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January 21st 2015, 04:32 AM
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CocoMonkey
Bard He/Him United States
Please Cindy, say the whole name each time. 
--The Smallwood Throwback Contest--

The Dink Network was on a roll with annual contests at this point, so another contest was announced on May 8th, 2012. The idea was to make a D-Mod that was a "throwback" to the style of the original game. Given that D-Mods in general already have a lot in common with the original game, this is an unusual direction to push in. Most contests have focused on trying to push authors in new directions, away from what has come before. By 2012, I guess D-Mod authors had gotten so fancy that the old style was thought to be a change of pace. The theme was Pillbug's idea, incidentally.

It's an unusually nebulous idea for a theme. What, exactly, constitutes a throwback? Let's look at the rules:

1. Your D-Mod can't use any of the following:
a) New graphics (Only those available in the main game)
b) New spells or items
c) New MIDIs/sound

3. The D-Mod must use Dink as the protagonist, but the story does not have to be related to the story of the main game (it doesn't have to be a sequel, prequel, or any other -quel).

4. Try to stick to "traditional" Smallwood as much as possible. This means no elemental damage, new leveling systems, new stats, etc. Want to create some fancy puzzle Dink has to get past? Just try not to be too fancy.
This rule is going to be a judgement call on a lot of things. Basically, if it doesn't feel at all like the main game, it's out.


(Rule 2 wasn't important to this discussion, so I didn't copy it.)

See, even the rules admit it's hard to define. At least point 1 is clear - just don't bother having graphics, sound or tiles folders in your D-Mod directory. I am amused that the little jokey comment about "-quels" actually resulted in a D-Mod by that name. The rules also required four entries - such boundless optimism! That's how many there ended up being, but only after the deadline was extended twice. The original deadline was July 8th, but it became the 22nd and finally, the 29th.

This contest was more of a throwback than anyone could have guessed, attracting entries from THREE authors who hadn't released a D-Mod in over six years! But first, a D-Mod from somebody who entered the last contest.

As always, entries will be covered starting with last place and moving up toward first.

--

338: Dink Smallwood and the 4 Towers Author: Merder Release Date: August 2, 2012
"Dink you can't win so go home!"


Hey, that title screen is a new graphic! That's against the rules! Disqualified!

Just kidding. An exception for title screens was made in the forum thread about the contest.

"Dink and the 4 Towers" is the first D-Mod to incorporate an element of randomness into the map design. The player is faced with many levels full of enemies. Each floor is randomly selected from a set of nine floor "shapes," and enemies are placed based on which level you're currently playing. It's a lot less random than a roguelike or Dan Walma's recent D-Mod (and even less than it sounds, since two of those shapes are only used for the extra fifth dungeon), but it still shakes things up a bit so that you don't always know which direction you need to go in to reach the next floor. Merder deserves credit for making something that's never been done before, something clever that most new D-Mod makers probably wouldn't know how to do. Unfortunately, that sort of ingenuity is against the spirit of the contest. "4 Towers" follows rules 1 and 3, but obviously steps all over rule 4. It's a totally different kind of game than Dink Smallwood.

So forget the contest; how is it as a game in its own right? Unfortunately, it's kind of dull. As much as I like grindy dungeon crawlers, there isn't enough variety here to keep things interesting. Each of the dungeons has at most two types of enemies, and there are no powerups, items, or anything like that to find. Those elements are what really make games with randomized layouts fun; it's the feeling of discovery by chance that makes each game feel different. Here, you just do the same thing over and over, with nothing to break up the monotony.


All of the levels pretty much look like this.

There is a story; it's not bad, although the English is a mess. A naughty wizard disguises himself as Dink and talks his way into King Daniel's treasury to destroy an old statue that apparently seals away some kind of evil. A knight sees him do it, and he claims it was an accident. Now the real Dink has to go get a replacement (I love that that's a thing you can just replace) by going to another town and braving the deep dungeons there.


Fake Dink is unimpressed by magical statues.

The town has shops where you can buy weapons and elixirs between dungeon runs, and it has a save point (which you can walk right through). Other than that, it's basically empty. The screens up top are remarkably empty, and the right side of the map has no border. There's a big castle with four dungeons, but the stairs go down, not up. I'm pretty sure that's not how towers work.


This is an actual screen from the above-ground area.

Dungeons 1 and 2 have no screenlock, so the temptation to just march to the end is pretty strong. Dungeon 3 is fully screenlocked, and the fourth mercifully locks only some of the screens. I say mercifully because the grunts in the fourth dungeon are actually really tough, and you're better off avoiding the ones you can.

