The Dink Network

Something about me...
Well, I was born June 2 1987 which makes me 22 years old at the time of this writing. I first started playing Dink around 2002 and joined the forums in may 2005. Since December 2008 I've been doing the polls here on the Dinknetwork, so if you think a poll is stupid, funny or plain pointless it's probably my fault.

I also released some DMODs here. The first two called Dink learns music and Quest for the gems aren't really that great, but I also released The scourger, a DMOD that I still consider to be my opus magnum.
Progress on new DMODs is going very very slowly though. I still have a DMOD in production called "Terminal Tranquility 1, Paninga". But as mentioned before progress is really slow, so don't count on it being released any time soon.

I've made a development file called "An introduction to DMOD making" which seems to be very popular, be sure to check it out if you're interested in making DMODs yourself!

If you wish to contact me you can do so by posting a private message on the forum, or by emailing to: metatarasal (at) hotmail (dot) com

If you want to read more about me, check out the interview I gave for Dinkerview.

Private Message

The first two points are exactly what I'm trying to implement in my new DMOD, it's really centered about it. As of yet it fails quite miserably, but I'll hope to improve. Maybe I will post a preview in the future explaining more about it.

The problem I encountered though is that the map size is really limited. I have trouble getting all the things I want into it into 768 screens. Let alone get the distances great enough for different cultural regions. And I wanted to make an entire country, but I can really only make one small, historically important province (called 'department' in the DMOD). Maybe I'll start experimenting with multiple map files in the future...

Past times and relations really add depth into the game, it's a lot of work though. If you have about 60 people in your game, creating two things to do for each one is already an herculian task. Focusing more on their backstories is a much easier way of adding depth.

And if you're using visions there's a substantial chance that you'll find them nowhere or at two places at a time. Or even worse you walk in and out of a house and the npc disapears. I don't think that adds depth, it's just inconsistent.

I still wonder why relations have never been implemented in Dink though. I won't because of the work involved, but if you're prepared to put some time into it it could work out quite nicely. storing their relation to Dink in the using the editor_frame is very practical.

What I would really like to see is a DMOD where your choices have influence on the world around you. Not just on the kind of ending you're getting but to the entire world. Imagine killing a guy and seeing his house for sale some time afterward, and maybe seeing another guy move into the house afterward.

Maybe that's a very difficult idea, but imagine an argument in a town between two opinions. Dink is asked to choose sides, whatever he chooses will influence how the village will look like afterwards, maybe opening certain (small) subquests.