The Dink Network

Very interesting D-Mod name, very interesting and promising.
Just the words "Dink's Father" made me want to download and
play this one when I first saw it here. So... I've played it
and here's my review.

Plot/Story : Very nice idea, I don't recall any D-Mod ever dealing
with Dink's father, but then again, I haven't played all of them yet.
On the other hand, I thought Dink's father was dead, but I'm not really
sure about. Afterall, Dink's father could just disappear and be dead in
the eyes of everyone who knew him. In my own opinion, the idea is quite
nice. As for the rest of the story - it's very simple and I personally
dislike the end of the story, how the person just says "Haven`t i
mentioned that i am your father???". Disagree with me if you wish, but
I won't change my opinion on that. I'll talk about getting weapon and
magic in the Weapons/Magic section of my review. Oh and by the way, I
really like the well joke in the beginning. It's really funny, even
though it's old and I haven't seen it in any other D-Mod yet. Let's
say I give the Plot/Story 5 points for originality.

Map : Oh, there's a map? Aha, you probably mean the complete void full
of weird texture errors and things like that. The map is awfully empty,
I haven't found a single flower or a rock that can usually be found in
the wilderness. The maze part of the map is quite nice, but like the
rest of the map, it's awfully empty. And you can walk into the teleporter
at the end of the maze even with the screenlock on. Simply put, the map
looks like it was made by a six year old kid, therefore I give the Map 2
points. (The author got +1 point for how he made the volcano. Even though
it's simple, it's nice and original (as before, I haven't played all the
D-Mods [just around 25, not more] so I'm not really sure if it's the original
idea)

Weapons/Magic : Ahh, yes. Without weapons, you can't quite fight the opponents,
now can you? It's not easy to kill a slayer with your fists. The only weapon you
can get in this D-Mod (at least the only weapon I have found) is the Light Sword.
It costs three thousand gold coins. But... where are you going to get three thousand
gold coins? That's easy. The innkeeper says that a rich man has lost something in his
backyard. You'll go there and what do you see? Money scattered around everywhere. When
you grab it all, you will have exactly three thousand. By the way, I very much like Dink's
line "Hail the rich man!". Oh, did I mention that the Light Sword makes every fight easier
than stepping on a bug? Now let's talk abotu magic. The way how you get Fireball is quite
interesting and original, I like it. On the other hand, I don't like that I had to rename
the script file for spellbook, because by extracting, it was changed to 'spellb~2.d', instead
of 'spellbook.d'. That's a minus. The fireball itself looks more like Hellfire magic, but
why not? Noone ever said they're not supposed to look the same. Looking at it how it is,
I give Weapons/Magic 3 points for how you acquire them (plus side), and how they affect
the gameplay (minus side).

Scripts : I recall that the author wrote in the Readme.Txt that this was his first D-Mod
and that he can't script very well. It's true. I've already mentioned the script error for
'spellbook.d', but there is more. I'm not really sure if it is a bug, but one of the
wizards you fight (the twins) turns invisible and you need to kill only one to unlock
the screen, even though you can kill both. Because of using commands 'say' instead of
'freeze, say_stop, unfreeze', you have to (example: talk to the spellbook, Dink says
it's the spellbook, wait till the text disappears and then the spellbook is in your
possesion. If you leave the screen before that, you won't pick it up.) Same is with
getting the Fireball spell from the mage and with your father.

Monsters : As I said, the Light Sword makes all fights quite easy. There are three
bugs in the monster scripts/settings. The boss walks backwards, which made me laugh
when I first realized it and the taxman is just a sprite that moves, the person alone
is inanimate and finally, the already mentioned twin brothers.

Language : I won't say much to this. It's terrible. Spelling errors, wrong sentence
structure, lines like "the wizard haves the scroll" and such. Because I'm not sure
if the author's native language is not English or if the author's too young to use
a dictionary to find out the correct spelling, I won't rate this part. If you're very
young, then you're excused. If English is not your native language, then you're excused
too, but don't forget that you can always use a dictionary. And one more thing - Too many
exclamation or question marks are usually the sign of strange mind.

Good things in this D-Mod : Some original ideas like the well, volcano and the four teleporters.

Bad things in this D-Mod : Script bugs, texture bugs, empty map and everything else mentioned above.

Overall : This would make a _great_ D-Mod if the author worked on it more. Nice ideas,
but the results are terrible.

Score : 3.3 (like I said, I didn't rate some parts, so they didn't affect the final
score in any way)

And the moral?
"Every start is difficult. You mess up so many times before you make something good.
Don't let this failure to break you, dear Lancemads. Practice scripting, have someone
else to test the game for you and viola! Before you know it, you'll be the master of
D-Mods."