The Dink Network

Dinker's View Eight: The Dmod Pioneer
Posted by SimonK on Wednesday January 28th, at 01:57 AM
Time for another break from DMOD authoring... well, if I was busy authoring, which I'm not really... but I hope all those weird authors are busy out there!

For your reading pleasure... head to the comments section to get a new view on the very first Dmod Author to publish his work. Way back when the Dink Engine was at version 1.02... in the last millennium... 1998.

Dinker's View 8: The Dmod Pioneer, old Granddaddy Wyndo himself. For those of you who are new to the community, Mike Snyder is the man who is responsible for so much of what we take for granted. He carved the way for many a new author, making plain the forest of DinkC and DMODs. His works include (but are not limited to):

The Scar of David

The Arithia Trilogy

Quest for Arithia 1: The Ninth Lock

Quest for Arithia 2: The Rozarus

Quest for Arithia 3: Elemental Peace

Dink's Doppleganger

Dinkanoid

Mike Synder's DMOD FAQ

Skeleton_B

Q: Let's talk about when and how you first came across Dink Smallwood, casting your mind back to when you first played Dink. Did you find the game via shareware, the internet, or some other means? What version of the game did you play first? What were your first impressions? How old were you at the time? Were you a student?

A: I knew about it through most of the development days. Seth was a BBS game author for years (longer than I was), and I knew RTSoft from that. It was cool to see his team work on something more mainstream and professional, and the add-on opportunity was appealing. I had one of the original CD's - in fact, I'm pretty sure he sent it complimentary. It was the first public release... maybe 1.02 or something like that.

Hmmm, this was what... 1998? I'd have been 26 or 27 then. I was engaged at the time, though that didn't work out partially because of Dink.

First impressions - I thought it was great!

Q: Who were the original Dinkers, or the Dinkers most active during the time you were Dinking? Can you remember their names?

A: Oh.... Let's see, there was Dukie, Redink1, uhm... starts with a "P" I think - Paranor, Paradox, something like that. He wrote one of the D-Mod contest entries, I think. There were several others, but my memory fails me now.

Q: You set up a website, what prompted you to do that? What was it called? Were there a lot of different websites around at the time? Were there other websites before yours (other than RtSoft?)

A: It was The Dink Smallweb. I think the old pages are still online (at least for now) at http://www.prowler-pro.com/dmods/smallweb.html - yep, I checked. Interesting nostalgia if you skim back through older news. I can't remember any other websites online at the time, but there may have been. This was really early in the life of Dink Smallwood.

Q: Besides Minni-Vanilli DMOD (from Rt-Soft) I believe you made the first DMOD. Which one was it? (I think it was Scar of David) What was the "making of" experience like? Not having the benefit of all the information that the authors of today have such as other DMODs, tutorials etc, it must have been interesting. Did you spend hours trying to figure out how things worked? (I remember going thru the tut1.txt that came with the freeware version (1.06) and not getting the "starting on a map number" thing working until after I read your FAQ. Can you recall any moments of similar frustration, or moments of success? As in hey, I finally got a script to work!)

A: Yeah, it took hours, days, to figure it all out. The instructions left a lot out, I think. Yes, Scar of David was indeed the first-ever 3rd party D-Mod, the first to come after the Millia Vanilli one (the oldest news entry at "The Dink Smallweb" confirmed it). Before this, there wasn't even a term for D-Mods - we all just kind of referred to them as add-ons. I said "Seth, they need a name. How about D-Mod, for Dink Module?" and he said "consider it done!"

Q: You have made many DMODs, including the unfinished "Dink's Doppelganger". Can you tell us something about the development of Doppelganger? What was the story behind the ideas of aliens and spaceships etc. Why did you have to stop the DMOD? When did you start/stop working on it? Was it going to be the first big "epic" DMOD, that is a DMOD that was about the size of the original game, or did Prophecy of the Ancients get released before you were working on it?

A: I think Prophecy of the Ancients came out a few weeks later. I'm pretty positive though that there wasn't anything else out there on the scale that I had intended for "Dink's Doppelganger" (and for the "Zolan Wars" to come - aka "Sedition Factor").

I was engaged at the time, spending too much time working on the game. My fiancé wasn't happy with the lack of attention. Since then, I've met someone new, been married nearly two years now, found that she's more accommodating and I'm better able to balance programming with a relationship.

The story... well I had the idea for an alternate "mirror" universe where the good people are bad and vice versa. At the risk of spoiling DD for those who haven't played, at the end, we find out that the "bad" Dink swapped worlds with the "good" Dink, and has just killed a friend of the good Dink. There was going to be an alien invasion in the "big" sequel, time travel in which Dink is able to prevent the murder... I can't even remember what else. I worked some of the back story into the Arithia trilogy I think. It's a shame I never wrote the Zolan Wars.

