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204: Cast Awakening Part 1: Initiation Author: Dan Walma Release Date: September 29, 2004
"I mean, if I'm an asshole, and I eat pie, does that mean my pie is an asshole?"
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.5) on The Dink Network.
This DMOD is recommended in Dink Smallwood HD.
Wow, a Redink1 DMOD. It's been a while. When I first learned about it, it overturned my assumption that he'd stopped making them a lot sooner. Looking back, even "Dukie's Shooting Gallery" was an old unreleased project, so we have to go back to 2002's "Cycles of Evil" for the last new DMOD by the prolific Mr. Walma. This is his last DMOD - to date, at least. Who knows what the future may hold?
DuckLord made a bug-fixing update to this DMOD in 2007; for this, he has a co-author credit on the site, like Ted Shutes on Legend of the Duck.
I was an enthusiastic player of all of Dan's mods back in the ancient days of 1998-2001, so I wish I were more eager to write about this one. I feel like I should take some time to explain the last known whereabouts of my head. I'm gonna dig up some stuff that I initially intended to keep to myself, but I don't feel like doing that anymore. I really do apologize for delaying the writeup of the actual DMOD, but I feel like I gotta explain myself. If you don't wanna read that kind of thing, scroll down until you see a pair of hyphens on their own line.
I was not looking forward to writing about "Cloud Castle 2" either, as I've mentioned. I had this sense that I was starting to cross into a "modern period" of DMODs that most of the people around remember and care about, and I felt like my opinions might not be so well-received anymore. I was relieved when I liked CC2 so much, as I thought it wouldn't be an issue, but then I was told that I hadn't given "due credit" to a mod about which the worst thing I'd said was that it was the second-best DMOD I'd ever played.
Skull's words got to me. I was frustrated that, after I put a particularly large amount of effort into writing about "Scarab," he'd think I was so bad at this as to make up my mind about the DMOD before I started. I was miffed, I'll admit it (Punisher calling me an idiot for not finding the map wasn't so fun either). Of course, he's entitled to his opinion no matter how much it annoys me, but my motivation for this entire project flagged big time. Looking forward, it didn't seem like it was going to be fun anymore, so what was the point? It isn't just what Skull said, either. I've been really depressed lately for reasons that are still too personal to get into here, and my motivation to do anything - getting out of bed, for example - has been at an all-time low.
I talked myself into starting "Initiation," but my mood being what it was, it didn't go so well. I struggled to make progress. I got frustrated easily. All I could see were flaws. The flaws were real, but I am pretty sure I wouldn't have been so harsh on them or focused on them as much if I'd been in a better state of mind.
Out of pure stubbornness, I stuck with it, and after a while I started to have fun fighting the monsters and finding my way through the maze. I started having quite a bit of fun, actually, and the fact that I was able to do that in the kind of mood I was in proves that this is a good DMOD. This positive feeling lasted until near the end, when I started running into challenges that seemed impossible. After four hours of play, I gave up. I directed my browser to the Dink Network, intending to post about how this project was over. When the page loaded, however, I saw something that I certainly hadn't expected. Dan had updated "Initiation" on its tenth anniversary.
In his post about the new patch, he mentioned this project as one of the factors that inspired him to go back and work on "Initiation" again. Suddenly, I remembered what made me want to do this in the first place. I wanted to give something back to a community that meant a lot to me when I was younger. To see that I've managed to inspire some new activity in that community from people who hadn't been directly involved in some time - well, that's the best possible result of the work I've done here. It really meant a lot to me to see that. Thanks, Dan, I mean it.
Thus, I have resolved to press on. Here is a writeup about "Initiation." I can't really purge the influence of the mood I was in from my take on the DMOD, but now that I've told you about it, you can at least conclude for yourself how much you think it colored my view of things.
--
My goodness, that DOES sound unpleasant.
In "Cast Awakening Part 1: Initiation," Dink is invited to a ceremony in which he is to be enshrined in a "Hall of Heroes." This turns out to be a trick by the Cast, who actually imprison Dink deep within an underground stronghold. This plays out in an almost fully-voiced intro, which is a great touch. The voices, done by Dinkers, are obviously a bit amateurish, but their performances still add a lot of comedy to the scene. I particularly enjoyed Simon Klaebe as Lothar. Dink is the only character in the intro without a voice, which is kind of strange. The low sampling rate on the audio really took me back to early 'talkie' games like King's Quest V. The presence of voiceover really made the intro to this one stand out, and it made me think of how fun it would be to have a fully voice-acted DMOD.
