See the comments for Skull's interview with SabreTrout.
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Welcome to the first official Dinkerview!! If you don't know, Dinkerview is a interview show where I, Skull, interview different Dinkers.
And for the first Dinkerview, we have none other than... the myth, the legend, the fishiest englishman in The Dink Network... SabreTrout!!
Q1: Hello to the United Kingdom, Sabre. How're you?
A1: Surviving.
Q2: Tell us a little bit about what life is like in United Kingdom. Most Dinkers are from somewhere else, so they are probably interested.
A2: It's... fine? I don't really know what to say to this; I haven't lived anywhere else so it's quite hard to know what you would find interesting or unusual. Tea and crumpets, anyone?
Q3: What's your favorite and least favorite things about living there in UK?
A3: My favourite thing is tea. My least favourite thing? Londoners.
Q4: I've been hearing about your plans to move to Korea. Tell us a little bit about your plans there. Must be quite a thing to leave from UK after living there for basically your whole life.
A4: Well, I've always wanted to live and work abroad at some point in my life. I was pretty fed up in my previous job (working at a bank) and decided to take the jump. After looking into a few different prospects, I decided South Korea was the best bet. Culturally fascinating, yet financially viable too.
I've been here for a month now - It's great!
Q5: Onto the Dinkish stuff now. First off, the obvious question: How did you find out about Dink Smallwood, and what drew you into The Dink Network?
A5: Hmm, now let me think. I think my own story is a common one; I first came across the Dink Smallwood on a demo disc given away with a popular PC magazine. I enjoyed the game, but promptly forgot all about it.
Time passed, and I had forgotten all about Mr Smallwood and his pig farming ways, until I started searching online for game creation tools online (not specifically for RPG's, mind). Somehow I stumbled across the Dink Network, and the rest is history.
Q6: You have a brother, Arik, who is also known by The Dink Network though not as good as you are. How did he find out about Dink? Did you show the game to him, or did he find it out by himself?
A6: Again, he played the demo when I did, and only rediscovered the game when I downloaded the freeware version. He used to spend a crazy amount of time perfecting the opening screens on his first experimental d-mod, until I eventually twisted his arm and got him to assist in the making of Cloud Castle.
Q7: You have created some of the most popular D-Mods of all time, including, of course, Cloud Castle -series, and some smaller D-Mods along with them. These smaller D-Mods are mostly known by their great humour. Do you consider yourself a funny person?
A7: Yes. I am humour incarnate. Despite this, I feel all the funniest scenes in the Cloud Castle series were those scripted by my brother. I don't think I was ever able to set up a joke like he did.
Q8: Tell us a little bit about your Knight's Tale -series. What were your inspirations for Jarvis and the storylines, and what were your original ideas for the series?
A8: It was inspired by talk of making a d-mod in 3 days. Simon Klaebe had been talking about (or had recently released, I can't remember) The Creeping Sands, and I thought it might be fun to knock something together in 72 hours and release it. Basically it was intended as a short, snappy diversion. Nothing too complex... just a fast paced hack 'n' slash. Go kill an evil wizard - 'nuff said.
Obviously Dink didn't really fit the theme, so I had a look at what other graphics were available to use. I chanced upon the Knight graphics from Warcraft and quickly recognized them as being ideal for my purpose. You gotta love the little guy. I was studying Chaucer around this time, hence the title.
Whilst I think AKT2 took the best parts of the game and improved on them, I made a lot of mistakes with the 3rd in the series. Looking back, I'm really not happy with the d-mod at all.
Q9: Moving onto your best and most popular D-Mods, Cloud Castle and Cloud Castle 2. Again, what were your inspirations and original goals for these D-Mods?
A9: My favourite d-mods, no doubt. Inspiration came from all manner of sources; Baldur's Gate being one title that jumps to mind. I thought a basic "save the girl from an evil wizard" plot was a good starting point for a first d-mod, and things just went from there. The idea for Cloud Castle itself came from the Dizzy series which were my favourite games when I was a young lad. There's not too much I'd change about the game, though I've often considered releasing a "Gold" version; adding polish and perhaps adding in a few new areas/npcs.
You might be interested to know the cut-scene where you first meet Nerux was the first working cut-scene I ever made!
