The Dink Network

Dinker's View Four: Big Ted Revealed!

The Dink Interviews are Back.

Hi everyone. Well I've stepped into PureEvil's shoes as it were, and I'm continuing the Dink Interviews. My aim is to try and do one every fortnight or so (reality check means every month).

As a few of you know I've started work on a Tutorial Mod or TMOD as Binirit coined the term. And in it you will get to meet some Dinkers and talk to them. Well this is one of the conversations I was going to put in the TMOD... (and probably still will go in a shortened form) but I thought it so interesting you should all read it now.

Dinker's View Four: Big Ted Revealed!

Check the comments for your reading pleasure.

Hi, Simon! Holy cow, Mr. "Stone of Balance" himself! Glad to hear from you again!

Q: It's been a while since your presence has been felt within the Dink community. In many ways I always think of you as "Big Ted, the silent one". He who sits in the background quietly tinkering and fixing, and making things better. What's been happening in the world of Ted Shutes?

A:You called me "Big Ted, the silent one." Oooh, I wish that didn't have to be true! You guys in the Dink community have been just great and I wish I had more time for you. Unfortunately, Dink has had to be sacrificed to the demands of the real world: temporarily we can only hope. But I have been out of work for a long time now and the search is frustrating beyond belief. My widowed mother- in-law, my dearest friend on earth outside of my wife, has required a lot of help the last year or two. And then my beloved wife became critically ill about a month ago and had to be put in the hospital for a week: turned out she has diabetes and we didn't know it. Managing her diabetes has been a whole new experience for us, especially while I am out of work. And there are several other issues with my extended family, not the least of which was my own mother's passing the day after I put my wife in the hospital. Her death was not unexpected, she had been confined to a nursing home for four years due to Parkinson's Disease, and she took her final turn for the worse (evidently a stroke) about three weeks before she died. Still, it was very hard. We live almost a thousand miles (actually, about 1500 km) apart, and with my wife in the hospital, I couldn't even go to my own mother's funeral. All in all, I am going through a very rough period in my life.

Hopefully, however, I can take enough time to answer your interview questions properly. A "tutorial dmod" sounds like a great idea! You will, of course, be sharing the source and including a lot of common technique, such as warps and pushing rocks and creating inventory items?

Q: Oh, yes I will include those too, and now let's get down to some basics. So... where are you from?

A: Originally, I was born in Detroit and grew up in its northern suburbs (mostly Royal Oak). Now this big-city-kid is a country boy, living in the rural area west of Michigan's little-known capitol, Lansing. For you and the many other Dink friends not from the USA, Michigan is the mitten-shaped state surrounded by the world-famous Great Lakes separating the USA and Canada, our wonderful neighbor to the north.

Q: Are you working on anything Dink related at the moment? If so, please tell me about it?

A: When my life became interrupted by all the goings-on outlined above, I was deep into a revision of "Prophecies of the Ancients", at the request of Gary Hertel. Accomplished dmod author Tatiana Ryzhova (Tyrsis) of "As Good As Eternity" fame was helping with artwork, ideas, scripting assistance, and beta testing. I would love to finish that project, but a lot of things are going to have to change first. I also have been idly roughing out a somewhat different sort of dmod of my very own; but it's a long way off and, again, will have to wait. As you well know, dmod authoring does not pay very well...

Q: Wow, a revision to one of the Greatest DMODs ever made! Prophecy was the first and biggest DMOD, and for many Dinkers still the best DMOD out there. What can you tell us about the revision plans?

A:I really hate to get everyone going about it right now because I can't make a single promise as to when it might be finished. Nor can I remember what all I am doing to it. Much of it relates to what Gary said he wanted to do and didn't have the time himself. It's hard to tell, but there are a LOT of minor bugs. I have cleaned up dozens and dozens. I have also identified a number of weaknesses in the story line and worked out potential fixes. Gary participated in that quite a bit, and Tyrsis even more. A lot of the story has been "fleshed out" in subtle ways. My intent in those areas is almost like I hope people *won't* notice, that they will seem so natural that players will think they have always been there unless they actually go back and replay the original. Most of that part is done. What I need to get into next is the final chapters that take place in the "present", in the burnt-out world ruled by Shryke or whoever he really is.(In my version, the true Shryke will be just a prominent but otherwise ordinary citizen of the past world who has been the victim of a double plot: replaced by not one but two separate impersonators.)

