The Dink Network

Search for Milli Vanilli (The)

Wtf? Yay a Duck farm owned by MW. Rob Pilatus is suicidal on the cliffs
November 22nd, 2020
v1.00
Score : 8.5 good
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yeoldetoast
Peasant They/Them Australia
LOOK UPON MY DEFORMED FACE! 
The Search For Milli Vanilli was the first RTSoft-produced DMOD ever released. It's a stark departure from the usual world of Dink with its knights and dragons and instead involves reuniting Frank Farian's band "Milli Vanilli" comprising of Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan.

To judge this on gameplay alone as others have done would be to ignore what an interesting pastiche of late 90s culture and early Dink history this is. The title screen plays a demo MIDI from the Sound Blaster AWE32 and in the music shop, Dink remarks on the popular CDs on the shelves from artists such as Beck and Garbage. From here, you have to collect enough gold to purchase the Milli Vanilli CD so that you can win the game by playing it on stage in front of them (because they couldn't actually sing). If you look in the game's files you'll find a reference to how in late '97 28.8k modems were often the norm and how the slayer death graphics hadn't yet been rendered for the game's final release.

Most interestingly, this DMOD was often considered controversial due to it apparently mocking Pilatus' death. Seth came forward twenty years later to explain with certainty that the development process definitely finished before this tragic event and thus it was just incredible coincidence that Rob was depicted to be considering suicide at great elevation. Despite this, Pilatus had actually attempted suicide some years prior on a hotel balcony in December 1991 after the Grammy controversy and had climbed over the railing before the police intervened to bring him to safety. Therefore, this entire sequence might actually make it one of the most offensive DMODs ever made, both through deliberate intent and by accident.

Overall, I was impressed by the somewhat unconventional use of the engine, and strongly urge anyone with an interest in different ways of making a DMOD to play it through before moving onto something like The Quest for Cheese. The Search for Milli Vanilli has an enduring legacy and has no doubt directly or indirectly influenced countless DMODS that we all know and love. Most importantly, it meant that those of us who were too young got to be tormented with the sound of Milli Vanilli sought out their music in many cases when we otherwise would have lived in ignorance. Bravo RTSoft.