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225: The Treasure Battles Author: Erwin Bosch Release Date: September 18, 2005
"Of course I'm having fun. That man over there just died!!"
In the description for this one, we're told that Dink is "knocked out and robbed from nearly everything, even his powers."
See?
Dink was robbed and de-powered on his way to the town of Purunga, where he intends to take part in "the treasure battles." He also wants to track down the thief who robbed him. Purunga itself features shops where you can buy weapons, herb boots, and the hellfire spell. It all seems to be setting up something like the "Gladiator" minigame from "FIAT." Bizarrely, there's absolutely nothing like that here. When you make it to the area labeled "arena," it's just a big open field full of monsters. It leads to a forest area and then to cave and darklands areas. All of this is supposedly the arena, but that doesn't make any sense. The "treasure battles" concept is completely ignored.
This screen, where people watch boncas fight, is the closest thing I could find to an arena.
The map is quite sloppy. Invisible walls are very common, and the edges of screens are rarely matched properly. Most screens have little or no decoration and look quite plain and boring, although there are some unusual-looking screens toward the end.
Can't say I've ever seen anything quite like this screen before.
The difficulty is uneven. There are TONS of enemies everywhere, and I kept blundering onto screens with monsters that were too difficult for me to fight. One screen has FIVE DRAGONS as well as a horde of other enemies - I found this screen totally unsurvivable unless I brought elixirs. On the plus side, this mod uses screenlocks that only work the first time you reach a screen, which is something I'd like to see more often. Speaking of unusual screenlocks, there are two screens where you're required to defeat a fish - you know, just those ordinary fish from the original game - to proceed.
To be fair, there's a sign on the previous screen warning of an "verry unrealistic large amount of bonca's to the east."
The only way to make it past the tough concentrations of enemies is to spend a lot of time grinding and looking for powerups. I spent over an hour on this silly little mod. You'll end up with a lot of gold, but I never quite had enough to buy the most expensive item in the game. A secret shop offers a fire bow with built-in bow lore and a piercing shot for 30000 gold. I kind of wish I'd seen that, but not enough to go back into the game and grind even more.
Dink finally catches up to the thief (his name is Jackson), and discovers that he used a machine of his own invention to remove Dink's powers. This machine is called the "Suck-o-matic."
This screenshot has so many uses.
Jackson is a complete Seth clone, right down to saying the exact same lines when you hit him. The only change to the boss script is that Dink says something slightly different when you win; he now says, "Good that I killed him, he Didn't seem likable enough." That's right: if Dink doesn't consider you to be up to his standards of adequate likability, he will kill you. It's a tough policy, but fair. For some reason, I had a really tough time against this guy. It took me several tries and lots of elixirs. It doesn't help that he likes to hug the walls of his room, making hellfire useless.
This is the first DMOD to feature an appearance by the 2000-HP Darklands pig from the original game. I love that little pig.
This DMOD also has a few riddles. The riddles themselves are totally standard, but the options given... well.
Everything in "The Treasure Battles" works well enough, and it has a surprising number of secrets to find for the size of its map, but it is still kind of a mess. If you are really in the mood to grind and fight lots of monsters, you might still have a good time.
226: Land of Transforming Ducks Author: Zellfaze2 Release Date: October 6, 2005
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is part of the incredibly select group to have a rating of less than 1.0 (0.4) on The Dink Network.
And 2005 had been going so well.
This DMOD doesn't have a new title screen. It only plays the Dink Smallwood title MIDI. It never shows the status bar. Once you get past the title screen, there isn't a single scripted object or screen in the whole thing. There is therefore no text, so I had nothing to quote in my header. Only one screen has any hardness, and it's clearly there by accident. The tiling is godawful. Every object in the DMOD, with the exception of some fire sprites, turns into a duck as soon as its duck brain decides to start moving. You are now caught up on the contents of this DMOD.
There was a church on this screen, but it is ducks now. Everything is ducks now. You are a duck now. Everything always was ducks. There is no such thing as non-ducks, and there never was.