I don't think that Dink is really quite this dense.
The majority of the story is contained in the intro. There are plenty of characters to talk to, each with their own little touches of personality, but they tend to exist to do one specific thing, and that's it. It's rare that you'll go back and talk to a character you've previously spoken to. In fact, the only character other than Dink who has a persistent role throughout the game is Death, but I'll get to him in a bit. Anyway, Dink must escape, and that's all there really is to it. "Initiation" isn't really an "epic adventure" type of DMOD. It's more like a silly romp that ended up getting a lot bigger than you'd expect from that sort of mod.
"Initiation" takes place almost entirely in a series of cave "levels," from level 7 at the bottom to level 1 at the top. Each level has a designated purpose and a different recolor of the cave tiles. There are also color-coded doors that require you to obtain a matching key in order to open them. This simple sort of map is less satisfying than a bigger, more varied world to explore like in "Cloud Castle 2," but it still works pretty well in its own way. The emphasis on levels, doors and keys gave this DMOD a bit of an arcadey feel to me. It reminded me of old-school dungeon crawlers like Gauntlet. It was satisfying to plunge through the tunnels defeating the many monsters and finding keys and secrets - at least until I got frustrated and stuck near the end.
The cave colors are kind of odd, but they do serve to distinguish one level from another well. By the way, I always get a kick out of these kind of text effects in the Dink engine.
Humor is a major focus of this one. Dink is always pretending (?) to be an idiot and saying weird things, and there are references and plays on words everywhere. Some of it works, and some of it doesn't. "Initiation" is set shortly after the original game, so it makes sense that we get a less mature Dink here like the old days, but some of the jokes were a miss for me. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for "random" humor or dirty jokes when I played, I dunno. My favorite jokes typically involved references to the community or characters questioning things that made no sense ("How did we get this huge ass catapult down here?" leads to a lengthy explanation of feats of engineering used to make that possible, but they've got no answer for how they're going to get it out).
One of several silly jokes about Talmadge Bradley. Y'know, "Tal" works surprisingly well as an obscenity.
Dink is mentally unstable.
My favorite thing in the DMOD was the role played by the personification of Death, "The Santa Claus who wears black and takes lives." It's very amusing the way he tries to talk Dink into killing as many people as possible in order to help him meet his quota. Every now and then, he'll row onto the screen to check how many people Dink has killed. He'll also show up sometimes to gloat when Dink dies. If you kill the various NPCs, you'll be rewarded with stat potions. I wish I had done this all along, it would have been a big help. Aside from NPCs who have some kind of useful function like running a shop, there's no consequence for this until you kill absolutely everybody, which immediately triggers one of the bad endings.
Death wins again.
There are quite a few neat features in this DMOD, actually. There are lots of different equippable items. The cleverest new item is a glove that causes Dink to face backwards and moonwalk, enabling him to punch as he moves backward instead of having to keep turning around to attack as you usually do. Although a lot of the items are just sword-like weapons, it is funny to see Dink wielding a loaf of bread, a hunk of meat, and a fish (a "SabreTrout," haha). There's also a casino with a slot machine and a blackjack game, which is very cool to see implemented in a DMOD.
That's a lot of items!
Hitting on 16? Too risky for me.
Unfortunately, frustration marred my good time with this one. Mostly, this was near the end, although I did have some trouble early on thanks to the fact that you're given just two bombs. If you waste them, like I did, the only way to get more is by walking through what appears to be a solid wall behind a locked door and buying more from a limited stock. This was kind of annoying, but these sorts of issues may be alleviated by the new patch, which apparently adds hints.
My big problem was that the enemies at the end are just too damn hard. I know I'm going to catch some heat for this, because none of the reviews seem to agree with me, but I don't care: you don't give your enemies - non-boss enemies, at that - an attack of 50! When I've encountered those kind of stats before, it has almost always meant that you're somewhere that you weren't supposed to go. And sure, I should have played on Wimp mode (believe me, I am done being prideful when it comes to difficulty selection), but the difficulty selection screen claimed that the game was "not made intentionally difficult." 50 attack! Come on!
