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239: The Fall of Tahmar Author: Marcus (Marpro) Release Date: September 26, 2006
"I'm Dink Smallwood. Your time has come to an end. This will be your last moment."
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.2) on The Dink Network.
"Fall of Tahmar" came in second place in the Failure Contest, winning a tiebreaker against "Prelude." Wesley McElwee expressed shock that FoT didn't win. Indeed, it has ended up with the highest rating out of all of the entries in the contest.
The name "Tahmar" is taken from "Mystery Island." You may have forgotten (I certainly did), but Dink's actual instructions from King Daniel were to deliver a letter to a land called Tahmar. In this DMOD, Dink has delivered the letter and decided to settle down in Tahmar. He's not in his new home for long before he gets enlisted to help fight off an invasion... or so he thinks.
Dink is easily distracted, and perhaps not the brightest crayon in the box.
In fact, Dink is really helping the invaders all along. Honestly, it isn't much of a twist. Although it isn't explicitly stated until the end, it's very obvious to the player what is going on from the beginning. I guess the author figured that since this is the Failure Contest, he might as well make a story where Dink is clearly set up to fail from the start. I can get behind that, but Dink's failure to ever realize what's going on makes him look kind of dumb. If I were in Dink's position, I wouldn't have figured it out quite as quickly as I did from the player's chair, but I still would have known something was up in time to do something about it. The conspirators aren't great at covering their tracks.
Uh... no?
The scale of this DMOD is kind of impressive when you consider the time constraints of the contest. There's a pretty big map to explore, and the time has been taken to make it all look good.
Visually, "Fall of Tahmar" is quite polished and detailed.
Unfortunately, the difficulty curve is upside-down. Once you get out of the first town, the game is tough early on. I did a lot of grinding in reaction to the high difficulty. Not long afterward, I found some powerups and the game became very easy. The hardest fight in the game comes around the halfway point, when Dink is captured by goblins and forced to fight a dragon in a gladiatorial arena. That was also my favorite sequence in the game.
For some totally unexplained reason, the goblins defer to a giant duck named "King Quackzor." I love it.
Although the level of polish is impressive for a first-time author (part of this might be due to updates, for which I always am happy to give full credit), I did run into a few minor problems. Several cutscenes don't freeze Dink properly, so you can move him into the wrong position and make the default notalk text pop up. The purple bonca bug hasn't been fixed (I mention this because there are several DMODs that have fixed it at this point). Some conversations have unskippable text, which might be intentional, but is annoying nonetheless. As you can tell, though, these are just nitpicks. I never ran into any major bugs.
There are a few little sidequests you can do for some nice rewards. They're pretty simple (bring a certain item to a certain NPC), but it does help flesh out the game. One quest awards the "sword of doom," which has a new inventory graphic.
Ooh, that sword has a spooky red skull.
This being the Failure Contest, it's no big surprise that the bad guys win (with plenty of help from Dink) and kill Dink off when he doesn't serve their purposes anymore.
When you hear this sentence, things generally haven't gone well.
I had a good time playing "Fall of Tahmar," but I don't have an awful lot to say about it. The story was very predictable, and there wasn't much focus on humor, so I didn't find it as interesting as some other top-rated mods I've played (although it was more stable and had more enjoyable, less frustrating gameplay than some of those same top-rated mods). Still, it impressed me by giving me a lot to do and by having a map of impressive scope and detail for a contest DMOD. It also does a great job of sticking to the theme of the contest, since Dink's impending failure was on my mind the whole time. I can understand why some people thought "Fall of Tahmar" should have won the contest.
240: The Basilisk Smile Author: James Troughton (SabreTrout) Release Date: September 26, 2006
"An old man, his face frozen in stone as he looks at the pocketwatch. It's stopped and needs winding."
"It's short. It wins!" - Tiny Toon Adventures
I'm only posting the title screen so I can ask: why does it say ".bmp" in the corner?
