Reply to Re: Crazy Old Tim Plays all the DMODs of 2004
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Ah, back to 2004. There shouldn't be anymore interruptions like that one unless some old author pops up and re-authorizes some lost DMOD from the early days.
189: Dinkaventure Author: Marko (MTG) Release Date: February 16, 2004
"What am i doing here... ?"
It's not a great sign when the author's own description ends with the words, "Not too good."
That's a good question, Dink.
Here's a big, empty DMOD. After the initial segment in the graveyard, where you have to push on a specific grave to continue, the rest of "Dinkaventure" consists of a long series of screenlocked monster fights on map screens that look poor and have no borders. The path made of screens is thin and winding, so you're forced to stumble around blindly. This can get you in trouble, too. There's one place where you can blunder onto a screenlocked screen but be trapped along the edge by a fence, unable to reach the monsters.
No, it really doesn't.
You do find a boomerang early on, and it's fun at first to fight slayers with it, but there are much better DMODs to do this in, and it quickly becomes boring without any sort of premise or point to drive things. There's no story here at all, very little text, and just one scripted NPC, a little girl who looks for flowers and tells you that she's never heard of "Adventure Forest." I never saw the little girl; she's on an optional path that I didn't find while playing. There's another NPC who was supposed to be scripted, but her script fell prey to the bug that turns entire scripts into the character ÿ. According to Simeon on an old forum post, this is a bug in the "compiler" that creates the compressed .d scripts. He says it happens when the script contains a character that the compiler doesn't handle. This problem has rendered several DMODs unplayable, but it doesn't make a big difference here.
Look out, Dink, it's a giant luchador!
Eventually you'll reach a boss. That's a picture of the pro wrestler "Rey Mysterio," real name Oscar Guiterrez. His script, too, consists entirely of ÿ, but you can still fight him because all of his stats are set in the editor. Nothing happens when you win, of course. MTG must think very highly of El Rey, because he typed the number 4,294,936,223 into the "experience" field. That is a lot of experience. The game seems to ignore this preposterous suggestion. For comparison's sake, the highest level I've reached in a DMOD so far is 18, and it takes just 178,500 experience to get there. The maximum level, 32, requires 1,041,600 experience. That's a lot in Dink, but if Rey Mysterio really gave out as many points as his experience field indicates, it'd be enough to get Dink from level 1 to level 32 more than 4,000 times.
I guess this DMOD isn't as terrible as some of the worst of the worst. You could sort of have fun fighting its many enemies, but I found it boring. It's the complete lack of a premise, let alone a plot, that really sours me on this one.
190: Hide-and-seek Author: TA Release Date: February 20, 2004
"Ready or not Milder i'm goming"
"Hide-and-seek" is not to be confused with the 2008 DMOD titled "Hide-n-Seek." Yes, with the hyphens and everything.
According to the description, "Dink and Milder is playing hide-and-seek.You are Dink and you have to find Milder." This is still more background than "Dinkaventure" gave. Unfortunately, this DMOD turns out to be even more pointless than that one.
Whoops, I gave away the ending.
At least in "Dinkaventure," you had enemies to fight. Here, There's nothing but a big block of forty-eight screens with trees carelessly lumped about them and invisible walls at the edges. Dink says his line (quoted above) at the start, and Milder has his line to say at the end, and that's it.
There is one other thing to find - in one of the corners, there's a house. Inside, you'll find what are apparently statues of all the enemy types from the original game. You can't interact with them in any way, but they're there. The author must have been proud of this extra touch.
Since you're finding Milder, I'll bet this is set before the original game. That would have been an exciting entry for the ol' timeline.
191: A Knight's Tale Trois: Knight of the Round Author: SabreTrout Release Date: March 7, 2004
"Just call me Saint Slashalot"
Yay, Jarvis is back to save me from playing boring, pointless DMODs! And he's too badass to use numerals or the English word "three."
Jarvis thinks quickly to cover up inconsistencies between DMODs in the same series.
Honestly, this DMOD is rather sloppy, but it's so enthusiastic that it's good for a laugh. Jarvis's smug self-satisfaction has reached stratospheric levels, and he puts down everybody he meets in an amusingly cruel fashion while constantly declaring how awesome he is. The plot doesn't really matter, so I'm not going to waste any words on it. All you need to know is that Jarvis isn't really interested in helping people, but he does their quests anyway just to demonstrate what a bad ass he is.
This installment features the return of Pondlady! Yay, Pondlady!