Maybe some people enjoy a really stiff challenge - I've been in that mood myself on occasion - but this DMOD doesn't bill itself that way, and it ISN'T that hard for most of its length. When you reach level 1, though, there is a crazy spike in difficulty. My first problem was the undead enemies, which have 50 attack, 150 hit points, and teleport behind you when you swing at them, causing most attacks to miss. I eventually figured out a good way to handle these guys using the moonwalk glove, but that item is very easy to miss, and to me it just seems like bad design to lock the player into battle with something they can't really fight without special items they may or may not have found without at least indicating this somehow. At least once you have the glove and figure out a good strategy (hint: magic), these guys aren't too tough. I ran into worse problems even closer to the end.
Right before the final boss, there's an area called the "training grounds" where everything goes to Hell. You have to fight screens that are just gushing with enemies that take unusual forms, like the heart, barrel and crate sprites. I couldn't even get past the first screen with crazy attacking fish when I got there. It turns out that magic is absolutely essential to beating this part, but I had long ago deemed the spells totally useless for combat because, when you get them, they are. How was I supposed to know that the spells get stronger at 5 and 10 magic points? The uselessness of the spells made me ignore the magic stat, which usually just speeds up the recharge, entirely. Already at level 10, I had to go back and do more grinding.
All you need to understand is everything you know is wrong.
With improved magic, I was able to get past the fish. I was met by hordes of strange enemies, like bouncing magic potions that cast a nasty "firebolt" spell that rains down upon you when hit. I did quite like the big hearts, which declare, "Sticks and stones will never hurt me," a reversal of the old rhyme that, naturally, means you must use words to hurt them instead. Talking to them makes Dink say, "Die!" and does 20 damage. I got a kick out of that. The hordes of enemies are very, very tough. The most frustrating thing about it is the fact that, after the whole DMOD has featured screenlocks that only happen once, that rule goes out the window here, where it really matters. I could have handled things if it weren't for this. It takes a long time to fight a screen full of these enemies, and you've got to fight loads of them to get anywhere. It's easy to screw up and have to start the whole section over. And that's not the worst part.
The point of the training grounds area is to retrieve a powerful sword, but this sword won't show up until you defeat a screen full of enemies that's even harder than the others because it gives you a lot less room to move. When it does appear, you can't just go get it. Instead, you have to go through several more screens, walk through what appears to be a solid edge, and then walk through the void, getting assaulted by tough monsters even there, to get it. The walkthrough wasn't very clear on this point either, so I got really stuck here (at least the new version adds a hint about this). Finally, after several tries, I gave up and cheated. I used the "kill enemies" cheat to clear the relevant screen of enemies and warped over to grab the sword, and I don't regret it. I'm certainly not saying it's impossible to beat this part, but after spending well over five hours on a DMOD that you could definitely beat in two, I couldn't stomach the thought of several more attempts at marching through that Hell.
Look, I know most of you are probably thinking that I just suck and don't know what I'm doing, but I have played more Dink Smallwood than most people, and I've managed to beat the great majority of the mods without cheating. I think it's fair to say that I represent a significant portion of the potential audience for this game when I say that, for me, this section was too hard and really spoiled my enjoyment of the DMOD.
Dang it, I hear you making those chicken noises at me!
Hey, but I beat the final boss without cheating. He was a pretty tough sucker without any of the NPC-murdering stat potions, but I got him. The first time I saw the good ending, the game crashed in the middle of it, which I guess serves me right for cheating.
The different ways the endings are triggered are pretty clever in how distinct they are from one another. I like the way the multiple endings are handled here. Icons representing the different endings appear on the title screen, enabling you to rewatch them. This is a nice touch that motivated me to play a little longer to unlock all four endings. The endings themselves all definitely take a comedic approach, but the good ending does set up what was to be the "second" part in what Dan soon called his "Ancient Legacy" series, Paragon. The series was to include the already existing "FIAT" and "End of Time v2."
A title screen complete with all four endings. The shiny bits are the ending logos. I like how they're worked into the scene.
"Initiation" is a cool DMOD that I'll definitely remember, but it had some frustrating elements that kept me from enjoying it as much as some of Dan's previous work. Still, I'm glad it has a new update, and I hope the author will dabble some more with DMOD development if he gets the time.
There are two more DMODs from 2004, so expect those soon. Hopefully I can move forward and have a less painful experience with this project than I've been having lately. Thank you all for reading and for putting up with my craziness.
