The Dink Network

Tutorial D-Mod

June 3rd, 2002
v1.1
Score : 5.6 fair
fish.gif
The basic idea of this file is very nice, however it appeared that the author rushed out this file (for DOTM of May, 2002, I assumed) and make it not so good.

First, when you read the readme file in the main directory, you would find that half of the readme file was for CloudCastle!

Then, if you look into the Graph directory, what you would see is the files of AGAE (As Good as Eternity). They were NOT used in this tutorial dmod at all.

Annotation of the scripts are supposed to be the main function of this file. Unlike the impression that I got from the readme, only a few of scripts have more annotations than normal scripts. And unfortunately, some of them are not correct or just useless. Here are a few example:

//This is needed if you are going to create a sprite int &sabre;
(No, this is needed if you want to use a new local variable.)

// always have a 1 at the end move_stop(&sabre, 2, 90, 1);
(No, usually have 0 at the end, or you can move through any hardness.)

//This means it won't hurt you if you touch it
sp_touch_damage(¤t_sprite, -1);
(Yes, but the main purpose of -1 is so that touch() procedure would be called if this sprite is touched. 0 means it won't hurt Dink, if Dink touches it)

There are more... but you should get the point.

Also unlike what the author claimed, only very few scripts was mentioned in the game. You still need to go to editer to find the names of most scripts.

Not to mention the hardness and map problems.

This file was intended to give beginners a tutorial for scripting. The author did make some effort, but I like it to be done more carefully and maybe more organized. And more importantly, the scripts should be bugless. It is not so trivial for beginners to spot the bugs in tutorial scripts since they were trying to learn scripting from this file.