By far the biggest weakness in the story is that the final battle with Shryke is a farce. The mighty Shryke, who dispatched Dink back to the present almost as a person swats a fly, is now no real match for Dink. In fact, all of the monsters in the "present" world are wimps. At one point in my testing, due to a bug, a Dink who had only gained a level or two wandered into those present-world citadel screens, so I decided to see how her fared against one of the robots. You know, that wimpy Dink was able to kill a robot with his *fist*? Gary told me at one point that people raced through his dmod. and the record was seven minutes of playing time or something like that. It's no wonder, if Dink doesn't need to be built up any more than that.

People won't be playing my version in seven minutes, Dink will have no chance against the final-area monsters unless he is considerably hardened first. And the Shryke impersonator who is the final enemy will have used his powers to take on an impressive new form: that of Tyrsis' final boss in AGAE, and I hope to make him as formidable as he will look. He will still be able to swat Dink like a bug unless Dink has teamed up with a powerful new ally, yet to be developed. I hope I will have the time to do it right.

Q: I think your story ideas and thoroughness are great. I for one look forward to playing anything you make. Now, a bit more history. How long have you been a Dinker? When did you first come across Dink and what is it about the game that has got (or had) you hooked?

A: Hmmm, that's a hard one. I am definitely a "Johnny Come Lately" to Dink. From the dates on some of my oldest downloads, it looks like I got into Dink in December of 2000. I have always enjoyed adventure games, especially ones that incorporate enough of an RPG element that you can build your character up, making him (or, in some cases, her) powerful enough to take on ever more difficult challenges. My all-time favorite is the "Hero Quest" series from Sierra, though I still don't have a copy of the last game in that series: no bucks. But Dink was eventually released as freeware, and that, at least, I could afford.

Q: You've given the community a valued resource, the revised DinkC.txt file, plus other fix-it files for DMODs, and Ultimate Cheat ver 3. Do you think about Dink and DMODs a lot? Have you ever thought about doing your own DMOD? Any particular reason why you haven't gone and done a whole DMOD?

A: I got into dmod authoring in a round-about way. I started looking at source code as a form of cheating, trying to figure out how to solve the puzzles in some dmods I was into, such as the "Friends Beyond" series. Some of the puzzles were simply beyond my... um, less-than-stellar problem-solving ability; but in many cases, of course, it turned out that problems were bugs. But I found the DinkC documentation was -- sorry, Seth, I appreciate all your work but I have to say it -- the documentation was awful. So I started to clean it up, inserting my own notes and clarifications as I went along. Eventually I accumulated so many notes and dmod repairs that I decided to contact Dan Walma to see if he would be interested in any of it. He was, and the rest is history.

Q: Why have you chosen the icon/avatar you have on the Dink Network?

A: I Forgot what my avatar even was until you mentioned it. I guess I selected a stone giant just because of its size. I am hardly the biggest person you ever saw, but at 6' 1" (185cm) and over 280 pounds (probably 130kg would be fair), I am bigger than the vast majority of people in my life. A lot of people have remarked about my size, though I am hardly the type to try and intimidate anyone with it.

Q: Your background is as a programmer - have you looked at the released source file? Would you/Do you plan to revise and fix the ultimate source of Dink Engine bugs?

A: I have not looked at the source. I do know it is written in a programming language with which I am mostly unfamiliar. Learning that language and, much more so, cleaning up the bugs would be a huge project. If I ever get the time, I definitely want to look into it. But that's not in the foreseeable future.

Q: I remember reading that you don't play Dmods with sound as you find sound a distraction. Why is that? Is it the quality of midi music? Or is it something else, maybe the sound effects?

A: It's just a personal preference. I got into computers in 1971, long before they could possibly sit on desktops. A few groundbreaking individuals were using them to create music, originally by cleverly selecting data blocks to write to those big magnetic tape reels you still occasionally see in movies, and then playing them back on specially altered tape recorders, but that was it for music. "Sound" was simply an annoying beep from the terminal, announcing to everyone in earshot that you made a boo-boo. Then PC's came along with their tinny speakers, and I wrote a "TSR" program that you could have DOS run during startup to shut the $#@! things off. I like sound cards well enough, I guess; but without a good set of headphones, they still attract unwanted attention -- and, in all fairness, I find it distracting when my wife turns her computer's sound on. And yes, the repetitiveness of the music and sound effects in all games I have played so far becomes annoying eventually if not sooner. All in all, my speakers are shut off 99% of the time.

