The Dink Network

Recondite was an article that I used to write on The Dink Network to capture whatever random thoughts I had at the time. If my thoughts were butterflies, Recondite was an old man with a net and a penchant for entomological taxidermy. It eventually evolved into a pseudo-blog / status update for many things about The Dink Network that simply didn't fit into a forum message or a stand-alone news post.

It has been just over Ten Years since Recondite Twenty-Seven, and I can't quite comprehend that. Ten Years is a Long Time. That's twice as long as Bill Szczytko spent working on Quest for Dorinthia v2.5!

So read on, fellow Dinkers, and see what this edition entails.

Dink Smallwood HD is now playable in your web browser at http://rtsoft.com/web/dink/, complete with D-Mod support and save game persistence/importing/exporting. It's the full Dink Smallwood experience, in a browser. D-Mods and save games even stay around if you leave and come back again.

This fancy wizardry does require the latest version of a modern browser (such as Firefox 60.0.2, or Chrome 67.0.3396.87), but it even works fairly well with a newish iPhone or Android device (and will automatically use touch controls in those environments).

Additionally, there is now a 'Play' button on every D-Mod's file page which will launch Dink Smallwood HD online and install the selected D-Mod automatically. That means that you, or anyone else, can start playing a D-Mod in as little as 20 seconds without installing anything beforehand (assuming that you have a powerful device, tons of bandwidth, a new browser, etc).

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that GNU FreeDink has also been available to play in your web browser at https://play.freedink.org/. The GNU FreeDink experience is a little bit different (open source sound effects, upload your own D-Mods, translations of the main game in 12 additional languages, etc.), but it's worth checking out.

PDF versions of Crazy Old Tim Plays All The D-Mods Volume 1 (1998 - 2004) and Volume 2 (2005 - 2015) are now available to download.

I always planned to distribute a free digital version, and I made some attempts to create a kindle / epub / mobi version, but it was very difficult (impossible) to get the formatting correct with screenshots and other content that is present in the book. So, I've decided to just distribute the same PDF documents that are used to print the real book. However, be aware: this may be difficult to read on a phone or on a dedicated e-reader.

Thanks to Mr. Mortal Kombat for prompting me to do this in the fancy Discord chat room.

Renowned Mortal Kombat aficionado, Bluedy has released his few-months-hours-in-the-making second D-Mod Northern Lands (Unfinished) fourth fan work Dink Smallwood Fan Artwork Remastered today.

You are encouraged to take a look what a difference 3 years can make; Bluedy posted a similar fan work just over three years ago fittingly titled Dink Smallwood Fan Artwork.

Also, last but not least, Bluedy has also updated Northern Lands (Unfinished) to 1.10. This fixes an issue where it was possible to never be able to find all 3 crew members needed to set sail, in the north direction, where the second half of the game awaits.

Renowned Mortal Kombat aficionado, Bluedy has released his few-months-in-the-making second D-Mod Northern Lands (Unfinished) today.

Unfortunately, as you might already suspect by the curious use of the term 'Unfinished' several times in this post, Bluedy ran into the 'brick-wall-of-D-Mod-development' that has claimed so many innocent D-Mods over the last 20 years (such as Necromancer, Cloud Castle 3, Cast Awakening 2, Cast Awakening 3, and Cast Awakening 4). Thankfully, as SabreTrout did with Valhalla, Bluedy has released what he as so far, which is decently-sized quest. He even encourages others in the community to maybe finish what he's started.

Mr. SlipDink has updated All that Glitters! to v1.11. This release includes a few minor patches. Let's try to interpret these:

"#01 Inserted post liberation logic into doorman.c"

I don't know what 'post liberation logic' is, but I hope the doorman consented.

"#02 Disabled touch() in scrthole.c and chest.c"

I... can't even. I didn't change this. This is really what SlipDink said was changed, and it is one of the greatest things I've ever read in my entire life. You know, I haven't updates the random quotes that appear at the bottom of the page in a while, but if anything deserves it, this does.

"#03 Adjusted kill time in intro.c/scroll_text()"

twp's scrolling text nightmares have hopefully come to a peaceful end.

Dink Smallwood HD and DFArc have been updated to fix several security issues related with unpacking .dmod files. A malicious .dmod file could overwrite arbitrary files on the user's system, resulting in data loss or malicious code execution. We are unaware of any .dmod files 'in the wild' that exploited this flaw (we examined every D-Mod on The Dink Network), but to be safe you should upgrade to Dink Smallwood HD v1.9.1 and/or start using DFArc 3.14. DinkHD v1.9.1 is not available in the Apple App Store yet, but it is available for all other platforms.

Mucho thanks to Beuc for finding and helping address these issues.

Dink Smallwood HD v1.9.1 also includes a fix related to the DinkC sp_frame command that should make it possible to solve the spinning arrow puzzle in Malachi the Jerk.

DFArc 3.14 also includes a few new and updated translations, and a crash when trying to package a D-Mod that didn't exist.

Ye ol' SlipDink has updated All that Glitters! to v1.10. This release includes at least 24 fixes/improvements/corrections, ranging from changing some dialog and some other wording to eliminating several overlapping lines of white text.