"I mean, if I'm an asshole, and I eat pie, does that mean my pie is an asshole?"
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.5) on The Dink Network.
This DMOD is recommended in Dink Smallwood HD.
Wow, a Redink1 DMOD. It's been a while. When I first learned about it, it overturned my assumption that he'd stopped making them a lot sooner. Looking back, even "Dukie's Shooting Gallery" was an old unreleased project, so we have to go back to 2002's "Cycles of Evil" for the last new DMOD by the prolific Mr. Walma. This is his last DMOD - to date, at least. Who knows what the future may hold?
DuckLord made a bug-fixing update to this DMOD in 2007; for this, he has a co-author credit on the site, like Ted Shutes on Legend of the Duck.
I was an enthusiastic player of all of Dan's mods back in the ancient days of 1998-2001, so I wish I were more eager to write about this one. I feel like I should take some time to explain the last known whereabouts of my head. I'm gonna dig up some stuff that I initially intended to keep to myself, but I don't feel like doing that anymore. I really do apologize for delaying the writeup of the actual DMOD, but I feel like I gotta explain myself. If you don't wanna read that kind of thing, scroll down until you see a pair of hyphens on their own line.
I was not looking forward to writing about "Cloud Castle 2" either, as I've mentioned. I had this sense that I was starting to cross into a "modern period" of DMODs that most of the people around remember and care about, and I felt like my opinions might not be so well-received anymore. I was relieved when I liked CC2 so much, as I thought it wouldn't be an issue, but then I was told that I hadn't given "due credit" to a mod about which the worst thing I'd said was that it was the second-best DMOD I'd ever played.
Skull's words got to me. I was frustrated that, after I put a particularly large amount of effort into writing about "Scarab," he'd think I was so bad at this as to make up my mind about the DMOD before I started. I was miffed, I'll admit it (Punisher calling me an idiot for not finding the map wasn't so fun either). Of course, he's entitled to his opinion no matter how much it annoys me, but my motivation for this entire project flagged big time. Looking forward, it didn't seem like it was going to be fun anymore, so what was the point? It isn't just what Skull said, either. I've been really depressed lately for reasons that are still too personal to get into here, and my motivation to do anything - getting out of bed, for example - has been at an all-time low.
I talked myself into starting "Initiation," but my mood being what it was, it didn't go so well. I struggled to make progress. I got frustrated easily. All I could see were flaws. The flaws were real, but I am pretty sure I wouldn't have been so harsh on them or focused on them as much if I'd been in a better state of mind.
Out of pure stubbornness, I stuck with it, and after a while I started to have fun fighting the monsters and finding my way through the maze. I started having quite a bit of fun, actually, and the fact that I was able to do that in the kind of mood I was in proves that this is a good DMOD. This positive feeling lasted until near the end, when I started running into challenges that seemed impossible. After four hours of play, I gave up. I directed my browser to the Dink Network, intending to post about how this project was over. When the page loaded, however, I saw something that I certainly hadn't expected. Dan had updated "Initiation" on its tenth anniversary.
In his post about the new patch, he mentioned this project as one of the factors that inspired him to go back and work on "Initiation" again. Suddenly, I remembered what made me want to do this in the first place. I wanted to give something back to a community that meant a lot to me when I was younger. To see that I've managed to inspire some new activity in that community from people who hadn't been directly involved in some time - well, that's the best possible result of the work I've done here. It really meant a lot to me to see that. Thanks, Dan, I mean it.
Thus, I have resolved to press on. Here is a writeup about "Initiation." I can't really purge the influence of the mood I was in from my take on the DMOD, but now that I've told you about it, you can at least conclude for yourself how much you think it colored my view of things.
--
My goodness, that DOES sound unpleasant.
In "Cast Awakening Part 1: Initiation," Dink is invited to a ceremony in which he is to be enshrined in a "Hall of Heroes." This turns out to be a trick by the Cast, who actually imprison Dink deep within an underground stronghold. This plays out in an almost fully-voiced intro, which is a great touch. The voices, done by Dinkers, are obviously a bit amateurish, but their performances still add a lot of comedy to the scene. I particularly enjoyed Simon Klaebe as Lothar. Dink is the only character in the intro without a voice, which is kind of strange. The low sampling rate on the audio really took me back to early 'talkie' games like King's Quest V. The presence of voiceover really made the intro to this one stand out, and it made me think of how fun it would be to have a fully voice-acted DMOD.
