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August 17th 2013, 07:52 AM
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cocomonkey
Bard He/Him United States
Please Cindy, say the whole name each time. 
--Crazy Old Tim Plays All the DMODs--

Directory
1998 HTML version
1999 | HTML version
2000 | HTML version
2001 | Article version
2002 | Article version
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008-2009
2010
2011-2015

Having gotten into Dink near the beginning, I left the community for good by 2002. Even when I paid a nostalgia visit in 2006, I played only World of DinkC and The Green Voice in My Head: Hangover and Agony. As of this writing, these are still the only DMODs I've ever played that were released after FIAT, so I have no clue how far DMOD development has come in that time.

Come with me, the author of quite possibly the worst DMODs ever, on a journey through fifteen years of Dink. I will go on many quests, punch virtually everything in sight even if it makes no sense to do so, and deliver great justice to these many created worlds as well as this forum.

How many ducks can one man stand the sight of? How much time can one spend punching pillbugs before they fill one's dreams? Why would this Tim guy devote so much effort to such a silly project, particularly for a community in which he is known mainly for sucking incredibly hard at basically everything? These are, indeed, rhetorical questions.

You may ask how I have time for this. Simply put, I'm a loser with no job and not much else to do. All I've got is time (well, and a great fiancee who doesn't mind how much time I spend hunched over this laptop). Let's rock.

Dink Smallwood Author: RTSoft Release Date: I've seen sources say 1997 and 1998. My CD says April 21 1998.

Feed the pigs. That's all you're told to do. It's one of the shortest game intros ever. YES NOW. It really sets the tone - Dink Smallwood is not like other games. It's considerably weirder.

Incidentally, have any of you guys ever seen the intro movie that came on the disc? It is the most bizarre inclusion ever. It has absolutely nothing to do with Dink Smallwood at all. It's just stunning how irrelevant it is - the only thing it has in common with the game is that there are dragons in it, and they look nothing like the ones in Dink. It starts in space, zooms in on a planet, and there are hordes of flying dragons, a crystal fountain, and other things you absolutely will not encounter in this game. I'd think it was included by mistake if it weren't for the logo at the end. I had also forgotten about Swedish publisher Iridon Interactive (which is still around under the name "Legendo," believe it or not).

Coming back to the game was a shock to the system, I'll admit. Did it really look this awkward, with a hero who boldly walks smack into doors which then decide that they had better open before he hurts himself some more? Were the MIDIs really THIS annoying? Still, it's not long before the game has sucked me back in and things like explosions happening on top of things instead of to things seem perfectly normal. Things.

This game is dang funny, and in just such an odd way that I can't think of any parallels. The humor is as dark as it is silly. Our hero is a pig farmer who is prone to punching inanimate objects and wild swings of his moral compass for no apparent reason. I was in tears laughing the first time I saw the wizard scene: "You're so cute and tiny!" "I am nothing of the sort!" "I just have to pet you!" Even as the corpses pile up, this game never takes itself too seriously.

The other thing I enjoyed about Dink that sets it apart from other games is how much it respects the player's agency. You can do pretty much anything you want most of the time, and oddly enough, you usually get away with it. Most games would just have you save the old woman's duck and be done with it, but here you can choose to do that, kill it and have her forever wonder where her Quackers is, or (and this still slays me) return the duck and then kill it in front of her. "You little dink!" I knew I was dealing with a unique game when she had a special line after the fire scene depending on what you had done to her duck. Yes, they put thought into this option. And you can kill castle guards because of course you can. It's kind of jarring when you experience actual consequences for your actions upon killing Jack (which isn't required). I don't really feel like much of a hero saving Dink's aunt from her abusive husband by showing up and immediately beating him to death. What sort of person Dink is depends a lot on what you decide to do - you can even kill the gossipy girl in Stonebrook and Dink just quips "She won't be bothering anyone anymore." I had a crisis of conscience playing this game as a kid. I actually thought, Oh no, I shouldn't have done that. Sure, I can load a save, but she still seems dead to me.

The game itself is good fun, amusing throughout and has solid, rewarding map design, but is even shorter than I remembered it being. I somehow managed to take twelve hours to complete the quest back in the day, but even remembering it as poorly as I do now, I finished it in five hours flat, and that's with all three optional areas explored and, if I'm not mistaken, every last powerup collected. I'm a lot better at strategy than I was then, as I quickly realized that herb boots and magic was superior to anything you could do with weapons in most situations. I didn't bother buying either the Massive or Flame Bow. I remember believing one of these was required to defeat Seth, but I got to him with only half my health at level 10 and beat him just fine with Hellfire and the Light Sword on my second try. It helps that I had put all my points into magic, which figures into resisting the "harm" attacks.

The quest feels incomplete, and that's probably because it is. Clearly they were rushed. All sorts of plot threads are left dangling, and in the source scripts you can find a quest that doesn't happen and quite a few references to a "Port Town" that doesn't exist. As it is, just when the game feels like it's really getting going, it comes to a pretty abrupt end. You know, it helps if I think of this as being the first DMOD. It isn't, of course, but it's so similar to them in structure that it's not hard to think of it that way, and by that standard it wouldn't be topped for a long time.

--The official DMODs (both of them)--

001: The Search for Milli Vanilli Author: Seth Robinson Release Date: Shortly after Dink, I imagine

This is the first DMOD. It's shorter than Milli Vanilli's career following the revelation that they weren't actually singing. There's no combat, or there shouldn't be - there are Slayers wandering around, but fighting them would be stupid and pointless. Sure, it's a one-joke DMOD, but I think it's a pretty funny joke. It's hard to imagine anyone caring enough to reunite Milli Vanilli, but Dink and exactly one fan (this feels so right) believe in the image. Can't you see, you dear sweet boy, it doesn't matter - Girl, you know it's true, even if it isn't. When the legend becomes truth, print the legend. Ten out of ten, I played it five times in a row while crying bittersweet tears of raw joy and lip-synching my heart out. Recommended.

002: Mystery Island Author: RTSoft Release Date: July 1, 1998

"Over five megabytes, they have to be kidding!" I remember saying. I counted percentage points as all of those bits treaded their sullen march down the narrow corridor that was my phone line. Still, this was gonna be great. They even called it "Dink Smallwood Part II!"

Well, that may have been a bit much for them to say, as I completed this in about forty minutes without really remembering what I was supposed to do at first. Still, it was pretty awesome of RTSoft to make one more contribution to Dink lore, including those lovely bitmaps and those crazy robot graphics. The ship segment, composed of minigames, was a cool idea that showed off how much you could do with the scripting, but I really can't beat the vomit game. I don't know if the speed is machine-dependent or if I just suck, but I lose every time. Fortunately, you can reload your save and keep beating the very easy frogger-but-with-sharks minigame.

I've got to say, this story is an even deeper trip into Dink's twisted psyche, from the mental torture of the kid on the boat to straight up mating with a duck. Hats off, RTSoft, I'm not sure anybody has ever topped this very early DMOD (A few others existed already, but I think they might all have been by Mike Snyder) in terms of the sheer level of messed-up crap you are required to do. As for the gameplay, the biggest challenge is definitely when you have to hit a bunch of cameras under a strict time limit, but if you plan your route ahead of time and are efficient it's totally doable.

The story is something gruesome but very silly about robots that were supposedly meant for farming ("You planted DEATH, old man!") being programmed to do evil. It's simultaneously a huge departure from the original story and totally classic Dink. There are two endings, and personally, I like the "bad" one where Dink completely wigs out a bit more. "Nooo, this trip sucked ass," he explains. Well put.