The Dink Network

Recondite Twenty-Three: Recidivism

Recondite is my article, and is put up whenever el red de ink of one has an urge to gruesomely assault a keyboard with his tapping fingers. It is usually a whole lot of crazy rants, stories, poll comments, frequently asked questions, and links.

This week I delve into a whole lot of poll comments, one less dink couple, staff changes, and more! So read it, if you wish.

Poll Comments

The following are the best poll comments over the past couple months, in my extremely subjective and biased opinion.

Poll 21: Scariest picture on the Dink Chat Stats Page?

5) Oh, ya.. I guess I'm not on there.. well then.. discard that last vote there..
4) Tals, but wait 'till my picture is on it! Nobody will ever visit the stats page for fear of ME!! MWUAHAHAHAHA
3) Dukie, because he looks exactly like my cousin 5 years ago! it's scary :/
2) Those pictures are real!?!
1) Redink is looking at me in THAT way...which is why he's the scariest...

Poll 22: What level of schooling are you attending this year?

5) Y'know, up to 2 decades in the dang educational process can be pretty f**g agitating.
4) I may be a high school student, but I can eat undergrads! Rawr!
3) Yay for Political Science! First class (and twice only) is at 3pm 3 days a week! The other 2 days I push it.. 11 AM.. it's rough
2) me and schooling are like fish and popcorn, the two don't mix
1) Enjoy school while you can. Work sucks.

Poll 23: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

5) pine has the prettiest wood grain of them all and grows in the prettiest country--apple is a close second for the lovely blooms and luscious fruit-
4) I like a good Tal woody
3) Actually, I'd rather be a mystical tree that lives forever and has magical powers.
2) everyone knows that Tal's wood is the best...
1) If I were a Tal tree, I'd have some incredible, um, wood.

Poll 24: Favorite Color?

5) BLUE BLUE BLUE
4) This is my girlfriends favorite and since she's my favorite so is her color.
3) Dark "forest-kind" of green actually. Neon sucks.
2) REDink1.. oh well, you probably know what I mean.
1) Ultra Tal sounds like a TV show. But it'd get cancelled because it'd never air on time.

Poll 25: Guilty Pleasure?

5) cogitatamaniac --bonus points if you figure out what it means!
4) Doubted a while whether to choose food or lust, but I don't feel guilty about those. So laziness it shall be.
3) I have a headache. And I like it. Is this a guilty pleasure?
2) Food is guilty? Oh dang.
1) Why can only pick Tal?! It's not food, IB doesn't allow for laziness, my boyfriend's not here, don't have the money. Darn you redink1.

Sadness

Tal and allikitten are no longer a couple. If you want to know all the sordid details, you should be able to find them without too much trouble.

Staff Changes

allikitten has decided to leave the Dink community, and so is no longer on the TDN or chatroom staff.

And everyone welcome our newest staff member, SimonK, who will be contributing interviews now and then. Congratulations, you're no longer a peasant

Improving Dink's Gameplay

I've been thinking for a while, and most of Dink's gameplay is rather limited. Fighting is confined to hit-and-run tactics with an occasional projectile for good measure. Dink can also push and talk to things, and that's about it.

Now more than ever, with the Dink Source released, people can start implementing things to give some depth to Dink, while hopefully maintaining simplicity.

One option is to give actual artificial intelligence to enemies. Have *them* implement hit-and-run techniques. Allow them to actually see Dink before attacking, run away when close to death, etc.

Dink should also be able to dodge attacks. Imagine you see a Stone Giant rear back ready to whallop Dink, and you could just hit a key combination or another key to make Dink dodge out of the way, either using a new animation or the 'fall' animation.

And imagine if you could implement a 'super attack', by tapping the attack key just at the right moment in Dink's swing animation, say like a double punch.

There are tons more things that can be done to improve things, but I can't think of them at the moment.

TV Review: Game Show Network Video Games

I've been seeing some ads on The Dink Network for GSN Video Games for a while now, and I happened to stumble upon it a couple days ago. I thought nothing could be worse than TechTV's X-Play, which is ruined by awful camera movements, annoying hosts who apparently try to not be funny in an effort to get a laugh, an annoying 'host voice', and an overall lack of quality game coverage. I was wrong. Very Wrong.

I first caught the latter half of a Counterstrike 1.6 review. Ok, seems good enough. Except they gave it an 8 for graphics. Counterstrike is still based on the Half-Life engine, and there is no way it can get an 8 for graphics. Sure, it looks ok, but imagine if someone gave Dink Smallwood an 8 in graphics as opposed to other games released this year. It just isn't supposed to happen.

But this wasn't so bad in itself. But then Super Cleavage Woman showed up with a taco N-Gage in her hands. Ok, cleavage by itself is ok, but Super Cleavage is unbelievably annoying, especially with the camera pointing right down her shirt. Anyway, so I was wondering what they would dis on the N-Gage for, be it bad sales, horrible game loading, etc. Imagine my amazement when the whole segment was unbelievably positive about it. They just said "oh, its the best dang thing in the world, look at all of these cool gamer people buying it". Crappy reviews of Counterstrike aside, supporting the N-Gage is a 50 foot nail in GSN Games without even mentioning one of the downsides. I'll never watch it again.

The End

Sadly, I've not been collecting whacky links, so I don't really have anything to show you. And so this is the end of another Recondite, who knows when the next one will show up. I actually had a difficult time thinking of things to write, and that is a major problem in creating something made out of words.

I am alone