The Dink Network

The incredibly prolific rabidwolf9 has released a demo to his D-Mod entitled Relic Hunter.

While this is only the third D-Mod our lupus pal has contributed to, he has created nearly three dozen developmental files over the past twenty years. That expertise definitely shows in this demo, where deft scene work and clever scripting show a great deal of craftsmanship. For example, in the dungeon you learn of a new feature where you can press 'Q' to see where enemies are located on the screen, very useful for screenlocks where enemies are hiding behind opaque walls.

Even though this is a demo, and will likely never be finished, it's definitely worth taking a peek to see a D-Mod full of quality.

spinnerweb is sponsoring a new contest to encourage new reviews. She's noticed that new files rarely get reviewed, which is a shame, particularly as it means the authors who spend literally hundreds of hours creating new D-Mods don't get to know what people think about what they've created. It also makes it difficult for people to know which D-Mods are worth playing, as much of our casual audience only plays the most highly-rated D-Mods.

There will be three winners of the contest, determined by spinnerweb. First place will receive a USD 30 game of their choice, second place will receive a USD 20 game, and third place will receive a USD 10 game. I'll also give everyone who participates in the contest a special forum flair.

To enter the contest, you only need to write a review for one of these files that didn't have any reviews, and was released since the start of 2020. The deadline is October 1st November 15th. Here's a list of files that are eligible:

• A Little Adventure


• Before...


• Bow Sign


• Brovia- A mod I made for my Brother as a Christmas present


• Checkbit


• Cursed Blades Part 1: Charlie's Legacy


• Dink Shadows for Blender


• Dink Smallwood Icon Remade


• Dink Smallwood Midi OST - Roland MT-32


• Dink Smallwood Original 3ds Max Models


• Dink Smallwood Retopologized 3d Model


• Dink Smallwood Variables


• Dink Wallpaper/Fan Artwork


• Dink engine sprite rendering resize tests


• Fun with palettes


• Night Graphics and Tiles


• Periculo Island


• Push and Pull


• Sci-fi SFX


• Skeleton Gelatin


• WinDinkedit Plus 2 Source

For the full rules, see the comments.

Tired of the same old look of the light sword?

And Dink not actually changing his boots when you equip herb boots?

Don't worry, Josko is here to remedy the situation with the Light Sword and Herb Boots graphics pack.

This graphics pack includes a light sword that actually glows (Dink finally found someone to polish his sword).

It also includes Dink with blue boots, for the proper herb boots look.

What's even better, is this pack includes versions with the buckler and kite shield from the Off-Handed Shield mod. So you can use these with or without the shield.
Scripts are also included and a readme file to point you in the right direction to start using these graphics immediately.

One year ago today, our world changed.

Seth, in an act of benevolence, released the original Dink Smallwood 3ds Max Models. Since then, we've been living in the golden age of Smallwoods, with an outstanding line-up of D-Mods released in such quick succession: Necromancer, Bill & Kill 4: The Glorious Resurrection, Bloop the Fish 3: Never Stop Blooping, Cloud Castle 3: Grasshopper, and Crosslink (Final).

...

Okay, yes, (almost) none of that is true. The original 3d models were in fact released, but they haven't really revitalized the community. yeoldetoast printed out a physical copy of the church, Skurn made the slayer walk like a person and... that might be about it.

But, drone1400 noticed that the 3d models weren't very easy to find, so now they're listed in the official files page. Thanks drone!

What's this?

That's right, I've slipped into the back alleyways of the DN and broke the age old rule of of serving you some GELATIN, so you can have a strong SKELETON.

It's good for your bones.

It's good for your fresh dmods.

It's highly optimised.

It's the most bug-free barebones skeleton available with:
- Fully optimised dink.ini, re-structured, commented, and 130+ set_sprite_info lines removed (duplicates and other terrible ones that shouldn't be there)
- Robj's custom hard.dat re-write, allowing Dink to walk against things without encroaching into them too much. No where to slip through hardness, and all inner and outer islands & match-able beach tile combinations match with hardness too!

Read the dmod.diz upon install for even more info.

*Runs away into the forest, slipping away from the Goodheart guards*

Hello friend, would you stay a while and listen?

Our dear pal SlipDink is still here, with news and other good tidings. He has updated his seventh D-Mod, Periculo Island, to the version v1_2.00b2!

SlipDink says: "This new version represents several months of work. Thanks to the beta test team, this dmod should now be compatible with all know versions of the Dink engine. It also adds a few playability improvements, some new features and aspects of the game, some new sub-quests and the like, plus a few new graphical changes. And I also added a few more ways for Dink to die before completing his quest. "

Do note that Periculo Island does weight in at a whopping 108.3 MB - that'd take over 8 hours to download on a 28.8 kbps modem! This reminds me of a very old memory - the original Diablo demo came out when I was 12 or 13 years old, in middle school. For some sort of writing class (English?), we had to write a letter to a company, and I chose to write a letter to Blizzard to complain that it was impossible for "anyone" to download the Diablo demo. I just checked - it was just a scant 55.9 MB! Oh, how technology has changed so, so much.