The second screen (I guessed wrong three times which direction you have to go to reach it) features a giant object. It's that weird unused graphic of Dink's head, but you can scarcely tell because it's so large. Instead of quacking like everything else, it makes an unholy screeching, clicking noise. If you don't get off of this screen in a hurry, the game crashes.
You persist in the delusion that you are some sort of "not-a-duck." You do not exist.
There are quite a few screens with fire all over them. The fire can hurt Dink, but Dink can never die. There is no escape from the Land of Transforming Ducks.
All right, we admit it, there are two things in the universe. There are ducks... and there is pain. Pain everlasting, without reason and without relief. Quack. QUACK.
The path dead-ends into something that sure looks like a boss arena. It features a giant wizard who turns into a giant duck with a booming, ominous quack. Of course, it has no script, so punching this duck is no different from punching the other ducks. It doesn't even stay dead if you leave the screen and come back.
The story folder contains a complete set of the scripts from Dink Smallwood. I have no idea why this keeps happening.
There's a fun review of "Land of Transforming Ducks" that awards the DMOD its highest score, a 1.0. The author of the review notes a "stubbornly dadaistic approach to game design" in the mod. He also gets bonus points for describing DinkEdit as "a Lovecraftian horror."
There isn't much to say about "Land of Transforming Ducks." I guess it's a little better than "Goblin Castle." Where that DMOD has no identifiable ideas, "Transforming Ducks" has one clear idea - that idea being "what if everything was ducks?" It also deserves credit for delivering on the promise made by its title. "Goblin Castle," by contrast, contained no goblins and no castles.
227: Red Jacket Murders Author: Carrie Ann Burton Release Date: October 8, 2005
"This years fashion theme is RED!"
When I first saw the title back when I was compiling my list of DMODs at the start of this project, I expected a very serious story. I thought "Red Jacket" might be some kind of metaphor; I certainly didn't think it'd mean that all of the victims literally wore red jackets. That first impression came back to me before I started playing this one, but then I remembered that this is a Carrie2004 DMOD.
"Red Jacket Murders" is a very silly little story about serial murder. Martridge sends Dink to DN village to investigate after a murderer claims several victims, all of whom were wearing red jackets at the time of their death. You'd think that people would stop wearing red jackets after that. An October release, "Murders" is clearly meant as a Halloween DMOD with its spooky MIDIs, jack-o-lanterns, bats and moaning, wandering ghosts.
There's also a little graveyard with gag headstones, a Halloween staple.
The ghosts are the spirits of the victims, and Dink must drink from a magical fountain in order to temporarily become a ghost and talk to them. The ghosts give clues about the murderer. They're represented by a typical NPC sprite recolored a ghostly white. It works pretty well, but the walking animation shuffles around in an odd-looking way. At least Dink's transformation into a ghost works well, cleverly repurposing a few frames from the "Dink turns into a duck" animation (first used in "Mystery Island," but present in the original game).
The ghost on the right is Dink. I think.
It turns out the murderer is a fashion-conscious guy who thinks that red is out of style, so he strangled all of the people he saw wearing it with a rope. Like I said, this is a very silly story. When Dink catches up to him, he looks like a goblin with a wig on. He's not hard to beat. I finished the DMOD in eight minutes.
Dink uncovers the killer's motive.
There are a few amusing little additional touches. A lot of objects are scripted and have talk and hit responses. If you guessed that "DN" stood for "Dink Network," you were on the money - characters in the village are named SabreTrout, Tal and Redink1. Redink1 has no response to the talk button until a certain point in the story; this was the only bug or problem that I noticed. For some reason, the bomb has been replaced by an exploding soccer ball. Why not, right? It doesn't have any purpose in the quest, but it helps you take care of the boss more quickly.
It's very short and very easy, but the lighthearted tone and Halloween atmosphere in "Red Jacket Murders" made me smile.
Next up: The Scourger.
--
It's been a while since anybody commented here. Actually, nobody's commented since the time I got drunk. Unfortunately, I can't do that every time. Are these just not that interesting anymore?
"Of course I'm having fun. That man over there just died!!"