The bosses add interest, but they also badly unbalance the difficulty. The first boss, a pillbug that splits into more pillbugs when you hit it, is quite easy, although seeing the screen absolutely fill with pillbugs is kind of fun. The second boss, a woman in her forties who teleports and constantly casts harm magic on you, really kicked my butt on my first try. I barely managed to beat her with the herb boots and an inventory full of elixirs. The third boss is also very easy; he's a knight who is supposed to split into multiple bodies, but actually just wanders around slowly. I lost to him once anyway because I was so bored fighting him that I accidentally let him walk right into me. The fourth boss, on the other hand, is a duck who quickly summons a large number of dragons. I don't know how you're supposed to beat him, it's crazy. If you do, there's a fifth dungeon full of dragons on every screen (you can check it out by loading the included save file). The end boss duck's name is Endbossini, which I must admit is pretty great.


Hey, that's correct, you do have Tim to fight. How did you know?

Grinding isn't made any easier by the fact that once you've started a run, you have to finish it, which can take a LONG time. You can't back out, and you can't save in the middle. If you try going upstairs while running a dungeon you've completed before, you're given the option to give up and return to the surface, but it doesn't work. Selecting "yes" does nothing.

A lot of things don't work, actually, even though this D-Mod received an update in 2013. The shop has a "Sell" option - and believe me, you'd love to get the slot for another elixir - but it, too, does nothing. You can clip behind all the walls in the dungeons, and the corners have hardness gaps where the monsters will frequently get stuck. The third boss fails to lock the screen, so you can walk right off of the boss arena. If you walk to the right, you can skip right to the reward screen. The end boss is invisible during the cutscene where Dink talks to him, so you wonder if Dink has lost his mind when he talks about a duck.

"4 Towers" had a great idea (if not a great idea for the contest), and I did have some fun grinding through enemies for a little while, but it's not executed well. It's too monotonous, lacks elements that would add interest, the difficulty is unbalanced, and it's buggy. It's a big step up from "End of Snoresville," though.

339: Quel Author: Metatarasal Release Date: August 2, 2012
"Warning: You're entering a rather unrealistic world"


Okay, see, this is how you do it. NO new graphics. There isn't even a graphics folder with this one.

Is this what it used to be like? It's hard to remember, now. It must be. Wandering around, punching pillbugs, all the damn houses are locked... Yes. Yes, this is what it was like. I can feel it coming back to me now.

This is the first D-Mod by Metatarasal since 2005's "The Scourger." The title doesn't really mean anything. It's just a reference to Rule 3 (see above).

"Quel" is the story of how an evil cake turned a bunch of people into pigs and a handful of pigs into people. Dink must save them (the people-turned-pigs, not the pigs-turned-people; those, he gives to a bunch of ogres to eat) so that he can go back to his regular life of being an oft-drunken, obnoxious moron.


It's a full-time occupation, actually.

Yes, this one is a bit odd. The midboss is a bunch of grapes that summons little girls to fight you (actually, Dink seems to fight little girls quite often). Dink's tasks include urinating on a monument to himself and killing some ducks. Well, okay, some of it is normal enough for Dink.

I thought "Quel" was pretty funny. I liked Dink's interaction with the wizard he meets in this new little land. Dink doesn't know how to do things he needs to do, and the wizard tells him to just go ahead and do things that ought to be impossible. Somehow, the wizard's words make it so, and Dink acts all impressed as if he's just been taught a magic spell. The game informs you that you've acquired a new skill when the wizard tells you that the secret to opening locked doors is to hit them, but like, hard, or when he tells you that to put things in your backpack that clearly can't fit there, all you need to do is defy reality.


Of course! It's so simple now!


Actually, this was my favorite joke in the whole D-Mod. Sometimes it's the little things.

It's too hard to figure out what you need to do next in this one. You're frequently left to wander around, trying to guess at what you could possibly be required to do next. I got particularly stuck after killing the grapes boss. I talked to every character I'd met more than once and wandered around getting more and more frustrated. Finally, I stubbornly trudged around the whole map and found that a really inconspicuous dead end was now a path. That's not even a puzzle, it's just failing to give the player any notice of the game moving along. There are several walls like that you'll likely run into while playing this, but that one was the worst for me. I still managed to make it through, but I'd have had a better time if the game hadn't responded with a shrug nearly every time I completed a task.


Indeed. That is clearly a pie.

I only came across a single bug, but it did make me reload a save. When you beat the grapes, if you press the talk button at the wrong time the bit of hardness that prevents you from finishing them off never goes away. Other than that, it was really sharp, particularly for something done on a deadline. Not a depth dot error in sight, and I thought the map looked really nice in a "Traditional Dink Smallwood" kind of way. Some features were quite clever - I liked the bomb tree. It must be dangerous around harvest time.


