The Dink Network

Crystal of the Gu

Dodge the bouncing sparkles! From the COTPATD project.
December 29th, 2009
v 1.02
Score : 8.6 good
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Skorn
Peasant He/Him
I Bring Tidings of Spam 
Crystal of the Gu by Endy was a great DMOD. It's a shame it was very short though. I would have enjoyed it to be longer.

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Story
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there really doesn't seem to be a story. You just rush to the end of the caves without getting killed by the stars.

5/10

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Graphics
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No new graphics, but the ones provided by Dink Smallwood were fantastically used. The dark depth of the cave really makes the stars pop. The map design was great and overall had no hardness errors.

10/10

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Sound
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Cool music, but it doesn't seem to fit.

7/10

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Gameplay
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Not much to say about the gameplay. All you do is race to the end of the cave without dying. There are some power-ups to collect like hearts and herb boots. The replay value is very high. I played this at least three times one after another. It never gets old.

9/10

Overall this is a great race-to-the-finish style game.
August 6th, 2009
v 1.02
Score : 7.0 good
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This dmod essentially turns Dink into an evade-the-bouncing-balls game. What little storyline there is, is only there to justify the game itself.

The Good:

It's lots of fun, if you have time to kill, and feel like honing your hand-eye coordination skills. The variety of bouncing colors and patterns are pretty, I guess. The game also gets progressively difficult as you go on, although after getting the herb boots and the hearts, things just become rather trivial.

The Bad:

Not much replayable value here. The difficulty is quite high, and unless you're into this sorta thing, you probably wouldn't want to do it again after seeing the ending.

Speaking of which, there isn't much of an ending, just a little joke to reward for your skillful evasion techniques, I suppose.

IMNSHO:

If the author *really* wants to go all-out on this concept, though, he should add more depth to the game. Namely, more screens, and a more gradual progression in difficulty level. More complications thrown into the mix, say a screen where you need to work your way to a switch in order to open the exit door. Or a screen with adjustable mirrors to redirect the bouncing things (but not without potentially nasty side-effects, deliberately worked into the mix, of course). Maybe an optional "backdoor" item for, say, freezing the balls for 1 second. Or, if you're into masochism, navigate a maze whilst avoiding the bouncing things. With pit traps that send you a few screens back. Muahahaha...

Ahem. Back to the review, this is an OK dmod, I guess. This isn't a real adventure or anything, just (ab)using the dink engine to do curious things. That gives it a score of 7.0 in my books. If the author had gone all-out and did some of those things I suggested (and perhaps much more), this would've earned a much higher score in the non-adventure DMOD category.
March 28th, 2007
v 1.02
Score : 8.5 good
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Volcom
Peasant He/Him
 
This is a game of froger basicly, but way harder. There is about 7 screens total, but the game lasts alot longer than you would think. After you pick up the speed boots on about screen 4 the game gets alot easier though. If you want to start over after you beat the game you still have the powers of the speed boots but there not in your invetory.

Very simple story, but it gets the job done.

6.5 In Graphics Nothing new, but a nice way to use the star grapics as enemeys

7.0 In Story Line A wizard stole some the Crystal of the Gu, Dink trys to get it from him, the Wizard teleports him to a cave. Dink gets out, Wizard gets punished.

7.5 In Replay Value You will proply beat it 3 times in a row then quit, but how many times have you done that with another D-mod??

9.5 In Game Play Will keep your heart racing the whole time

8.5 Over All

March 25th, 2007
v1.00
Score : 8.0 good
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skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
A nice little romp! Better then mine!

Still some things to fix. Some stars won't move. When you got herb boots and start again you have your fist in screen but you move fast.
The end joke was really funny. Atleast a good d-mod for second one. Keep going on with same style!! !! !! !! !