I don't think that Dink is really quite this dense.
The majority of the story is contained in the intro. There are plenty of characters to talk to, each with their own little touches of personality, but they tend to exist to do one specific thing, and that's it. It's rare that you'll go back and talk to a character you've previously spoken to. In fact, the only character other than Dink who has a persistent role throughout the game is Death, but I'll get to him in a bit. Anyway, Dink must escape, and that's all there really is to it. "Initiation" isn't really an "epic adventure" type of DMOD. It's more like a silly romp that ended up getting a lot bigger than you'd expect from that sort of mod.
"Initiation" takes place almost entirely in a series of cave "levels," from level 7 at the bottom to level 1 at the top. Each level has a designated purpose and a different recolor of the cave tiles. There are also color-coded doors that require you to obtain a matching key in order to open them. This simple sort of map is less satisfying than a bigger, more varied world to explore like in "Cloud Castle 2," but it still works pretty well in its own way. The emphasis on levels, doors and keys gave this DMOD a bit of an arcadey feel to me. It reminded me of old-school dungeon crawlers like Gauntlet. It was satisfying to plunge through the tunnels defeating the many monsters and finding keys and secrets - at least until I got frustrated and stuck near the end.
The cave colors are kind of odd, but they do serve to distinguish one level from another well. By the way, I always get a kick out of these kind of text effects in the Dink engine.
Humor is a major focus of this one. Dink is always pretending (?) to be an idiot and saying weird things, and there are references and plays on words everywhere. Some of it works, and some of it doesn't. "Initiation" is set shortly after the original game, so it makes sense that we get a less mature Dink here like the old days, but some of the jokes were a miss for me. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for "random" humor or dirty jokes when I played, I dunno. My favorite jokes typically involved references to the community or characters questioning things that made no sense ("How did we get this huge ass catapult down here?" leads to a lengthy explanation of feats of engineering used to make that possible, but they've got no answer for how they're going to get it out).
One of several silly jokes about Talmadge Bradley. Y'know, "Tal" works surprisingly well as an obscenity.
Dink is mentally unstable.
My favorite thing in the DMOD was the role played by the personification of Death, "The Santa Claus who wears black and takes lives." It's very amusing the way he tries to talk Dink into killing as many people as possible in order to help him meet his quota. Every now and then, he'll row onto the screen to check how many people Dink has killed. He'll also show up sometimes to gloat when Dink dies. If you kill the various NPCs, you'll be rewarded with stat potions. I wish I had done this all along, it would have been a big help. Aside from NPCs who have some kind of useful function like running a shop, there's no consequence for this until you kill absolutely everybody, which immediately triggers one of the bad endings.
Death wins again.
There are quite a few neat features in this DMOD, actually. There are lots of different equippable items. The cleverest new item is a glove that causes Dink to face backwards and moonwalk, enabling him to punch as he moves backward instead of having to keep turning around to attack as you usually do. Although a lot of the items are just sword-like weapons, it is funny to see Dink wielding a loaf of bread, a hunk of meat, and a fish (a "SabreTrout," haha). There's also a casino with a slot machine and a blackjack game, which is very cool to see implemented in a DMOD.
That's a lot of items!
Hitting on 16? Too risky for me.
Unfortunately, frustration marred my good time with this one. Mostly, this was near the end, although I did have some trouble early on thanks to the fact that you're given just two bombs. If you waste them, like I did, the only way to get more is by walking through what appears to be a solid wall behind a locked door and buying more from a limited stock. This was kind of annoying, but these sorts of issues may be alleviated by the new patch, which apparently adds hints.
My big problem was that the enemies at the end are just too damn hard. I know I'm going to catch some heat for this, because none of the reviews seem to agree with me, but I don't care: you don't give your enemies - non-boss enemies, at that - an attack of 50! When I've encountered those kind of stats before, it has almost always meant that you're somewhere that you weren't supposed to go. And sure, I should have played on Wimp mode (believe me, I am done being prideful when it comes to difficulty selection), but the difficulty selection screen claimed that the game was "not made intentionally difficult." 50 attack! Come on!