Q: I remember reading somewhere about some "flack" you got over planning to release a DMOD that people would have to pay for? Was that going to be Doppelganger? What was the community's reaction at the time to your plan?

A: There was good feedback, but mostly bad. That's the "Zolan Wars" D-Mod you're thinking about - which was going to be a "pay" sequel to Dink's Doppelganger. Seth was totally supportive - he had it worked so I'd be able to use the Dink engine itself to release the whole game as stand-online on a CD.

Around this time, there still weren't many D-Mods, definitely not many (if any) "big" ones. I needed to justify the time expense to my then-fiancée, and writing "free" games was no way to do that. Plus, I haven't lived at home in a long time - when I work, it's often nice to earn something back. Taking it as a hobby only gets me so far.

I probably would have went forward with the plan. The "public outcry" was definitely a big reason I didn't, following the break-up. It was just too much time and work for something I wouldn't have the majority of Dinkers behind me on. At best, I'd be trying to reach a new crowd who may not have tried the original, and the plans just fell aside.

This might have been before the Arithia games, and before Dinkanoid though. I believe I went forward a little more as a hobby, before finally moving on.

At one time, there was a plan for a "Companion CD" - we were going to put a ton of D-Mods on it, and sell it among several of us by including some large, original "premium" D-Mods. That was getting a better response than when I had planned to release my own by itself. I still think it would have been a terrific idea, if we'd followed through.

Q: You also broke new ground with "Dinkanoid" the first DMOD that was a re-use of the game engine to make an arcade game. When did you develop this add-on? And can you tell us something about the competition for High Scores? I believe the game performance would depend on the speed of the player's computer, and that one clever author released how you could cheat by editing the dink.ini file to change hard boxes. Can you tell us more about that time? The size of the community? The reaction to the DMOD and then the reaction of the community to the "cheating"?

A: As far as I can tell from the Smallweb news, it was September 1998. All my D-Mods came around in 1998, over the space of a few months. It seems like it lasted a lot longer than that. I had a lot of fun with it.

I'm referring back to Smallweb news heavily for these answers, because I'd either not remember or remember wrong. The Dinkanoid scores are still online (and new ones can be submitted) at http://www.prowler-pro.com/pcgi/dnscores.cgi - still works! We were offering $20 to the winner, plus a few other prizes. Basically promotional, but also to "give back" - looks like I cancelled it due to the cheating you describe. It's all a blur.

I don't think the community was all that big - maybe 50 people visiting the forums. But again, that was a long time ago.

Q: You were also the first to do a trilogy DMOD. The "Arithia" series. Can you go into some background about those DMODs and the story ideas behind them? Did you plan for them to be a series of DMODs from the start, or did sequel ideas occur after the first one was completed?

A: It (the series) was a "prequel" to the Dink's Doppelganger, kind of establishing some characters and facts about the setting for the Zolan War (Sedition Factor) D-Mod. It's pretty self-contained. If you play and beat all three, I think the story itself does have an ending. I had a lot of fun writing them, and I remember doing a few new tricks (a "map" graphic in The Ninth Lock, maps for the next game starting where the old map ended, a castle that was two screens tall, etc).

Q: I remember hearing about a competition that RtSoft ran for DMODs? Did you enter it? If so, with which DMOD? Who won?

A: No, I didn't enter. I actually hosted and sponsored it. Check July 11th 1998 at http://www.prowler-pro.com/dmods/news0003.html - there were four entries, and "Slaughterhouse" by Kevin Kazimir won. Seth donated $100, and I donated $100, and we held a contest. The details are still online (surprisingly) at this URL: rules, etc. I don't remember why I wanted to hold a contest, let alone give away my own money. I was just having fun with it all.

Q: The D-Mod Editing FAQ was my ultimate source of correct info when I made my first DMOD, many thanks for taking the time and effort to put that together. Was it something that came about because you were being asked the same questions, again and again?

A: Probably because of being asked the same questions, but also because I could still remember how frustrating it was when I was first getting started, without any good information. A lot of it I added as things I myself had difficulty with, so I know others would also. Is somebody maintaining and updating that FAQ now?

Q: The first (and for many the best) skeleton DMOD - was another inspiration that made authoring so much more simple for new authors. When did you put that together? Why is it called Skeleton_B? Was there a Skeleton_A? Did you modify it, based on feedback?