Q: How old are you?

A: Old enough to know better than to be addicted to clever games like Dink. I turned 54 yesterday.

Q: What is it about the Dink game that you like the most, and the least?

A: With regards to the original Dink game, I thought the whole thing was well done in a "retro" sort of way. The super-glitzy 3D realism of modern games has an appeal, but it's too expensive to have captured my interest. I don't have the money for the games themselves, let alone the cutting-edge computers they always require. I also like games to have an element of simplicity, because I play games to relax from intense concentration, not to initiate it. The original Dink game was a very good mix of challenges and relaxing simplicity. Worst was probably that confounded bag of pig feed! There are also a few bugs. I have even fixed a few. I have thought of working on a cleanup of the original game, though it would be hard to do enough things to make it worth the effort. It was, after all, very well done.

Q: What do you like to do that is non-Dink related?

A: I like computers, so I spend a lot of time programming, tinkering, repairing, and even building them. I also like hiking and riding a bicycle. When I have opportunity, probably my favorite outdoor activity is star gazing. This area was very good for that when we first moved here (1976), but now a lot of trees have grown up, making open sky more difficult to find. But I also love trees, so I am not complaining.

Q: What is your favourite movie?

A: I'm not really into movies, so most favorites I could name would probably date me ('course, you already know I'm older than mud...) Probably my all-time favorite was "The Wizard of Oz". "Titanic" was also great. Beyond that, probably several "Star Trek" as well as "James Bond" movies are close contenders.

Q: What is your favourite computer game? And why?

A: As I say, Sierra's "Quest For Glory" series, and specifically, the re-write of "So You Want To Be a Hero?" would be my all-time favorite. I was taken by almost everything -- the graphics, the music(!), the humor, the whole RPG-type adventure game theme, the way your hero could have any of several different "occupations" with attendant differences in the approach he had to take to certain puzzles; and the fact the hero could be imported intact into the next game in the series. A very close second would be "Twinsen's Odyssey". It was the second in an aborted series: I never saw the first ("Relentless", I think), which is now out of print, and the company was bought out and the game team broken up before the third could be created. They had an promising storyline in mind, too. Such a loss. Another very close contender would be "Homeland: Stone of the Night". The graphics were pretty bad but everything else was good to great, and it had a rare feature I really like: instead of a single, "lone wolf" hero, you controlled a team of up to four heroes at once. Vaguely reminiscent of when, in "Prophecy of the Ancients", Dink escorts Shryke to the castle and he automatically participates in battles with monsters along the way. I put a lot of effort into improving that in my revision; and, of course, Tyrsis expanded it into her totally cool "follower" add-on. But back to the point, unlike "Twinsen's Odyssey", a sequel to "Homeland" is soon to be released, if it hasn't been already.

Q: What is your favourite food?

A: Pizza! My favorite is a "heart attack" special: ham, bacon, pepperoni, and lots of cheese . Yum!

Q: What are your 'pet' hates?

A: You really shouldn't have gotten me started on this. I have very strongly-held opinions about many hypocrisies in our society. A prime but hardly the only example would be people who staunchly defend children's rights out of one side of their mouths and abortion "rights" out of the other. I'm sorry, but I have to believe that children's rights begin where children begin: in the womb. No one could possibly convince me that any other point of view is valid, logical, moral, or intellectually honest.

Q: Do you like boats?

A: I'm not sure what the point of this question. No form of boating is a particular hobby of mine, if that's what you mean; although at one time, I really liked long (as in overnight) canoe trips; and if I'm not too old or out of shape, I could be tempted to join one again.

Ah... boats, well I guess the point about them is my upcoming TMOD, but I'm thinking its now a non-sequiteur. Thanks for taking the time to do this Ted, your answers are brilliant - and a big thanks for all that you have given this community. I, as I'm sure all the Dinkers out there do, wish you, your wife and your family all the best.

Oh on a finaly note, Ted sent me a photo of himself - here is the big guy revealed.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~sklaebe/graphics/Ted01.jpg