The Dink Network

My project

August 9th 2009, 09:36 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
I have started working on a little project using XNA and C# but I realised that I don't have the time I would normally need to get the artwork done (and I lack talent as well) and I don't really want to take the artwork from this game and put it together with the artwork from that game. But then I had an idea:
What if I used the artwork from Dink (I could also modify it to look better) to make an open-source new dink project?
If you want, we could all work together on the main plot and make this the "nevercoming" dink 2
I will soon post a tech demo of my project using Dink artwork.
Some features:
~ The map won't be split into pieces. It will be one big scrolling map (except for the houses, probably).
~ There will be a quest log and a more complex inventory/stats screen.
~ New trade screen.
~ & more (we're not limited at all )
So, what do you think?

One more thing regarding XNA: It will make it possible for us to port the game on Xbox360.
August 9th 2009, 10:43 AM
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pillbug
Peasant He/Him United States
Love! True love! 
It will make it possible for us to port the game on Xbox360.

HURRY UP! If you can make Dink 2, that's super awesome. If you can make Dink 2 and be able to play it on the 360, not only are you (and anyone else working on this) super awesome, but you will be my new best friend forever.
August 9th 2009, 10:45 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
The X360 version will be released after the Windows version
Right now I'm working on the engine, but I will not be able to continue if I don't know what the main plot should be about. I'd be grateful if some users would come up with some ideas.
August 9th 2009, 11:17 AM
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Kyle
Peasant He/Him Belgium
 
Before putting my faith in a project like this, I'd love to see a tech demo of your engine
August 9th 2009, 11:27 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
The video should be available before the 15th of September. It's not like it is supposed to be airing in september. I might be able to release it this very month.
August 9th 2009, 12:55 PM
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ExDeathEvn
Peasant He/Him New Zealand rumble
"Skinny Legend" 
Looking foreward to the demo.
If its good then a few of us could throw our heads together to work out how a Sequel storyline to Dink Smallwood should go.
For one thing though, an Armored dink would probably be good to go with it, and if he looked older.

If we can get a whole team together for this, it's definitely going to be beyond an epic. Somebody give Seth a call!!
August 9th 2009, 01:08 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
It will feature armors, that's for sure.
August 9th 2009, 03:26 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
The first screenshot.
It presents four rendered sprites. Sorry for using the same tile but it's just a test screenshot. A church, a necromancer (I used the Spike graphics) and the two equipped icons (weapon and magic).
Click to view image
August 10th 2009, 06:31 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
I'd like to ask you something (sorry for triple posting in first hand):
Should the main characters of Dink2 feature voices?
August 10th 2009, 07:28 AM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
I've always liked the idea of Dink characters having voices. Problem is, you should gather atleast 10 people to make the voice acting. And I've a feeling, that many people don't want to, but you can always try.

I could do some voice acting for you, if you'd like.
August 10th 2009, 07:54 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
That would be nice. We could also add effects to the voices in order to make people seem older/younger depending on the situation.
August 10th 2009, 08:16 AM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Yeah, that would be nice, since I kind of hate my voice. I sound like a 10 year old or something
August 10th 2009, 08:25 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Is there anyone here who could animate some of the existing sprites? I will use sprites such as the necromancer (Spike sprite pack) for the NPCs. The necromancer in particular will have a daily routine which will involve spell training (he will cast spells randomly). This will make the original sprites (men, girls etc.) look dumb because even their idle animation is just a (ready to walk) stance.
August 10th 2009, 08:26 AM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Hey, we need black skinned NPC graphics! Seth, you racist!!
August 10th 2009, 08:27 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
I will use the Dark Dink sprite for caves (the whole cave will be darker as well).
August 10th 2009, 01:27 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Think I should make a blog about this? It would be a better way to post news.
August 10th 2009, 01:29 PM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Maybe later, but not in this early parts.
August 10th 2009, 01:36 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Okay then. I'll do it after releasing the Tech Demo.
August 11th 2009, 02:53 AM
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schnapper
Peasant He/Him Heard Island And Mcdonald Islands
Let us save our effort and just lie down and die. 
I'll do voices - though there is dispute as to wether my accent is Australian, British or South African
August 11th 2009, 04:36 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
It doesn't matter, really I can speak German and Japanese with a perfect accent (I doubt people would know I'm not from Germany. I don't look japanese though) but, god knows why, I can't speak American and British english well. I have a scottish accent >.> I'll do a scottish character.
August 11th 2009, 05:51 AM
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Kyle
Peasant He/Him Belgium
 