In the description for this one, we're told that Dink is "knocked out and robbed from nearly everything, even his powers."
See?
Dink was robbed and de-powered on his way to the town of Purunga, where he intends to take part in "the treasure battles." He also wants to track down the thief who robbed him. Purunga itself features shops where you can buy weapons, herb boots, and the hellfire spell. It all seems to be setting up something like the "Gladiator" minigame from "FIAT." Bizarrely, there's absolutely nothing like that here. When you make it to the area labeled "arena," it's just a big open field full of monsters. It leads to a forest area and then to cave and darklands areas. All of this is supposedly the arena, but that doesn't make any sense. The "treasure battles" concept is completely ignored.
This screen, where people watch boncas fight, is the closest thing I could find to an arena.
The map is quite sloppy. Invisible walls are very common, and the edges of screens are rarely matched properly. Most screens have little or no decoration and look quite plain and boring, although there are some unusual-looking screens toward the end.
Can't say I've ever seen anything quite like this screen before.
The difficulty is uneven. There are TONS of enemies everywhere, and I kept blundering onto screens with monsters that were too difficult for me to fight. One screen has FIVE DRAGONS as well as a horde of other enemies - I found this screen totally unsurvivable unless I brought elixirs. On the plus side, this mod uses screenlocks that only work the first time you reach a screen, which is something I'd like to see more often. Speaking of unusual screenlocks, there are two screens where you're required to defeat a fish - you know, just those ordinary fish from the original game - to proceed.
To be fair, there's a sign on the previous screen warning of an "verry unrealistic large amount of bonca's to the east."
The only way to make it past the tough concentrations of enemies is to spend a lot of time grinding and looking for powerups. I spent over an hour on this silly little mod. You'll end up with a lot of gold, but I never quite had enough to buy the most expensive item in the game. A secret shop offers a fire bow with built-in bow lore and a piercing shot for 30000 gold. I kind of wish I'd seen that, but not enough to go back into the game and grind even more.
Dink finally catches up to the thief (his name is Jackson), and discovers that he used a machine of his own invention to remove Dink's powers. This machine is called the "Suck-o-matic."
This screenshot has so many uses.
Jackson is a complete Seth clone, right down to saying the exact same lines when you hit him. The only change to the boss script is that Dink says something slightly different when you win; he now says, "Good that I killed him, he Didn't seem likable enough." That's right: if Dink doesn't consider you to be up to his standards of adequate likability, he will kill you. It's a tough policy, but fair. For some reason, I had a really tough time against this guy. It took me several tries and lots of elixirs. It doesn't help that he likes to hug the walls of his room, making hellfire useless.
This is the first DMOD to feature an appearance by the 2000-HP Darklands pig from the original game. I love that little pig.
This DMOD also has a few riddles. The riddles themselves are totally standard, but the options given... well.
Everything in "The Treasure Battles" works well enough, and it has a surprising number of secrets to find for the size of its map, but it is still kind of a mess. If you are really in the mood to grind and fight lots of monsters, you might still have a good time.
226: Land of Transforming Ducks Author: Zellfaze2 Release Date: October 6, 2005
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is part of the incredibly select group to have a rating of less than 1.0 (0.4) on The Dink Network.
And 2005 had been going so well.
*****This DMOD, "Land of Transforming Ducks,"****** ********Has been awarded the prestigious********* ****DINK FOREVER MEMORIAL AWARD OF BADNESS***** *********On this day November 15, 2014*******
This DMOD doesn't have a new title screen. It only plays the Dink Smallwood title MIDI. It never shows the status bar. Once you get past the title screen, there isn't a single scripted object or screen in the whole thing. There is therefore no text, so I had nothing to quote in my header. Only one screen has any hardness, and it's clearly there by accident. The tiling is godawful. Every object in the DMOD, with the exception of some fire sprites, turns into a duck as soon as its duck brain decides to start moving. You are now caught up on the contents of this DMOD.
There was a church on this screen, but it is ducks now. Everything is ducks now. You are a duck now. Everything always was ducks. There is no such thing as non-ducks, and there never was.