Dark Archon, the editor-in-chief at arhn.eu, put together a short documentary called Dink Smallwood: Two Decades of Duck Decapitation. It covers the history of Dink, going from Seth's Legend of the Red Dragon up through the Crazy Old Tim Plays All The D-Mods books, and includes some snippets of Seth and I talking about stuff. It's quite well put together.

I learned some new stuff, like how the original Dink Smallwood CDs included Warcraft music (!). I knew that there were copyright issues, but I didn't know it was that crazy!

Our favorite developer-who-posts-interesting-python-related-tools-to-the-forum, shevek, has released a new Dink Smallwood editor by the name of browser editor.

"Why would I use this when I have Windinkedit?" I hear you ask. "Hey, how did Dan tap into my microphone? This is getting creepy," I hear you continue.

Anyway, this editor is a little bit different than most, in that it runs in your web browser. This means that it works fairly well in a Linux operating system.

So, give it a whirl, and let shevek know what you think.

SlipDink has released his third D-Mod, All That Glitters!. This time around, Dink starts on a quest to a land that is rumored to have an abundance of golden riches: golden ponies, golden eggs, golden geese, and even golden showers.

I think there's a bigger issue here: is Skurn influencing the development of SlipDink's D-Mods? Skurn is known to appreciate a pony or two, and there's a giant glittering pony in a casino environment at the start of this D-Mod. Is this a coded message to Skurn, warning him that he is 'gambling' on 'ponies'? Or is it a mere coincidence?

Five Years.

Almost everyone learns to talk within five years of being born.

A lot of people complete their high school (or secondary school) education in less than five years.

Some people even complete a bachelor's degree in less than five years.

One musical artist even wrote a cool song titled 'Five Years'.

And, now, Bill Szczytko, of Dorinthia fame, admits that he's spent the last five years playing and bug testing Quest for Dorinthia: Special Edition, and is ready to present the fruits of his labor with v2.5. Bill admitted there were too many changes to list (though, presumably, this fixes a bug that happens if you kill the guards before getting the sword). So, now's probably a good time to revisit this classic.

Our favorite rabies-infected canis with a penchant for nueve, rabidwolf9, has released a new development file entitled Disappearing Blood. This will show you how to make the blood sprites fade out (disappear) over time.

So, if your fancy new D-Mod you're making for the Plot Twist Contest has a plot twist where blood, uh, disappears (?), try this.

Crazy Old Tim Plays All The D-Mods Volume 2: 2005 - 2015 is now available to purchase. This volume weighs in at a svelte 398 pages. For more details, please visit our book page.

For those of you who missed the announcement about Volume 1 and haven't been around the Dink Smallwood community for a few years, something really cool happened a few years ago. Tim Maurer (aka CocoMonkey) decided to play through every D-Mod ever released, and write about his experiences as he went. He decided to call this project 'Crazy Old Tim Plays All The D-Mods' (COTPATD). Along the way, he covered all 355 D-Mods, and wrote just under 300,000 words in total. His writing was pretty darn brilliant, and was witty, thoughtful, personal, and hilarious.

Some examples:

• "You know, about 15 minutes into hitting the same bitch-ass duck with a sword, its blood spattered everywhere, you get way too reflective." (Lost in Dink)
• "Oh my, yes. It may have taken several months, but at last somebody released something as bad as the utter dreck I vomited up back in August of 1998. *Sniff* I’m so proud." (Mike Dingwell's First D-Mod)
• "My brains turned to mush and I soon began to fail to follow it. There are a lot of words being spoken, but not a lot happens. I’ve read Proust and it was more exciting than this." (Bishop's Quest Part 1: Enter the Hero)
• "In The Promenade, Bill circles around the cluster again and again, moving subtly toward and away from the crowd in the curves of his movements. Each time, the hive, inhuman and mindless, erupts rapturously in a spray of blood, a hail of axes, a cloud of numbers. They will not turn on each other; they do not even notice each other. In this stage, they are one being, with only one purpose. An occasional confused element will fly off in some random direction, but Bill does a miniature Corral to return them to the cluster, which gets smaller and smaller." (Bill & Kill 3: The Terrible End)
• "I’m sorry. I know that it may seem kind of corny. I know that I’ve 'opened up' and blabbed about my personal issues here probably more times than I should have. But this game, this community and this project have mattered a lot to me, and this little ending just poked me in all of those places in my brain where it matters, it turned on all the switches labeled 'meaning' tucked away in those odd locations, those long-forgotten hallways." (Cast Awakening Part 5: Revolution)

All of these great quotes, and more, can now be shipped straight to your door and sit on your bookshelf (for a little bit too much money).

Are you interested in making your own D-Mod? Or yet another D-Mod? Have you made a few half-finished D-Mods, but never found the motivation to finish one? Do you only make D-Mods when a contest gives you a structure and a deadline?

Yes, we are holding another contest. This time the theme is Plot Twist. Can you twist a D-Mod's plot to surprise and delight your peers? Yes. Yes you can.

Thanks to Mr. Sparrowhawk for suggesting this in the Contest thread.

See the comments for more details.