The Dink Network

Lyna's story was submitted as an entry for the alternative hero contest. It tells the story of Lyna, Milder's girlfriend, who's on a mission to find out what happened to 10 missing knights. Since Dink isn't around, she takes it upon herself to do good and find them all. At first Lyna's Story seems like an ordinary romp. Walk around, fight some enemies and find the knights. After a while however, you find that there's more to it. Next to the normal world, there's also a shadow world. During the game you get the opportunity to switch between these worlds to find the knights. Almost everything's different in the Shadow world. Ducks suddenly attack you, alktree nuts explode in your face. Pieces of slayers attack you, bonca's spit blood and so on. The palette also changes when entering the Shadow World, putting every graphic into negative image using the great palette swapping trick. There's a lot of secrets to find here too, including strange new items that grant you regeneration or a statboost and some new, powerful magic. As mentioned before, you're supposed to find all ten knights, but you can quit at any time by going back where you came from. A nice touch, but I don't think anyone wants to quit before completely finishing the d-mod. Although the size of the d-mod has been kept to a minimum, Paul has succeeded in presenting a very nice, original d-mod that stands high above some other romps that are sometimes even larger.
There was only one thing I didn't like and that's the lack of explanation about everything that happens. I can't elaborate about this, since it would spoil the story, but the reasons behind things happening are often left to your imagination.
Overall, I rate this d-mod 9.0, an exceptional score for an exceptional d-mod.