So that's fun and all, but like I said: sloppy. Jarvis's godly two feet of Warcraft II Knight beefcake horribly transmogrify into some ugly pig farmer every time he tries to push something. I also ran into a nasty bug that seems unavoidable where the DMOD fades down but doesn't bother fading back up. I got past this using the console to run fade_up manually. There are two spots where you can end up stuck on a locked screen without being able to reach the enemies to unlock it. During the ending, the script doesn't freeze Jarvis, so you can accidentally interrupt the cutscene, Bishop's Quest style.
Would it have been too much trouble to finish tiling the floor?
There's only two savebots in this DMOD - one right at the start, and another right before the end boss. Therefore, for most of the DMOD, you have to backtrack in order to save. Another savebot somewhere would've been nice. What's worse, there is practically no way to ever restore your health. I had some trouble with an optional midboss because of this, but the final boss is really easy.
Jarvis ain't 'fraid of no ghost.
The second "Knight's Tale" is still my favorite because it's straightforward, compact and fun. This one gets a bit tripped up by a few things, but you still get more of Jarvis being a snarky dink, and that's good to have in the world.
192: Kill Murdoock!! Author: Neo Release Date: March 22, 2004
"Great. Another go-kill-win game. What's happened in your world?"
Boy, here's an unusual DMOD. You know, it was better than I was expecting.
Dink is hanging out with his mom (??) when he's magically abducted by some wizard who wants him to kill an evil guy named Murdoock. During the intro, you're given the chance to choose a weapon (sword or bow) and an additional option (fireball or three health potions). You're then sent to fight Murdoock immediately! No questing, no getting lost, no filler, just "go kill this guy - and here he is!" It's a bold step. I can appreciate it.
Murdoock isn't a totally run-of-the-mill dude, either. Every time you hit him, he summons a monster. However, this doesn't always go so well for him. He sometimes summons grey boncas, who tend to attack him instead of you. You're better off picking the bow at the start, but it's not hard at any rate.
Dink does battle with the mighty Murdoock. My goodness, that is a silly name.
After you beat Murdoock, you have to clean up any monsters that are still hanging around. The screen then unlocks. It's a very short walk to the ending, but you can also get a DinkSaber (from Star Dink) for some reason. There are even a few boncas to try it out on if you're so inclined.
The ending promises a sequel. "Yeah, sure," I said, but it turns out there actually was a followup released in 2006. Neo, you are just full of surprises.
189: Dinkaventure Author: Marko (MTG) Release Date: February 16, 2004
"What am i doing here... ?"
It's not a great sign when the author's own description ends with the words, "Not too good."
************This DMOD, "Dinkaventure,"************* ********Has been awarded the prestigious********* ****DINK FOREVER MEMORIAL AWARD OF BADNESS***** ********On this day September 19, 2014*******
That's a good question, Dink.
Here's a big, empty DMOD. After the initial segment in the graveyard, where you have to push on a specific grave to continue, the rest of "Dinkaventure" consists of a long series of screenlocked monster fights on map screens that look poor and have no borders. The path made of screens is thin and winding, so you're forced to stumble around blindly. This can get you in trouble, too. There's one place where you can blunder onto a screenlocked screen but be trapped along the edge by a fence, unable to reach the monsters.
No, it really doesn't.
You do find a boomerang early on, and it's fun at first to fight slayers with it, but there are much better DMODs to do this in, and it quickly becomes boring without any sort of premise or point to drive things. There's no story here at all, very little text, and just one scripted NPC, a little girl who looks for flowers and tells you that she's never heard of "Adventure Forest." I never saw the little girl; she's on an optional path that I didn't find while playing. There's another NPC who was supposed to be scripted, but her script fell prey to the bug that turns entire scripts into the character ÿ. According to Simeon on an old forum post, this is a bug in the "compiler" that creates the compressed .d scripts. He says it happens when the script contains a character that the compiler doesn't handle. This problem has rendered several DMODs unplayable, but it doesn't make a big difference here.
Look out, Dink, it's a giant luchador!
Eventually you'll reach a boss. That's a picture of the pro wrestler "Rey Mysterio," real name Oscar Guiterrez. His script, too, consists entirely of ÿ, but you can still fight him because all of his stats are set in the editor. Nothing happens when you win, of course. MTG must think very highly of El Rey, because he typed the number 4,294,936,223 into the "experience" field. That is a lot of experience. The game seems to ignore this preposterous suggestion. For comparison's sake, the highest level I've reached in a DMOD so far is 18, and it takes just 178,500 experience to get there. The maximum level, 32, requires 1,041,600 experience. That's a lot in Dink, but if Rey Mysterio really gave out as many points as his experience field indicates, it'd be enough to get Dink from level 1 to level 32 more than 4,000 times.