DMODs have a history of having dodgy titles like "True of Life" or "Eternal Suicide" (seriously, what is that supposed to mean?). "The Basilisk Smile," on the other hand, is the best title I've seen yet. It's only after you play it that you really understand what it means. A basilisk is a mythical reptilian creature that turns people to stone with a look (well, most historical references I can find say that its look just brings death and don't mention anyone turning to stone, but if it's good enough for Heroes of Might and Magic III it's good enough for me). But what about the smile? Stay tuned.
The status bar is the Wooden Status Bar by GOKUSSJ6.
There's an exciting intro in which Dink is on a ship under attack by "goblin corsairs" (which is awesome). You can fight and even kill some of the goblins, but there's no benefit to doing so. Dink manages to escape, alone, and rows to an island that's home to a terrible mystery.
And bunnies. The island is also home to bunnies.
Dink soon finds that all of the people on the island have been turned to stone - except one little girl, but he doesn't find that out right away. The main story isn't that complicated, but the revelation of each important piece of information is carefully paced with "lock and key" type puzzles that make sure the player spends plenty of time wandering around, soaking in the somber mood.
Dink is appropriately horrified by the human statues. He's in no mood to make snarky comments.
The plot reminds me of a scenario from Dragon Warrior VII for the PS1. There, too, the heroes encounter a town that's been turned entirely to stone apart from one remaining person. In that game, as here, there is nothing the player can do to save the people turned to stone.
The little girl, whose name is Jessica, tells Dink that the people turned to stone can still move their eyes. Once you learn this, you can interact with the statues in a way. The NPC descriptions in choice statements, a feature I've always enjoyed in SabreTrout's DMODs, is used to amazing effect (I don't use that word lightly, this is impressive) to describe what Dink sees in their eyes. The game speaks of their emotions in words like "unimaginable despair," but the emotion that came across best to me was a disturbing yet muted sort of melancholy. Things are too frozen in time for anything like desperation to penetrate the deeply settled gloom.
There are 26 stone NPCs, each with a unique description.
Dink can interact with some of the NPCs at this point. He can do small things to help them out with some bit of unfinished business they had when they were turned to stone; for this, he is awarded experience points. Even leveling up is turned into a story event in this DMOD. When you level up you can choose to learn Fireball or to receive two strength points; both are ultimately required to progress. It all feels like you're working toward a solution. If it weren't for the context of the Failure Contest, I'd have been surprised at the outcome. This, I think, is the potential of the contest's theme realized: a video game that presents a problem without treating it as something for the player to solve. I think that this is the reason that "The Basilisk Smile" won the contest. Anyway, Dink's good deeds cannot really help the people - at best, it may bring them some temporary emotional relief.
Amusingly, you also get experience points for killing the rabbits. If you kill them all, you get an experience bonus and the game declares you the "Ultimate Bunny Destroyer."
Hooray! Failure nothing, that's an achievement.
There's a neat little extra feature in this DMOD - you can find an item called the "MIDI gem" that lets you change the background music.
Should I give away the twist? I suppose I will - stop reading now if you don't want to know. It's worth playing either way, and doesn't take up too much of your time. It turns out that Jessica has been cursed to turn everyone around her to stone whenever she experiences a certain emotion. That emotion is happiness - she has "the Basilisk Smile." There are four endings. In two of them, Dink becomes yet another statue; in the other two, the girl dies. I suppose the latter endings are closer to "good" because the girl will remain dangerous - and let's be fair, miserable - as long as she lives.
That doesn't mean Dink feels like celebrating, though.
This is right up there with "Cycles of Evil" in my favorite storytelling DMODs for its slow-burn pacing and dominant mood. It would have gotten my first-place vote.
--
The Failure Contest had a great turnout, and not just in numbers. There are some really good DMODs here. There was only one I disliked ("Ex-Peppermint"), and even that was a lot more interesting than something like "Computer Virus." 2006 already looks like another good year for DMODs.
