Reply to Top 10 D-Mod Development Suggestions
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Note: I break most of the following suggestions quite regularly. So I fully recognize that I'm saying one thing and doing another. But if you can think of any other arguments with the list beside 'well, you don't even follow your own suggestions', please post your views.
1) Don't make an epic D-Mod. And don't even think about trying to make an epic D-Mod as your first one. Why? Epics are just *hard* to make. Trust me. Romps and Quests are relatively simple. You typically have a couple ideas, implement them, and have Dink walk around and do stuff. An Epic should only be as hard as a couple Quests, right? Wrong. Only make an Epic if you have a lot of good ideas that just seemingly pop up out of nowhere, and if you have the dedication required to see it through to the end. Otherwise, just stick with simple and fun Romps. Getting 'stuck' making an epic is very easy to do, and is quite similar to writer's block.
2) Don't allow a small D-Mod idea balloon up to an Epic. If you have a nice idea for a little D-Mod, fine, make a little D-Mod. Don't feel obligated to create a huge adventure out of it, after which you just won't feel like working on it. I'm quite guilty of this, and its one of the reasons why I don't release too many D-Mods anymore.
3) Don't make mazes. On the one hand, Mazes are good for the D-Mod developer: they don't take that much work to create (you don't have to do much scripting) and it is 'good' because it causes the player to walk around the maze for an indefinite amount of time. On the other hand... it isn't very fun for a player to walk through a maze. Mazes are ok if there are a lot of cool things sprinkled around in it (they work good as landmarks, and just make it not feel like a maze), like in the Jungle 'Maze' in Binirit's Twins.
4) Don't frustrate the player. Having a difficult D-Mod is one thing. But having a frustrating D-Mod is horrible. For example, in my very own FIAT, the Pig in the Fire Dungeon is a VERY stupid idea. Not only is the Fire Dungeon simply a maze without any cool things sprinkled about, but there is also a pig that shows up in a random area in the maze each time you kill it. And you have to kill it like 9 times. I must admit, I chuckled when I first got reports of people 'really, really hating that Pig in the Fire Dungeon'. But after playing through some D-Mods where I really, really hated something like the Pig, I've realized that it’s a horrible idea.
5) Line up your tiles correctly, and use more than a single tile for large area. It just looks *ugly* otherwise.
6) Repetition is bad. Repetition is bad. Repetition is bad. Surely, repeating that three times just made a part of your brain twitch in disgust? Imagine what it feels like to play a D-Mod where you have to do the same thing over and over and over again. Example: the Bomb Machine in End of Time v1.01.
7) Learn how to detail screens. If you're going to make a D-Mod, at least place some rocks, grass, flowers, and trees in your landscapes. Place little dishes and food on tables. Put bonca crap and skeletons in your caves. And so on. I'm no expert at it, but when I look at 'sparse' D-Mods (like Lost in Dink) it just irritates me. Look no further than Simeon's D-Mods for what really good detailing looks like.
8) Learn how to use the depth que. I know I was confused by this forever, and it just recently bugged me in Binirit's Twins. She did a pretty good job with detailing the insides of houses with little cups and dishes on the tables, but if you walked by the table those cups would float 'over' Dink too. This is how to make it look right: Find out the y coordinate of the table that you're placing stuff on. In WDE, just check the properties, in DE just click it and it should tell you the coordinates at the bottom of the screen. Then set the depth que of the cup to 1 + the y coordinate of the table. So if the table's Y coordinate is 57, I'd set the depth que of the cup to 58. Then everything will be good, and people will rejoice.
9) Put some effort into making a D-Mod. It’s perfectly okay to set aside a short amount of time to create a D-Mod once in a while, like SimonK did with The Creeping Sands (I think he created it in a weekend). But don't make a habit of releasing a D-Mod a week, especially if you’re inexperienced. Nobody appreciates it. Typically, the less time you spend making a D-Mod, the worse it is. Spend more time adding details to the map, checking for bugs, trying out things that nobody has done before, adding optional dialogue or subquests, or even just learning exactly how DinkC, the dink.ini, and the editor work. Spending a month or more making a D-Mod isn't necessarily a bad thing, even if it’s just a romp.
10) Use humor. One of the more engaging qualities of the original Dink Smallwood game is its (often bizarre and irreproducible) sense of humor. While I doubt many of us will ever create something as cool as beheading ducks or killing Dink's uncle or hitting on Dink's aunt, it is far better to include some humor than just create a serious D-Mod that isn't any fun.