The second screen (I guessed wrong three times which direction you have to go to reach it) features a giant object. It's that weird unused graphic of Dink's head, but you can scarcely tell because it's so large. Instead of quacking like everything else, it makes an unholy screeching, clicking noise. If you don't get off of this screen in a hurry, the game crashes.
You persist in the delusion that you are some sort of "not-a-duck." You do not exist.
There are quite a few screens with fire all over them. The fire can hurt Dink, but Dink can never die. There is no escape from the Land of Transforming Ducks.
All right, we admit it, there are two things in the universe. There are ducks... and there is pain. Pain everlasting, without reason and without relief. Quack. QUACK.
The path dead-ends into something that sure looks like a boss arena. It features a giant wizard who turns into a giant duck with a booming, ominous quack. Of course, it has no script, so punching this duck is no different from punching the other ducks. It doesn't even stay dead if you leave the screen and come back.
The story folder contains a complete set of the scripts from Dink Smallwood. I have no idea why this keeps happening.
There's a fun review of "Land of Transforming Ducks" that awards the DMOD its highest score, a 1.0. The author of the review notes a "stubbornly dadaistic approach to game design" in the mod. He also gets bonus points for describing DinkEdit as "a Lovecraftian horror."
There isn't much to say about "Land of Transforming Ducks." I guess it's a little better than "Goblin Castle." Where that DMOD has no identifiable ideas, "Transforming Ducks" has one clear idea - that idea being "what if everything was ducks?" It also deserves credit for delivering on the promise made by its title. "Goblin Castle," by contrast, contained no goblins and no castles.
227: Red Jacket Murders Author: Carrie Ann Burton Release Date: October 8, 2005
"This years fashion theme is RED!"
When I first saw the title back when I was compiling my list of DMODs at the start of this project, I expected a very serious story. I thought "Red Jacket" might be some kind of metaphor; I certainly didn't think it'd mean that all of the victims literally wore red jackets. That first impression came back to me before I started playing this one, but then I remembered that this is a Carrie2004 DMOD.
"Red Jacket Murders" is a very silly little story about serial murder. Martridge sends Dink to DN village to investigate after a murderer claims several victims, all of whom were wearing red jackets at the time of their death. You'd think that people would stop wearing red jackets after that. An October release, "Murders" is clearly meant as a Halloween DMOD with its spooky MIDIs, jack-o-lanterns, bats and moaning, wandering ghosts.
There's also a little graveyard with gag headstones, a Halloween staple.
The ghosts are the spirits of the victims, and Dink must drink from a magical fountain in order to temporarily become a ghost and talk to them. The ghosts give clues about the murderer. They're represented by a typical NPC sprite recolored a ghostly white. It works pretty well, but the walking animation shuffles around in an odd-looking way. At least Dink's transformation into a ghost works well, cleverly repurposing a few frames from the "Dink turns into a duck" animation (first used in "Mystery Island," but present in the original game).
The ghost on the right is Dink. I think.
It turns out the murderer is a fashion-conscious guy who thinks that red is out of style, so he strangled all of the people he saw wearing it with a rope. Like I said, this is a very silly story. When Dink catches up to him, he looks like a goblin with a wig on. He's not hard to beat. I finished the DMOD in eight minutes.
Dink uncovers the killer's motive.
There are a few amusing little additional touches. A lot of objects are scripted and have talk and hit responses. If you guessed that "DN" stood for "Dink Network," you were on the money - characters in the village are named SabreTrout, Tal and Redink1. Redink1 has no response to the talk button until a certain point in the story; this was the only bug or problem that I noticed. For some reason, the bomb has been replaced by an exploding soccer ball. Why not, right? It doesn't have any purpose in the quest, but it helps you take care of the boss more quickly.
It's very short and very easy, but the lighthearted tone and Halloween atmosphere in "Red Jacket Murders" made me smile.
Next up: The Scourger.
--
It's been a while since anybody commented here. Actually, nobody's commented since the time I got drunk. Unfortunately, I can't do that every time. Are these just not that interesting anymore?
