The Dink Network

An Aeophian Adventure: Dink goes to Aeophia

Dink arrives into the town. From the COTPATD project.
Description
Dink goes to the Aeophian town of Woodshire after recieving a letter from Maya, saying that she needs help badly.
It's still beta version so there might be some bugs.
It's a very short DMOD, it's my first and I just wanted to familiarize myself with WinDinkEdit and DinkC. It shouldn't take the player more than 10 minutes to solve the three quests in Woodshire. The player may also run the local pub and leave the town whenever he wishes.
Oh well I'll just let you play and see what thid dmod is about. I know it's not much (and it doesn't have an awesome storyline nor uber scripting) but now that I know how the development of a DMOD goes, I'm planning on making a better DMOD (possibly an Epic) this summer.
Have fun

Yes my title goes there. Yours too!
Released:May 21st, 2009
File Size:301.05 KB
Downloads:339
Release Notes:Initial version.
Play:Play this D-Mod right now in your web browser! (More Info)
 
May 27th, 2009
v1.00
Score : 4.7 tolerable
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
For me playing a game is a pretty narcissistic experience. I want to feel that I am the best there is, I want to fight dragons, save damsels in distress and vie for victory. This means a game has to reward me occasionally with a pat on the shoulder and let me feel that I have achieved something unique. Of course anyone can beat the game, but my narcissistic inner self doesn't need to know that...

Unfortunately 'An Aeophian adventure' failed to deliver me this experience. After playing through this DMOD I hardly had the feeling I had even played a game. The reason is that this DMOD doesn't reward you for anything. The entire DMOD consist out of a little village in which you can run some errands for the local population. None of the inhabitants are particularly thankful after you helped them, one of them even went as far as telling me "Just leave me alone..." and then never spoke to me again.
The only thing you can 'achieve' in this DMOD is becoming owner of the local pub. But the ridiculously small amount of effort it takes to become owner means this really can't be called a reward either. Any villager could have become owner if they'd shown the least bit of interest.

This lack of game-experienced is aggravated by the lack of an ending. It is left up to the player to decide when he has seen enough. And when the player makes this decision the game just quits, there is no fancy cutscene, no credits and no goodies.

Technically the game is sound though. I found no bugs in the scripting and in general the scripting is well done. There are no spectacular scripting tricks, but the basic elements are used very well.

Unfortunately the mapping is different. The map has quite a bit of hardness, but it all seems pretty much redundant as there are so many holes. Especially the fence around the village is a bit of a joke as it is absolutely riddled with holes. A lot of the screens also don't have any natural borders. This means that you just run into the edge of a screen and notice you can't continue any further, there is no way of telling in advance if the next screen will exist or not.

The decoration of the map is reasonable. The original screenshots I saw in the development thread looked quite promising, but they don't work out very well in the DMOD itself. The most important problem is that this DMOD has a lot of trees, but no screenmatch. This means that screens never really line up, I found this annoying. The decoration itself consist mostly of trees. Removing some trees and adding some other decoration would really improve the map, just add the occasional flower or a patch of grass.

On the positive side the atmosphere in this DMOD was relaxing and the conversations are quite well written. I liked the way you could run your own pub as well, though earning up to 40 gold a time when you can't buy anything is a bit of a letdown.

Final verdict:
So this DMOD is a bit of a disappointment for me. Especially as I feel that the DMOD's author could do better. The DMOD's concept isn't bad, it just lacks polish and an objective. If the sequel is a bit longer with more rewarding quests and has some sort of objective it could still end up quite nicely.

4.7