Here are my stats! I sure do like collecting bombs!

340: Dink Gets Bored Author: Paul Pliska Release Date: August 2, 2012
"Oh man, I'm bored."

And here's Paul's first D-Mod since 2004's "Triangle Mover." You know, I mentioned the throwback connection, but maybe there was something about this theme that drew in the old-timers.

The title may also be "Dink Gets Board." It's hard to say. Let's check the title screen.


Oh wow! Okay, this one wins. This is how you follow instructions. Wow.

The intro, which establishes how it is that Dink ended up getting bored, is hilarious. A wizard character representing the author tries all the usual D-Mod setups, but Dink is having none of it.


Oh, this one is going with the old standby... no? Huh.


Not quite as overused as the King intro, but close.


Actually, "Dink as a pig farmer again" hasn't been used too many times, but he has a point.

Dink objects to everything, so the author-wizard gives up and leaves him in his (apparently repaired) home in Stonebrook with absolutely nothing going on. Dink immediately realizes how bored he is. The first thing you do is go around bugging the residents of Dink's hometown for a quest - not an epic one, he's sick of those, just something easy. The mod gets in one more shot at the common conventions when Dink refuses to go see Martridge - "he'd send me off to save the world or something." Anyway, Libby comes up with something for Dink to do: she asks him to get some herb boots. But this seemingly simple task turns complicated when it turns out the boots seller has diversified into herb books, which make you read faster but with the unfortunate side effect of teleporting you to a random location when you read them. Not only that, but in the process of the teleportation, Dink's gold, items and stats explode out of him and end up all over the place. Yes, his stats literally explode.


See?

The new area Dink ends up in - the land of Kalest - is surprisingly large. It contains a beachside town and plenty of enemies to fight (although you're too weak at the start for it to be advisable), including slimes that create smaller slimes that quickly grow to full size when you kill them. But you don't have to fight anything or even talk to any of the people in the town on the beach in order to win. All you've got to do is gather up 5000 of Dink's lost gold (not hard to do, there are piles of it everywhere), which you'll need to have before they'll let you into Kalest Heights, a clifftop community for rich people. After you talk to a few people there, the D-Mod comes to an abrupt end on account of Paul running out of time. Dink never finds the herb boots or even a way back home, and the loose ends that have been set up if you did go around talking to everybody never get tied. There's even a scripted character that I'm not sure is accessible, although I may just not have been thorough enough.


Kalest Heights is full of stuck-up snobs, but it does have a lovely little flower-lined path.

There is quite a bit to do and see if you look, though, and I got the feeling this was intended to be a much bigger D-Mod - maybe too big to have finished in the contest period. Some characters in town have a lot to say, and you find out that ships are being prevented from leaving the area in an effort to stop the local pirates, one of whom you can meet. You also learn about an all-female warrior community, and you can catch a couple of glimpses of them. There are several weapons to buy, and the most amusing way I've seen to get back your spells, a "memory tonic" that makes you remember them (bow lore too). There are a few little tasks you can complete. They're mostly simple, like helping a guy find his "lost" girlfriend when it's really just a meeting place mixup (she's willing to have sex with him right in front of Dink - he, not so much. "You owe me an orgasm," she quips). There is a venomous slayer (remember the poison effect from Paul's "Crosslink?") you can fight for some crazy farmer, but you don't get much of a reward.

But what do the locals do for fun? Well, for some gold, you can see a striptease... but the author-wizard shows up to cruelly remind us of the new graphics ban. No matter - the show must go on.


This reminds me of the time I was ten years old and the whole family went to Hooters because we were traveling on Christmas and it was the only thing open. True story.

There are some characters here that seem quite interesting in their limited screen time, and enough world-building that I was losing track of it while playing. I get sad when I think what could have been, but this is still very much worth a download. Heck, the intro alone is worth the download. You should also see the ending, which cops out in a fun way as Dink is allowed to rewrite reality for his trouble.

341: Lost Forest Romp Author: Scratcher Release Date: August 2, 2012
"One tree, two trees... Treeline, singline, sea lion!"

Scratcher won the contest with his first D-Mod since "Fairy Named Bincabbi" way back in 2002. How appropriate that the top spot went to the person who was making the biggest throwback just by releasing a D-Mod.

You know, these D-Mods haven't been all that different from the usual. D-Mods in general use new graphics pretty sparingly, after all. The biggest effect of the contest rules is that I've been getting the chance to hear all of those old MIDIs from the original game again. Most D-Mods rarely use them.


Actually, one of the most interesting things about this theme has been the creative title screens created to follow rule 1, exception be damned.