"I'm Dink Smallwood. Your time has come to an end. This will be your last moment."
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.2) on The Dink Network.
"Fall of Tahmar" came in second place in the Failure Contest, winning a tiebreaker against "Prelude." Wesley McElwee expressed shock that FoT didn't win. Indeed, it has ended up with the highest rating out of all of the entries in the contest.
The name "Tahmar" is taken from "Mystery Island." You may have forgotten (I certainly did), but Dink's actual instructions from King Daniel were to deliver a letter to a land called Tahmar. In this DMOD, Dink has delivered the letter and decided to settle down in Tahmar. He's not in his new home for long before he gets enlisted to help fight off an invasion... or so he thinks.
Dink is easily distracted, and perhaps not the brightest crayon in the box.
In fact, Dink is really helping the invaders all along. Honestly, it isn't much of a twist. Although it isn't explicitly stated until the end, it's very obvious to the player what is going on from the beginning. I guess the author figured that since this is the Failure Contest, he might as well make a story where Dink is clearly set up to fail from the start. I can get behind that, but Dink's failure to ever realize what's going on makes him look kind of dumb. If I were in Dink's position, I wouldn't have figured it out quite as quickly as I did from the player's chair, but I still would have known something was up in time to do something about it. The conspirators aren't great at covering their tracks.
Uh... no?
The scale of this DMOD is kind of impressive when you consider the time constraints of the contest. There's a pretty big map to explore, and the time has been taken to make it all look good.
Visually, "Fall of Tahmar" is quite polished and detailed.
Unfortunately, the difficulty curve is upside-down. Once you get out of the first town, the game is tough early on. I did a lot of grinding in reaction to the high difficulty. Not long afterward, I found some powerups and the game became very easy. The hardest fight in the game comes around the halfway point, when Dink is captured by goblins and forced to fight a dragon in a gladiatorial arena. That was also my favorite sequence in the game.
For some totally unexplained reason, the goblins defer to a giant duck named "King Quackzor." I love it.
Although the level of polish is impressive for a first-time author (part of this might be due to updates, for which I always am happy to give full credit), I did run into a few minor problems. Several cutscenes don't freeze Dink properly, so you can move him into the wrong position and make the default notalk text pop up. The purple bonca bug hasn't been fixed (I mention this because there are several DMODs that have fixed it at this point). Some conversations have unskippable text, which might be intentional, but is annoying nonetheless. As you can tell, though, these are just nitpicks. I never ran into any major bugs.
There are a few little sidequests you can do for some nice rewards. They're pretty simple (bring a certain item to a certain NPC), but it does help flesh out the game. One quest awards the "sword of doom," which has a new inventory graphic.
Ooh, that sword has a spooky red skull.
This being the Failure Contest, it's no big surprise that the bad guys win (with plenty of help from Dink) and kill Dink off when he doesn't serve their purposes anymore.
When you hear this sentence, things generally haven't gone well.
I had a good time playing "Fall of Tahmar," but I don't have an awful lot to say about it. The story was very predictable, and there wasn't much focus on humor, so I didn't find it as interesting as some other top-rated mods I've played (although it was more stable and had more enjoyable, less frustrating gameplay than some of those same top-rated mods). Still, it impressed me by giving me a lot to do and by having a map of impressive scope and detail for a contest DMOD. It also does a great job of sticking to the theme of the contest, since Dink's impending failure was on my mind the whole time. I can understand why some people thought "Fall of Tahmar" should have won the contest.
240: The Basilisk Smile Author: James Troughton (SabreTrout) Release Date: September 26, 2006
"An old man, his face frozen in stone as he looks at the pocketwatch. It's stopped and needs winding."
"It's short. It wins!" - Tiny Toon Adventures
I'm only posting the title screen so I can ask: why does it say ".bmp" in the corner?