You're from Romania, speak with a Scottish accent and are fluent in Japanese? That's a combination I'd like to hear sometime xD

On a sidenote, I speak Japanese too
August 11th 2009, 06:02 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
I'm really into foreign languages. Maybe because of my mum. We were supposed to move to Canada after I would be 6 but we never got there (some problems with the official paperwork, didn't ask what problems in particular). She started teaching me english when I was about... 5 years old (I was able to read since I was 4). I didn't get any Canada but I did get a lot of English XD
August 11th 2009, 06:26 AM
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schnapper
Peasant He/Him Heard Island And Mcdonald Islands
Let us save our effort and just lie down and die. 
I fancy myself decent at mimicing Americans and Texans
August 12th 2009, 12:15 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Does this look "real" enough? I'm talking about the legs, I'll fix the shadow later.
Click
August 12th 2009, 12:17 PM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Maybe the legs should be a little more shorter. Otherwise, it looks pretty nice.
August 12th 2009, 12:56 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Okay... Thanks for the tip.
December 31st 2009, 03:49 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Although it's been a while, the development of the project is still going on (kind of slow though). Two new screenshots:
Click1
Click2
Not much, they show the new inventory/magic spells screens which are completely hideable (I didn't like the original idea of the whole screen getting occupied by the inventory).
The girl there has a randomly timed routine and she is intented to be a barmaid. While not moving, she talks to drunka... ahem, customers. They are absent right now though.
As seen, rendering is now fully implemented in the engine. Dink is fully moveable and right now I'm working on object collisions. Afterwards, I plan on doing the work for the new dialogue panel, looting system, character sheet etc. Once all this is done, I'll release a tech demo (featuring only one screen ). Afterwards, I'll start working on the actual game content.
Everything runs fine till now

//note, most of the interface graphics, including the inventory/magic panel ones, will be modified in the actual release
December 31st 2009, 04:02 PM
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iplaydink
Peasant He/Him Sweden
Hmm.. 
Sounds great, I can't wait
January 1st 2010, 07:00 AM
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yeoldetoast
Peasant They/Them Australia
LOOK UPON MY DEFORMED FACE! 
This looks great.
January 1st 2010, 01:12 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
News:
The game will have a TCP/IP multiplayer mode. Further explained, one player starts a game, acting as a server and others connect to him, playing the same game. I will release a test demo of the multiplayer part soon after the main tech demo. The full game will feature multiplayer maps with quests/characters and players will be able to create their own maps. The demo is supposed to test connections so it will only have a small 5 screen map where players can fight each other. That would be all. I don't think I'll post any more news until the initial tech demo gets released.
January 3rd 2010, 05:42 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
After testing both the old text above head way and some other ugly text in panel way of mine, I finally decided to use this kind of dialogue system:
Image
Is it okay? Also, if you have any other idea for the dialogue panel (such as, less transparency, more transparency, complete redesign), do post it. I really need ideas from the community on how the game should look like right now.
January 3rd 2010, 05:44 AM
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ExDeathEvn
Peasant He/Him New Zealand rumble
"Skinny Legend" 
Clickable version