I feel very proud of what we accomplished with CC2. It really grew in scope as the project went on, and almost spiralled out of all control on more than one occasion! I'm surprised we ever finished it if I'm honest. New areas were always being added (the Oasis came about very late in development), Arik and I would often start scripting new side-quests and conversation pieces just to distract us from playtesting/bug-fixing! I think the conversation is one of the things that make it really stand out as a d-mod - Even the basic NPCs typically had a large amount of dialogue that changed as the game went on. I'd be very surprised if anyone had seen everything.
It's also quite free-form in a lot of ways. You can wander off from the main quest and find a lot of extra stuff to do. There are a number of quests you don't need to do, there are distractions such as Bonca racing, a sickening amount of hidden dialogue (which is ever expanded by the party members) and... well, even talking about it gets me excited again.
Speaking of the party system, I think that's one of my favourite elements of Cloud Castle 2. Obviously I can't tell to what degree people experimented with this, but by taking different party members to different areas you could unlock new sidequests and uncover large parts of their individual backstories. It's probably one of the most interesting and unique parts of the game.
Q10: What do you think make people love the Cloud Castle -series so much?
A10: Well, for many of the reasons I've listed above. I think the defining aspects were the "sandbox" nature of Salamak (hahah), the humorous dialogue and the large number of boss battles.
Q11: Since it's release, Cloud Castle 2 has become the second most popular D-Mod (according to the scores), in the history of D-Mods, sharing it's place with Paul Pliska's Lyna's Story. When you first started making D-Mods, did you ever think that one of your D-Mods would become the second most popular D-Mod, one day?
A11: I didn't really think about it. I was confident I had the potential to make an excellent d-mod, but I was always a tad delusional in how good I thought my d-mods were. About half way through CC2's development, I started to feel we had something special - It only ever became the d-mod it was due to Arik's involvement.
Q12: It may be the smallest reason you are known, but it is also a known fact that you tend to lose your patience in making D-Mods, and leave them unfinished and unreleased. Have you got any idea, even a simple quess, of how many D-Mods you have left unfinished in all these years?
A12: Between 15-20 d-mods, at a guess. That's a hard question.
Q13: There are especially three D-Mods people seem to be interested in you finishing: Once A Hero, The Basilisk Smile 2, and of course, Cloud Castle 3. Are there any plans on you ever finishing and releasing these D-Mods, at least one of them?
A13: Well, I'd like to finish at least one of them! CC3 is a million miles away from complete and may well never be finished - I can't see myself being satisfied with it unless it improves on CC2 in every way. TBS2 is a prospect that interests me greatly, but I've only ever done concept work with that. I've actually been working on OaH pretty hard over the last month and I'm determined to finish it. I may well completely redo the opening village section as it wasn't quite as polished as I'd hoped. I'll probably release an improved demo in 2-3 months time.
So, in short... maybe!
Q14: What do you consider to be your best contribution for The Dink Network, and what do you consider to be the worst?
A14: My best contribution? That would be Cloud Castle 2, which I think showed a different style of d-mod to be possible. I don't think anyone has really tried to imitate this, however, which is a shame.
My worst contribution? A lot of my earlier files are well and truly awful.
Q15: In all these years, you have seen a lot of people come and go. How would you compare the earlier dinkers, to the dinkers we see here today?
A15: That's an interesting question. I don't think things have changed all that much. There are still a lot of intelligent posters here, and there are still a lot of... less intelligent posters. I miss certain people (binirit, Phoenix, Paul Pliska and eattherats spring to mind) but I wouldn't say the community has changed dramatically over the years.
Q16: Out of my personal interest, is there going to be A Knight's Tale 4?
A16: AKT:4EVER was a project of mine many years ago. I deleted it in the end as I wasn't enjoying making the game. If someone else wants to make a d-mod starring Jarvis... sure, we could see a 4th.
Q17: If you could only pick out ONE thing, in ONE of your D-Mods, what would you change or improve?
A17: The dialogue. I don't think my writing is quite what it could be.
Q18: What do you like to do on free-time?
A18: Procrastinate, play videogames, read the odd book, eat kimchi and think about zombie apocalypse survival techniques.
Q19: What is your favourite game and TV show?
A19: Super Street Fighter 4 and Flight of the Conchords.
Q20: Do you have a british accent, this is the question crawling in the back of all our heads.
A20: Ah, I couldn't possibly say.
Q21: What is the meaning of life? Seth already answered sex, so that is not a possibility.
A21: Not sex? Um... Street Fighter.
Q22: Any last words for your fans (and enemies)?
A22: I love you all.
THANK YOU FOR BEING THE FIRST DINKER TO BE DINKERVIEWED!!
