The Dink Network

As Dink Jr., the illegitimate child of great hero Dink Smallwood, life is hard. Your father doesn't even know you exist, as he abandoned your mother before you were born. Your neighbors don't believe you when you tell them about your real lineage, and you have no way to convince them. If only you could find your dad, then you could inform him of your existence, or make him pay child support, or even extract revenge...

*Best download of april 2006*

The category of unfinished DMODS is a particularly curious one with numerous entries. Of these, it seems that "Back from the Grave" garners the most attention, with the others largely left alone and unnoticed. For many of these, this is ideally how it should be. The only real value that "His Ancestor 1239" has had for example has been when people accidentally select it when using the file discussion forum on this site. In the case of "A Very Dink Christmas", however, I fear that it has gone ignored by many to the point where they're missing out on quite a lot of clever innovation and good fun.

The mod isn't without its glaring flaws which unfortunately the author seems to have fixated himself upon to the point of ignoring all of the ingenuity that makes up the final product. It's true that it's a game isn't particularly coherent to the point where you're often you're left wondering what to do and often have to use Ultimate Cheat to get out of a sticky situation, but at the same time, this is particularly standard in the world of Dink, even in finished DMODS and not something particularly game-breaking. The magic system takes a bit of getting accustomed to as well, but once you figure it out, the (somewhat unbalanced) new spells are great fun to play with.

Despite having no real ending and numerous flawed warps that will take you back to the start or cause you to get stuck rather abruptly, "Dink Christmas" is an adventure enveloped in puerile jokes and outlandish scenarios that will make you wonder what any of it actually has to do with Christmas itself. The fade-down sections with Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" had me laughing out loud, although for many, this will be interpreted as revoltingly distasteful and will understandably repel many others. If you can stomach this sort of humour, you're almost definitely going to enjoy the rest of what the game has to offer.