EDIT: To be honest, I don't like it. It seems a little like you're trying to copy typical RPG dialogue styles, which doesn't work very well with Dink if you're just going to use the character sprite to show who's talking.
January 3rd 2010, 05:45 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Also, ignore those black rectangles. They are used for collision testing and won't show up in the game.
January 3rd 2010, 05:50 AM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
I don't wanna ruin your mood or anything but I gotta say. I don't like these screenshots at all.
January 3rd 2010, 05:54 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
I see. I mainly chose this system because I found it a bit hard to remember names in Dink (names are shown in the top right corner here). The character sprites are for aesthetic reasons only (the whole panel would look pretty dull without them). I also chose this way because it's a lot easier to render than scanning/working on strings in order to show them up correctly over the sprite's head.
@Skull - which part don't you like? If it's about sprite positioning, it's for testing purposes only.
January 3rd 2010, 06:19 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Maybe the right thing would be to give the player the option to choose between the old dialogue style and the new one. Yup, that sounds better.
January 3rd 2010, 06:24 AM
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iplaydink
Peasant He/Him Sweden
Hmm.. 
Some thing like

Chelsea say:
"Hello Dink!"

above the sprites heads and then a little thingy to the left showing conversation so far...
January 3rd 2010, 06:25 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Good idea. A dialogue history.
January 3rd 2010, 10:45 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
@Skull - Does it look better now?
Clickie
January 3rd 2010, 11:06 AM
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Skorn
Peasant He/Him
I Bring Tidings of Spam 
looks like paint text.

unless its a new font???
January 3rd 2010, 11:18 AM
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raffle
Ghost They/Them
 
you wuld kno all about paint text in a screenie skorn
January 3rd 2010, 11:19 AM
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Skorn
Peasant He/Him
I Bring Tidings of Spam 
no.
January 3rd 2010, 11:23 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
It's a new font. It's the default font provided by XNA now that you've asked, called Kootenay.
January 3rd 2010, 11:35 AM
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Skorn
Peasant He/Him
I Bring Tidings of Spam 
Ah, who the hell is raffle??????
January 3rd 2010, 11:37 AM
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ExDeathEvn
Peasant He/Him New Zealand rumble
"Skinny Legend" 
Most likely? Someone logging out, posting as a ghost, then logging back in and talking to themselves.
January 3rd 2010, 11:40 AM
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Skorn
Peasant He/Him
I Bring Tidings of Spam 
So your saying that im raffle even though I have been logged in for over a day????
January 3rd 2010, 01:04 PM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
I have to say that I like the new dialogue system you made. It just doesn't work well for background talking or for cutscenes, but for conversations with Dink this could be used.

Also, the text you showed looks good, but try also finding a correct point to stop one line from becoming too long. In the original Dink the text starts showing up as multiple lines at a certain point. Looks like this would be about the maximum length for one line I'd use.
January 3rd 2010, 01:06 PM
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Skorn
Peasant He/Him
I Bring Tidings of Spam 
Kinda looks smeared ya know how when you save a bitmap to a jpeg and it kinda smears...?
January 3rd 2010, 01:39 PM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Of course, background talking will always use the old system. I haven't implemented an algorithm to work on the "announcements" (that's how I like to call the background talking strings) yet (that's why they show up that way), but I will. In fact, my "homework" for the next weekend was already planned to be complete game messaging (such as hotkey hints, tutorial messages etc.) and announcements overhaul since the way parameters are passed down grew up to be not to my liking.
About the font: I'm currently using one font for all the text but I will change that immediately before the demo release. I will most likely use a font similar to the old Dink font for dialogues, and a new one for other stuff.
January 16th 2010, 07:43 AM
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Patrunjelu
Peasant He/Him Romania
Rawr! 
Inventory + potions
Dink using a potion

I have successfully implemented ambiental sound, music and other sound effects. Inventory items are now usable and a potion system, different from the classic dink one is also present. Potions can be used at anytime by pressing "1" for Healing Potion or "2" for Mana Potion. After 4 seconds of being idle, the potion (and hitpoints) panel will automatically hide. Next, I'm going to use the door that's currently invisible due to the potion panel covering it and make the 2nd screen of the game. A bit more and I'm going to release the demo.
January 16th 2010, 01:35 PM
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iplaydink
Peasant He/Him Sweden
Hmm.. 
Sounds awesome
March 11th 2019, 10:21 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
progress