RW has miraculously re-emerged out of the void, proving that no one can escape the DN. He brings offerings in the form of an updated version of Windinkedit Plus 2.

The source has also been graciously provided, uploaded as a separate file.

See the list of changes/updates below.

- Automatically detect FreeDink, Dink HD, and classic Dink
- The Dink installation to use is more granularly configurable
- Run successfully without administrator mode
- Screenmatch duplicate sprites are now marked with a red outline, and are picked up together (Shift+M)
- Stuff is now drawn with SDL instead of DirectDraw, resulting in better performance
- A couple settings used to not be saved properly, this is now fixed
- Some small UI improvements
- Fixed a few bugs, added new ones... you know, the usual.

I have released a major update for Push and Pull. This comes after my experience of actually using it in the recent Dmod I collaborated on with ExDeathevn, and really fine tuned things to make this super easy for Dmod developers to implement and use.

A complete beginner in Dmodding could use this now. It will take roughly 10 minutes to implement and maybe another few minutes to start making scripts to make sprites able to be push and pulled (copy, paste, edit 1 line in the script)

It has the intermediate - advanced developer in mind as well though, with the ability to fully configure the system without touching any of the core scripts. All configuration is achieved through setting sp_custom key values on sprites(or on Dink).

I have also ditched the video tutorials for now(since they are outdated), and instead I have written a comprehensive document on google docs explaining all aspects of Push and Pull from basic to advanced level: Push and Pull Documentation

Some of the major updates:
- No global variables used anymore
- No local variable needed in each move-able sprite script
- No dink.ini editing required
- A LOT of bug fixes and tweaks
- Scripts cleaned up

See the comments for all of the updates.

The new and improved TealDink, who has stopped haunting the DN as a ghost, and is now a peasant, comes bearing a gift.

He has released Dink Smallwood Retopologized 3d Model, a cleaned up/retopologized/optimized rigged and unrigged version of the original Dink Smallwood model (which was recently made available by Seth).

This cleaned up model should be able to be put to good use by anyone with the 3D modelling skills to do so.. So get to it people - you know who you are!

Seth has officially released an update to Dink Smallwood HD.

This version includes many bug fixes and improvements. Dmod compatiblity has been greatly improved.

Be sure to grab this new update, if you haven't already.

The dynamic team of RobJ and ExDeathevn and have teamed up yet again to release a brand new Epic D-Mod: Cursed Blades Part 1: Charlie's Legacy. This adventure is one of the largest I've seen in a while - the map looks expansive (without being too expansive), and it will surely take several hours to complete.

What ever happened to Charlie?

Will the house be forever vacant, with no answers?

Find out as Dink visits the land of Phospher, and uncover the secret of Horn Lace Tactic and Real Shoe UFOs.

Sometimes, tomorrow does actually arrive.

SlipDink is back with his seventh D-Mod: Periculo Island.

SlipDink sets the scene for this adventure: "Dink is looking forward to a vacation, when he gets word from the king that he must come to the king's castle immediately. The good news is that the king will be sending Dink to a tropical paradise, named Periculo Island, where the 'little people' live in an almost magical wonderland of joy. All that King Daniel needs Dink to do is check up on is why the fruit shipments from that island have stopped and while he is there he can enjoy the sun, the sand and the local culture. The bad news is that it may have something to do with the spy that is secretly communicating with someone from King Daniel's court."

As with all of SlipDink's D-Mods, there's an awe-inspiring beauty to many of the scenes in this adventure. If you want to see gorgeous scenery (like a vibrant jungle or an epic snow storm), check this out!

The enterprising duo of ExDeathevn and RobJ have teamed up again to release Off-Handed Shield.

This is a very slick demonstration of having Dink hold a shield with either a fist or sword equipped - it looks pretty darn seamless.

It's worth playing the demo just to see it in action.

It's quite amazing what innovations people are still adding to a game that's almost 25 years old.

Seth has officially released an update to Dink Smallwood HD (v1.9.3).

This version fixes a rather nasty bug that could cause the game to crash on startup when running on Windows 10/11. Yay!

The duckingly prolific RobJ (with website support from the shadowy figure known as Kyle) has revised and republished the DinkC Reference Guide. It is no longer a lengthy txt document or unviewable 'CHM' file. Instead, it is a clean and efficient web site, and thoughtfully maintained via a GitHub repository. There's also a permanent link in the 'Partners' section to your right.

Whereas the earlier versions of the DinkC Reference had significant errors and hadn't been updated in about 15 years, this version boasts a few major changes such as:

• Anything in the Reference (functions or general guides) that behaves differently between version of Dink and FreeDink is clearly shown, with version text tags and also color coded.
• Changes to many of the guides to make them more understandable, with extra stuff added to explain some common errors, and fixed some stuff that was incorrect.
• Fixed a lot of incorrect information given in the "Graphics" section, particularly surrounding things that can or cannot be used in the "init" function, but also some other stuff too.
• Where warnings are given for errors or flawed commands, a workaround example is provided, if one is possible.
• Many functions corrected, some re-written.

For a glimpse of the minor changes, please see the comments.