I have to be honest with you guys, this one totally lost me. I would never, ever have gotten to the end of it if it weren't for a forum post that gives specific instructions on how to get past a certain part (edit: Or I could have used the walkthrough, oops). It says you're supposed to puzzle out some kind of riddle or poem, but if the quote in the header isn't it then I never found it, and if it IS it, I could have worked on this thing for a year without ever extracting the solution from that mess. Nobody else complained about this, so I dunno if I missed something or if I'm just dumb. Probably both.


Not half as lost as me, buddy.

Like "Dink Gets Bored," this one also starts you out with great stats and inventory only to take them away. Wandering lost through a seemingly endless, hallway-like forest, Dink comes upon a hamlet full of women who are a little bit TOO excited to see him. I mean, I guess it's understandable. It must get lonely as Hell out in that forest all by themselves, after all. Your hand and various implements can only do so much. On the other hand, the way they stare at Dink borders on creepy... Hmm, that comment about wanting to eat him could be interpreted multiple ways, but is a bit concerning nonetheless... uh oh.


NO! RUN DINK! DON'T LET THEM COSBY YOU!

In fact, they turn out to be nasty creatures of some sort who suck most of the life out of Dink and leave him for dead in some cave. He's not dead, but he's back to being a weakling once again. Dink takes it in stride. "Hey, it's no big deal!" he says at one point. "I get stripped down to my tights once every few weeks." "Well, not quite so often lately..." he continues, a clever little reference to the scarcity of D-Mod releases by 2012.

The mapping in this D-Mod is really outstanding. Several of the screens feel like carefully laid out stage sets. Thought has been put into object placement rather than just placing things so that the screen doesn't look empty (and even that is more than a lot of authors, yours truly sadly included, manage sometimes). Scratcher does some unexpected things with the graphics from the original game. You can achieve a lot by clipping the sides off of a sprite.


This scene tells a detailed story of how this crazy goblin character lives. Take it in.


Check out this sweet tower made from the castle sprites. Two frames from the castle sequence are clipped and joined together, and it looks totally seamless.

One thing I managed to figure out was that Dink must befriend a duck in this D-Mod by feeding it some grain. It waddles around after you, trusting you completely, you nice-human-who-feeds-it-grain. How adorable! Too bad you're ultimately bringing it along so that a dragon will eat it and let you pass. Hey, better the duck than you.


Wait, does this mean "Revenge of the Ducks 3" is or isn't canon? I'm kidding of course, there's no such thing as canon here.

Points to Scratcher, by the way, for having the dragon fly away by getting larger, as he would appear to do when going upwards from the Dink perspective. Not a lot of authors pick up on this. The top of the screen is north, not up. Oh, that crazy three-quarters isometric perspective. At least Dink isn't a platformer. Isometric platforming always sucks.

I'd also like to take a point out that Dink finally gets his chance here to get his ultimate revenge on that tree you can't burn from the original game. You know, the one who talks in puns. It is glorious. It must be seen. Screenshots don't do it justice.

The end boss is the same ladies as before, except now they're in their true forms as "dire hags," or Ethel-style old ladies. You know, long ago I mastered the ability to unsee the very long beard in the sprite so often used as an old woman, so when one of them draws attention to it here ("By my beard!"), it unsettled me in a deep place that I had buried carefully. Anyway, one of them turns into a big bonca and the other two very quickly cast a series of spells to make that one stronger and stronger, which gets out of hand in a hurry. After several attempts, I managed to win by using bombs I had saved from the early game, and I was quite proud of myself. Unfortunately, there's a second phase. It immediately struck me as impossible, and I confirmed just now by checking the scripts that it's intended to be. However, I knew I'd be unable to find whatever it is I was supposed to have found if I went back, so I cheated my way through. Sorry. I am aware that I suck harder than most black holes.


Enchantment: Make Meaner. Material components: Computer with web browser and Internet connection. This spell siphons meanness from web forums, Youtube and Yahoo! comments, etc. Cast as many times as you please; the supply is inexhaustible, like siphoning ocean water with a drinking straw.

I would like to draw your attention for a moment to the scripts of "Lost Forest Romp." Here's a little sample:

void spin
int &odo = &arg1
if (&odo == 0)
&odo = 500

int &temp3 = sp_dir(¤t_sprite,-1)
int &temp4 = &temp3
if (&temp3 == 1)
goto yy


No parentheses. No brackets. No semicolons. I learned from Scratcher that semicolons are a waste of time and that "void word" is all you need, but dropping brackets seems to cause problems when I do it, so I keep them around. Later, I learned thanks to an email from a user who probably doesn't have an account here that Dink Smallwood HD ignores goto statements that lack a semicolon. This is the only time it has a problem with there not being semicolons. Scratcher notes that this D-Mod doesn't work in Dink HD; this is (at least one reason) why.