DMODs have a history of having dodgy titles like "True of Life" or "Eternal Suicide" (seriously, what is that supposed to mean?). "The Basilisk Smile," on the other hand, is the best title I've seen yet. It's only after you play it that you really understand what it means. A basilisk is a mythical reptilian creature that turns people to stone with a look (well, most historical references I can find say that its look just brings death and don't mention anyone turning to stone, but if it's good enough for Heroes of Might and Magic III it's good enough for me). But what about the smile? Stay tuned.
The status bar is the Wooden Status Bar by GOKUSSJ6.
There's an exciting intro in which Dink is on a ship under attack by "goblin corsairs" (which is awesome). You can fight and even kill some of the goblins, but there's no benefit to doing so. Dink manages to escape, alone, and rows to an island that's home to a terrible mystery.
And bunnies. The island is also home to bunnies.
Dink soon finds that all of the people on the island have been turned to stone - except one little girl, but he doesn't find that out right away. The main story isn't that complicated, but the revelation of each important piece of information is carefully paced with "lock and key" type puzzles that make sure the player spends plenty of time wandering around, soaking in the somber mood.
Dink is appropriately horrified by the human statues. He's in no mood to make snarky comments.
The plot reminds me of a scenario from Dragon Warrior VII for the PS1. There, too, the heroes encounter a town that's been turned entirely to stone apart from one remaining person. In that game, as here, there is nothing the player can do to save the people turned to stone.
The little girl, whose name is Jessica, tells Dink that the people turned to stone can still move their eyes. Once you learn this, you can interact with the statues in a way. The NPC descriptions in choice statements, a feature I've always enjoyed in SabreTrout's DMODs, is used to amazing effect (I don't use that word lightly, this is impressive) to describe what Dink sees in their eyes. The game speaks of their emotions in words like "unimaginable despair," but the emotion that came across best to me was a disturbing yet muted sort of melancholy. Things are too frozen in time for anything like desperation to penetrate the deeply settled gloom.
There are 26 stone NPCs, each with a unique description.
Dink can interact with some of the NPCs at this point. He can do small things to help them out with some bit of unfinished business they had when they were turned to stone; for this, he is awarded experience points. Even leveling up is turned into a story event in this DMOD. When you level up you can choose to learn Fireball or to receive two strength points; both are ultimately required to progress. It all feels like you're working toward a solution. If it weren't for the context of the Failure Contest, I'd have been surprised at the outcome. This, I think, is the potential of the contest's theme realized: a video game that presents a problem without treating it as something for the player to solve. I think that this is the reason that "The Basilisk Smile" won the contest. Anyway, Dink's good deeds cannot really help the people - at best, it may bring them some temporary emotional relief.
Amusingly, you also get experience points for killing the rabbits. If you kill them all, you get an experience bonus and the game declares you the "Ultimate Bunny Destroyer."
Hooray! Failure nothing, that's an achievement.
There's a neat little extra feature in this DMOD - you can find an item called the "MIDI gem" that lets you change the background music.
Should I give away the twist? I suppose I will - stop reading now if you don't want to know. It's worth playing either way, and doesn't take up too much of your time. It turns out that Jessica has been cursed to turn everyone around her to stone whenever she experiences a certain emotion. That emotion is happiness - she has "the Basilisk Smile." There are four endings. In two of them, Dink becomes yet another statue; in the other two, the girl dies. I suppose the latter endings are closer to "good" because the girl will remain dangerous - and let's be fair, miserable - as long as she lives.
That doesn't mean Dink feels like celebrating, though.
This is right up there with "Cycles of Evil" in my favorite storytelling DMODs for its slow-burn pacing and dominant mood. It would have gotten my first-place vote.
--
The Failure Contest had a great turnout, and not just in numbers. There are some really good DMODs here. There was only one I disliked ("Ex-Peppermint"), and even that was a lot more interesting than something like "Computer Virus." 2006 already looks like another good year for DMODs.