Maybe some people enjoy a really stiff challenge - I've been in that mood myself on occasion - but this DMOD doesn't bill itself that way, and it ISN'T that hard for most of its length. When you reach level 1, though, there is a crazy spike in difficulty. My first problem was the undead enemies, which have 50 attack, 150 hit points, and teleport behind you when you swing at them, causing most attacks to miss. I eventually figured out a good way to handle these guys using the moonwalk glove, but that item is very easy to miss, and to me it just seems like bad design to lock the player into battle with something they can't really fight without special items they may or may not have found without at least indicating this somehow. At least once you have the glove and figure out a good strategy (hint: magic), these guys aren't too tough. I ran into worse problems even closer to the end.
Right before the final boss, there's an area called the "training grounds" where everything goes to Hell. You have to fight screens that are just gushing with enemies that take unusual forms, like the heart, barrel and crate sprites. I couldn't even get past the first screen with crazy attacking fish when I got there. It turns out that magic is absolutely essential to beating this part, but I had long ago deemed the spells totally useless for combat because, when you get them, they are. How was I supposed to know that the spells get stronger at 5 and 10 magic points? The uselessness of the spells made me ignore the magic stat, which usually just speeds up the recharge, entirely. Already at level 10, I had to go back and do more grinding.
All you need to understand is everything you know is wrong.
With improved magic, I was able to get past the fish. I was met by hordes of strange enemies, like bouncing magic potions that cast a nasty "firebolt" spell that rains down upon you when hit. I did quite like the big hearts, which declare, "Sticks and stones will never hurt me," a reversal of the old rhyme that, naturally, means you must use words to hurt them instead. Talking to them makes Dink say, "Die!" and does 20 damage. I got a kick out of that. The hordes of enemies are very, very tough. The most frustrating thing about it is the fact that, after the whole DMOD has featured screenlocks that only happen once, that rule goes out the window here, where it really matters. I could have handled things if it weren't for this. It takes a long time to fight a screen full of these enemies, and you've got to fight loads of them to get anywhere. It's easy to screw up and have to start the whole section over. And that's not the worst part.
The point of the training grounds area is to retrieve a powerful sword, but this sword won't show up until you defeat a screen full of enemies that's even harder than the others because it gives you a lot less room to move. When it does appear, you can't just go get it. Instead, you have to go through several more screens, walk through what appears to be a solid edge, and then walk through the void, getting assaulted by tough monsters even there, to get it. The walkthrough wasn't very clear on this point either, so I got really stuck here (at least the new version adds a hint about this). Finally, after several tries, I gave up and cheated. I used the "kill enemies" cheat to clear the relevant screen of enemies and warped over to grab the sword, and I don't regret it. I'm certainly not saying it's impossible to beat this part, but after spending well over five hours on a DMOD that you could definitely beat in two, I couldn't stomach the thought of several more attempts at marching through that Hell.
Look, I know most of you are probably thinking that I just suck and don't know what I'm doing, but I have played more Dink Smallwood than most people, and I've managed to beat the great majority of the mods without cheating. I think it's fair to say that I represent a significant portion of the potential audience for this game when I say that, for me, this section was too hard and really spoiled my enjoyment of the DMOD.
Dang it, I hear you making those chicken noises at me!
Hey, but I beat the final boss without cheating. He was a pretty tough sucker without any of the NPC-murdering stat potions, but I got him. The first time I saw the good ending, the game crashed in the middle of it, which I guess serves me right for cheating.
The different ways the endings are triggered are pretty clever in how distinct they are from one another. I like the way the multiple endings are handled here. Icons representing the different endings appear on the title screen, enabling you to rewatch them. This is a nice touch that motivated me to play a little longer to unlock all four endings. The endings themselves all definitely take a comedic approach, but the good ending does set up what was to be the "second" part in what Dan soon called his "Ancient Legacy" series, Paragon. The series was to include the already existing "FIAT" and "End of Time v2."
A title screen complete with all four endings. The shiny bits are the ending logos. I like how they're worked into the scene.
"Initiation" is a cool DMOD that I'll definitely remember, but it had some frustrating elements that kept me from enjoying it as much as some of Dan's previous work. Still, I'm glad it has a new update, and I hope the author will dabble some more with DMOD development if he gets the time.
There are two more DMODs from 2004, so expect those soon. Hopefully I can move forward and have a less painful experience with this project than I've been having lately. Thank you all for reading and for putting up with my craziness.
