
      ':'
September 29th 2018, 12:31 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
ok, time's up. where's the dmod at?
September 29th 2018, 11:48 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Good question Skurn! Let's see this dmod (or at least an updated status report on it) soon!
October 6th 2018, 05:59 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Come out come out wherever you are! Time to at least give a hint at how close you are to being done here.

Adoring fans of your dmod work await!
October 7th 2018, 02:05 PM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
Unfortunately it's dead...

The last time I did some work on it is very long ago.
October 7th 2018, 04:02 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Wait! Your life is not really over! Load a saved game!

Surely, you must have backups, or something you can upload as an unfinished work that someone else may complete someday?
October 7th 2018, 04:42 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
start over.
January 20th 2019, 02:05 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
start over.
June 16th 2019, 04:34 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
start over.
June 17th 2019, 12:59 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@metatarasal:

Unfortunately it's dead...

The last time I did some work on it is very long ago.

Ah, but you are in luck! There is always time for important things if you are still alive and it seems you are still alive! And yes, this is important, because life is too short for you not to seize moments of challenging joy and creativity like this one. You can do it!
June 18th 2019, 10:43 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
if its so short, why is it the longest thing anyone has ever experienced
June 19th 2019, 10:49 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Skurn:

if its so short, why is it the longest thing anyone has ever experienced

That is a good question, which I would think could only be asked by someone who has not seen enough years go by such that they realize that it all goes by too quickly.

You might not understand now why life is short, but I promise, that if you don't die young, you will someday understand.
June 19th 2019, 11:51 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
nah, its long
November 14th 2019, 01:11 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@metatarasal:

So, if you don't think you will ever finish it, why not upload it as unfinished so that maybe someone else will finish it?

At least we will get to see what there is of it, even if it is unplayable in its current status.
November 22nd 2019, 08:17 AM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
Do you ever have that feeling when looking back at something and it kinda embarrasses you a bit because you've grown older (and possibly a bit wiser too)? That's kinda what I have when looking at my old DMODs. I wouldn't write anything nearly as cringe worthy as some of the things I've released in the past, or so I'd like to think anyway. The latest version I have of Paninga is a backup I made on the 27th of June 2011, with the majority of the work being done well prior to that...

I think Paninga had quite a few good ideas, but it also suffers from some sub-par execution and really cringe worthy quests.

Besides that it's... Very unfinished. Here's the view of the map, the areas marked with red are the areas where a lot of work has been done, but really only the top left part is finished. Everything else has content, but can't be finished yet...

Most of the gameplay is pretty good I'd say, there's some really good ideas there. It's just way too unfinished. I'll think about the uploading part, but quite frankly it just is too rough around the edges to be playable right now and I've never seen a DMOD finished after uploading an unfinished version...
November 22nd 2019, 09:56 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@metatarasal:
Do you ever have that feeling when looking back at something and it kinda embarrasses you a bit because you've grown older (and possibly a bit wiser too)? That's kinda what I have when looking at my old DMODs. I wouldn't write anything nearly as cringe worthy as some of the things I've released in the past, or so I'd like to think anyway. The latest version I have of Paninga is a backup I made on the 27th of June 2011, with the majority of the work being done well prior to that...

I think Paninga had quite a few good ideas, but it also suffers from some sub-par execution and really cringe worthy quests.

Well, you've clearly uploaded a number of dmods that were well received here on the DN, so maybe you are being a bit hard on yourself.

Besides that it's... Very unfinished. Here's the view of the map, the areas marked with red are the areas where a lot of work has been done, but really only the top left part is finished.

We have a whole section of unfinished dmods. You can always upload yours, along with an invitation to others to finish it, and perhaps someday, someone will do just that.

Everything else has content, but can't be finished yet...

It "can't be finished yet"? What does that mean? Have you run out of variable space? Do you need more dink.ini entries, but are unable to add them due to some limitation of the Dink Engine? IMHO, most dmods can certainly be finished and if your history in dmods is any possible judge of things, I'd say yours are probably worth finishing.

November 23rd 2019, 04:49 PM
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toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
Cringe worthy how?
Maybe you can extend that into something over the top cringeworthy stuff. I'm all in for anything that is taken to the absurd level of absurdity.

Plus, there's no shame in cutting corners here and there. Quite contrary, develop those good ideas that you've mentioned into a short romp.
December 23rd 2019, 08:16 AM
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Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
And also, if you simply don't feel like you want to finish it.
Upload it.
We are in the Dinkaissance. An age of enlightenment where people actually finish Dmods that other people left around.
And no Dmod is too silly, too cringy or too dramatic to warrant hate from the crowd
December 23rd 2019, 09:26 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@all:

I agree wholeheartedly with Silberfarben. Please "Upload it" as an unfinished dmod and invite others to change/finish it! Life is too short to waste a potentially good dmod!

December 24th 2019, 11:32 AM
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RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
In the age where D-Mod releases are rare even an unfinished D-Mod is welcome. Maybe SlipDink picks up that too, since he seems to be the only one with as much free time as me.
April 10th 2021, 09:21 AM
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Robj
Jester He/Him Australia
You feed the madness, and it feeds on you. 
Let's see if this is still active development.

bump.
April 13th 2021, 04:26 AM
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Robj
Jester He/Him Australia
You feed the madness, and it feeds on you. 
Metatarasal, you misspelt foot bone!

I saw you lurking yesteday, report for duty on this thread.

Time for me to harrass some authors instead of being the harrasee

April 13th 2021, 10:43 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Robj:
Ah... but you deserve to be harassed too! We need weekly status reports for the TDA dmod.
March 21st 2022, 01:14 AM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
how's the dmod coming? paninganingapinganagimgapan seems like the dmod of the week
March 21st 2022, 11:07 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Yes, what news have we on the status of it's development and/or your plans to upload it to the unfinished section of the DN?

Well?