1) Don't make an epic D-Mod. And don't even think about trying to make an epic D-Mod as your first one. Why? Epics are just *hard* to make. Trust me. Romps and Quests are relatively simple. You typically have a couple ideas, implement them, and have Dink walk around and do stuff. An Epic should only be as hard as a couple Quests, right? Wrong. Only make an Epic if you have a lot of good ideas that just seemingly pop up out of nowhere, and if you have the dedication required to see it through to the end. Otherwise, just stick with simple and fun Romps. Getting 'stuck' making an epic is very easy to do, and is quite similar to writer's block.
2) Don't allow a small D-Mod idea balloon up to an Epic. If you have a nice idea for a little D-Mod, fine, make a little D-Mod. Don't feel obligated to create a huge adventure out of it, after which you just won't feel like working on it. I'm quite guilty of this, and its one of the reasons why I don't release too many D-Mods anymore.
3) Don't make mazes. On the one hand, Mazes are good for the D-Mod developer: they don't take that much work to create (you don't have to do much scripting) and it is 'good' because it causes the player to walk around the maze for an indefinite amount of time. On the other hand... it isn't very fun for a player to walk through a maze. Mazes are ok if there are a lot of cool things sprinkled around in it (they work good as landmarks, and just make it not feel like a maze), like in the Jungle 'Maze' in Binirit's Twins.
4) Don't frustrate the player. Having a difficult D-Mod is one thing. But having a frustrating D-Mod is horrible. For example, in my very own FIAT, the Pig in the Fire Dungeon is a VERY stupid idea. Not only is the Fire Dungeon simply a maze without any cool things sprinkled about, but there is also a pig that shows up in a random area in the maze each time you kill it. And you have to kill it like 9 times. I must admit, I chuckled when I first got reports of people 'really, really hating that Pig in the Fire Dungeon'. But after playing through some D-Mods where I really, really hated something like the Pig, I've realized that it’s a horrible idea.
5) Line up your tiles correctly, and use more than a single tile for large area. It just looks *ugly* otherwise.
6) Repetition is bad. Repetition is bad. Repetition is bad. Surely, repeating that three times just made a part of your brain twitch in disgust? Imagine what it feels like to play a D-Mod where you have to do the same thing over and over and over again. Example: the Bomb Machine in End of Time v1.01.
7) Learn how to detail screens. If you're going to make a D-Mod, at least place some rocks, grass, flowers, and trees in your landscapes. Place little dishes and food on tables. Put bonca crap and skeletons in your caves. And so on. I'm no expert at it, but when I look at 'sparse' D-Mods (like Lost in Dink) it just irritates me. Look no further than Simeon's D-Mods for what really good detailing looks like.
8) Learn how to use the depth que. I know I was confused by this forever, and it just recently bugged me in Binirit's Twins. She did a pretty good job with detailing the insides of houses with little cups and dishes on the tables, but if you walked by the table those cups would float 'over' Dink too. This is how to make it look right: Find out the y coordinate of the table that you're placing stuff on. In WDE, just check the properties, in DE just click it and it should tell you the coordinates at the bottom of the screen. Then set the depth que of the cup to 1 + the y coordinate of the table. So if the table's Y coordinate is 57, I'd set the depth que of the cup to 58. Then everything will be good, and people will rejoice.
9) Put some effort into making a D-Mod. It’s perfectly okay to set aside a short amount of time to create a D-Mod once in a while, like SimonK did with The Creeping Sands (I think he created it in a weekend). But don't make a habit of releasing a D-Mod a week, especially if you’re inexperienced. Nobody appreciates it. Typically, the less time you spend making a D-Mod, the worse it is. Spend more time adding details to the map, checking for bugs, trying out things that nobody has done before, adding optional dialogue or subquests, or even just learning exactly how DinkC, the dink.ini, and the editor work. Spending a month or more making a D-Mod isn't necessarily a bad thing, even if it’s just a romp.
10) Use humor. One of the more engaging qualities of the original Dink Smallwood game is its (often bizarre and irreproducible) sense of humor. While I doubt many of us will ever create something as cool as beheading ducks or killing Dink's uncle or hitting on Dink's aunt, it is far better to include some humor than just create a serious D-Mod that isn't any fun.