A: Thanks! It took a little time to start a brand new D-Mod, quite a bit of groundwork to lay before evening starting the game code. So the "skeleton" was the answer. I honestly don't remember why it was called "B" - I think there was an initial version a day or so earlier that was probably downloaded before I fixed/added a couple things. Yeah, news on 8-19-98 confirms it. Just a couple little glitches from the first release that were fixed in "B."

Q: When did you leave Dink behind, and can you tell us what were the reasons? Had you had enough of Dink and wanted to explore other games, write your own games? Or were there demands from other areas of life (such as personal, girlfriend, wife...)

A: All of that, really. I was single by the time I left the Dink scene, but somewhere around September or October 1998 my business partner and I started working on a browser-based version of Lunatix. Although I can't remember leaving Dink behind for this reason, I know I've been doing this non-stop since then. We had previously sold copies of a MajorBBS (Worldgroup) version of Lunatix, but with sales slacking and the internet engulfing and overshadowing the BBS world, it was time to work on another money-maker.

Q: Now, a little about yourself. What are you doing now? You run Lunatix?

A: Sure, I'm 32 now. We've been running Prowler Productions since... mid 1996. I've also worked as a professional programmer since 1995, though not in the game industry. I've been writing games since 1987, all the way back to the Radio Shack Color Computer days. Some interesting links of mine, if on-topic for the review, including a link to StarLock which is a game I've been working on for almost five years now.

DOS/Windows freeware at Prowler

Some of the first games I ever wrote

"StarLock": a Massively Multiplayer Browser RPG/Adventure

out-of-date info about me - ha ha, pics too

Q: You now seemed focused on making online games. What is it about these types of games that you like? How hard is it to create an online game and what game project are you working on right now? How long have you been working on it? Do you work alone, or do others help with programming, graphics, sound...?

A: Right now, I'm still working on StarLock (almost five years now), although I have other game ideas just waiting to explore. Prowler's current focus is on browser-based gaming. We're trying to build the biggest, best gaming site for browser-based fans, and we've got a lot in the works.

My partner does graphics, although for StarLock I've been going it alone. For this, I've done the programming, graphics, story, music - all of it. The thing about browser-based games I like is, it's something suited to small teams - even one person. Because of this, you do see plenty of hobbyists and amateur efforts (no offense intended), but if a small team tried to compete with those $1-Million developers, the results would be horrible. With a BBG (browser-based game) there is a niche market. It's better to work within your means and your budget.

Q: Where do you live (as in country, state, city... however detailed you want to get)?

A: I live in east Wichita, Kansas. My wife and I just bought a house last March.

Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?

A: I read a lot - I have a sci-fi collection that fills four bookshelves - one shelf dedicated to my all-time favorite author (Jack Vance), and several for all the Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who books. I also play video games, although not as much as I'd like (Playstation, Gamecube, N64, and GBA SP). We enjoy movies, and usually make it out to a movie a couple times a week (when we were first dating, even more often).

Q: What is your favourite food, and why?

A: Chicken Fajitas! I don't know, I just love Mexican food, and I've liked fajitas for as long as I can remember.

Q: What is your favourite movie, and why?

A: I don't think I can pin an answer down to just one. Some of my all-time favorite movies include Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, Memento, all Star Wars movies, the Back to the Future trilogy, and most recently, The Butterfly Effect.

Q: Do you stop by the Dink Network much? How frequently?

A: Yeah once in a while. A few months ago I said "hi" in the forum, and got a great welcome from other visitors. I'm surprised things are still so active, to be honest. Dink is a great game, great game engine for D-Mod developers, but the ongoing support is really amazing.

Q: Have you got any links to websites you find helpful in making games, or websites you like to go to, because of their subject?

A: I visit the forums at MPOGD constantly. It's not so much to get advice and help (though that happens), as it is to answer other people's questions. There are a few other browser-based game developers who hang out there as well.

There is a wonderful resource/FAQ site for game development in general, maintained by Mr. Tom Sloper - I've found it very insightful and helpful in the past - Sloperama - check it out.

Q: Have you got any advice you'd like to give to any new author out there?

A: I think you have to strike a balance between doing something for fun, and doing it as a career. I think it's highly unfair when kids complain about the cost of games, especially indie games. Gaming as a hobby can be an expensive one. But as developers, we also have to do it because we enjoy it. If it's only the money, I think the creativity and originality will suffer.

My best advice is to just program as much as possible. I've been doing it for half my life, and I've known dozens of programmers at current and past jobs. Nobody get great at it just by taking classes, or just doing the tasks required at work. You can be an "okay" programmer, maybe even a successful one, but why settle for that?

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview and for the excellent Dink Legacy you have left us, Mike. Good luck with all your future games!