The Dink Network

"A short romp - that sorta turns into a quest. Dink is summoned by King Daniel to find out why the world is becoming a desert. This DMOD started out as being a project I wanted to spend only 24 hours on. Basically start it one night and have it finished the next. I didn't make it. Bugs (hopefully all the really nasty ones are killed now) and the desire to add new graphics (so shoot me, I can't help myself) meant it took just over 72 hours. Mind you this was not non-stop."

*Best download of june 2002*

A fun, if slightly tedious adventure, with quite a lot to discover.

Pros: I suppose the greatest part for me was the imagery... the desert and red world were simply well done. A lot of detail throughout. And the tons of secrets were also appreciated.

The ability to burn cacti with the fireball was quite fun... I don't recall being able to do that in Stone of Balance, but perhaps I just never tried.

The enemies were also good, though most were straight from Stone of Balance. It was nice to see the Eyeball Enemy in action, though I was hoping for Eyeball Junior to show up. And while the Knights and Red Scorpions seemed hard at first, leveling up was quite quick.

The new midis and sound effects also fit with the desert theme quite well.

Cons: It is primarily an adventure in leveling up, with a few breaks in the action. Trying to fight some of the monsters before Dink is strong enough does make leveling up a bit tedious, but the incentive to find secrets releaves it quite a bit.

The riddle... wasn't up to Stone of Balance quality. Sure, there are hints for it, but it just didn't hit this reviewer as very clever.

The shop seemed rather worthless; the items given to Dink and ones he found elsewhere seemed much more valuable.

The ending animation was funny for a few seconds... but grew tedious as it went on for eternity. Thankfully Simon gives the ability to skip it before it starts.

I also found a few very minor bugs, but they were hardly of any signifigance.

Overall: A good, challenging action D-Mod focused on leveling up. While it does have a few nags... the good outweighs the bad by far.