I guess this DMOD isn't as terrible as some of the worst of the worst. You could sort of have fun fighting its many enemies, but I found it boring. It's the complete lack of a premise, let alone a plot, that really sours me on this one.
190: Hide-and-seek Author: TA Release Date: February 20, 2004
"Ready or not Milder i'm goming"
"Hide-and-seek" is not to be confused with the 2008 DMOD titled "Hide-n-Seek." Yes, with the hyphens and everything.
According to the description, "Dink and Milder is playing hide-and-seek.You are Dink and you have to find Milder." This is still more background than "Dinkaventure" gave. Unfortunately, this DMOD turns out to be even more pointless than that one.
************This DMOD, "Hide-and-seek,"************ ********Has been awarded the prestigious********* ****DINK FOREVER MEMORIAL AWARD OF BADNESS***** ********On this day September 20, 2014*******
Whoops, I gave away the ending.
At least in "Dinkaventure," you had enemies to fight. Here, There's nothing but a big block of forty-eight screens with trees carelessly lumped about them and invisible walls at the edges. Dink says his line (quoted above) at the start, and Milder has his line to say at the end, and that's it.
There is one other thing to find - in one of the corners, there's a house. Inside, you'll find what are apparently statues of all the enemy types from the original game. You can't interact with them in any way, but they're there. The author must have been proud of this extra touch.
Since you're finding Milder, I'll bet this is set before the original game. That would have been an exciting entry for the ol' timeline.
191: A Knight's Tale Trois: Knight of the Round Author: SabreTrout Release Date: March 7, 2004
"Just call me Saint Slashalot"
Yay, Jarvis is back to save me from playing boring, pointless DMODs! And he's too badass to use numerals or the English word "three."
Jarvis thinks quickly to cover up inconsistencies between DMODs in the same series.
Honestly, this DMOD is rather sloppy, but it's so enthusiastic that it's good for a laugh. Jarvis's smug self-satisfaction has reached stratospheric levels, and he puts down everybody he meets in an amusingly cruel fashion while constantly declaring how awesome he is. The plot doesn't really matter, so I'm not going to waste any words on it. All you need to know is that Jarvis isn't really interested in helping people, but he does their quests anyway just to demonstrate what a bad ass he is.
This installment features the return of Pondlady! Yay, Pondlady!
So that's fun and all, but like I said: sloppy. Jarvis's godly two feet of Warcraft II Knight beefcake horribly transmogrify into some ugly pig farmer every time he tries to push something. I also ran into a nasty bug that seems unavoidable where the DMOD fades down but doesn't bother fading back up. I got past this using the console to run fade_up manually. There are two spots where you can end up stuck on a locked screen without being able to reach the enemies to unlock it. During the ending, the script doesn't freeze Jarvis, so you can accidentally interrupt the cutscene, Bishop's Quest style.
Would it have been too much trouble to finish tiling the floor?
There's only two savebots in this DMOD - one right at the start, and another right before the end boss. Therefore, for most of the DMOD, you have to backtrack in order to save. Another savebot somewhere would've been nice. What's worse, there is practically no way to ever restore your health. I had some trouble with an optional midboss because of this, but the final boss is really easy.
Jarvis ain't 'fraid of no ghost.
The second "Knight's Tale" is still my favorite because it's straightforward, compact and fun. This one gets a bit tripped up by a few things, but you still get more of Jarvis being a snarky dink, and that's good to have in the world.
192: Kill Murdoock!! Author: Neo Release Date: March 22, 2004
"Great. Another go-kill-win game. What's happened in your world?"
Boy, here's an unusual DMOD. You know, it was better than I was expecting.
Dink is hanging out with his mom (??) when he's magically abducted by some wizard who wants him to kill an evil guy named Murdoock. During the intro, you're given the chance to choose a weapon (sword or bow) and an additional option (fireball or three health potions). You're then sent to fight Murdoock immediately! No questing, no getting lost, no filler, just "go kill this guy - and here he is!" It's a bold step. I can appreciate it.
Murdoock isn't a totally run-of-the-mill dude, either. Every time you hit him, he summons a monster. However, this doesn't always go so well for him. He sometimes summons grey boncas, who tend to attack him instead of you. You're better off picking the bow at the start, but it's not hard at any rate.
Dink does battle with the mighty Murdoock. My goodness, that is a silly name.
After you beat Murdoock, you have to clean up any monsters that are still hanging around. The screen then unlocks. It's a very short walk to the ending, but you can also get a DinkSaber (from Star Dink) for some reason. There are even a few boncas to try it out on if you're so inclined.
The ending promises a sequel. "Yeah, sure," I said, but it turns out there actually was a followup released in 2006. Neo, you are just full of surprises.
