The Dink Network

Here are a few things I've thought of that should be quickly achievable when the Dink Source is released. The relatively hard things to do (high-color, movie support, etc.) are not listed.

1) Optional script for misc. things Dink says when he isn't talking to anything.
2) Optional script for misc. things Dink says when trying to use Magic when he doesn't have any.
3) 'For' and 'While' loop support in DinkC.
4) Increase the Global Variable Limit. This might be difficult, because of the horrible save game format that Dink uses.
5) delete_save() command added to DinkC.
6) Optional scripts allowing you to easily change the entire interface, including the stat bar on the bottom of the screen (for example, say you wanted to move the Strength numbers all the way to the left or something) and the menu screen (where you could add more than 16 slots for items). Increasing 16-slot limit might also cause problems with save games.

I can't think of anything else at the moment... I've thought of ideas for years... but for now they have failed me.

How about :

- Being able to change the level cap and to determine how much you need for each level up.
- Add a lot more slots for graphics (up to 9999 maybe?).
- Map switching support.
- On the fly tile changing.
- Increase the sound slot limit
- MP3 support (and I know your opinion about that, Redink)
- And much much more!

True about the sprite slots. mp3's aren't really necessary, I prefer midi. The question is: will Seth start working at Dink2 or not?

- MP3 support (and I know your opinion about that, Redink)

I don't have any problems with MP3 support per se (and its a good idea to add it)... just the idea of having a 20 MB D-Mod with 5 MP3s that takes 5 minutes to beat.

wow! you can do a topic without a forum icon!!

(1) Any neccessary fixes for endianness dependence
(2) 64-bit cleanness
(3) Cleanly separated graphics and sound subsystems
(4) UNIX (OS X, Linux) ports

errr...maybe mouse support inside the game, and I wouldn't mine if the engine could show characters from more than two angles, y'know.

To make the D-mods appear different to the dink engine, how about have the Dmod.diz file have a line in it somewhere that tells what version of Dink to use? It wouldn't be hard to fix the older D-mods to use this...

More than one variable type?
More than 32 levels for dink?
Adjustable exp needed for the levels?
Ability to see a little of the adjoining screens on the edges like in windinkedit?
Get rid of that little edge-hardness bug that allows people to get around hardness?
Adjustable variable support? ex: have several classes of d-mod, each with a different amount of varriables, like < 32, < 64, < 128, < 256, etc. (I think this would save on memory, could be wrong)
Different types of variables, like:
Negative variable support?
Decimal support?

Oh, yeah, and also:
Complex Math?

It's unrealistic, but hey? i'sall good.

Oh, yeah:
Maybe Jpeg image support?

And I'm pretty sure you already have a mouse pointer in dink, its just that there is/(was? ) support for one controlable character, so it's either the mouse, like in the intro screen, or dink.

-->edit<--
Maybe support for more tilescreens?
Maybe have tiles have slightly overlapping hardness, if you chose that type of hardness, to prevent hardness errors? (Dink alread has three types of hardness: the red, the orange and the purple. The orange and the purple are the same thouse...)

A built in coffee machine too, Chrispy?

Why not?

The biggest thing I can think of is continuous scrolling, rather than jumping from screen to screen.
We'll see how hard these ideas are, but asap we should look at some standards like uping the number of globals, and setting some aside for multiplayer streaming.
As for the worry about huge downloads caused by mp3 support, make a standard set of mp3s to download separatly and encourage dmod makers to use those mostly, like the .wav and .mid files in the original.
Erm.... who is the best with c++ here?.

I think ric has the best idea, scrolling instead of screenjumping...

Here is my wishlist:

*24-bit + 8-bit ALPHA graphics ( 32-bit )

*Different AREA files, not a single map file. Like NWN and MORROWIND, those rpgs use 1 file to store an area, if we could do that, we had unlimited space. Then I dont need 2 map files...

*More variables and sequences

*Movie play command, with MPG / AVI movie support, so we can play movies ( intros and cut-scenes )

I know what i would want i would like to have a ewll how can i put this a plot generator that sounda about right because thats the hardest thing for me about making a dmod :'(

The only thing is, scrolling would be pretty difficult to implement. You'd have to basically code that entire portion from scratch, and have some way to enable it. It wouldn't require any changes from within the map editor though, you could use the existing 'inside' toggle on map squares to determine which map squares will be 'scrollable' or not.

32-bit graphics would be difficult as well. What file format are you going to be using? BMP doesn't support 32-bit to my knowledge... though I suppose the DirectX texture format would work. So maybe it would be easy.

Different 'Area' files would be a complete pain in the ass. You'd have to re-code a hefty portion of DinkEdit or WinDinkEdit to even start to make it work. Different map files makes the most sense for the forseeable future, as you simple wouldn't have to make that many changes to the editor besides the ability to change the map file you want to edit. And heck, it would even be a boon to group-Dmods, where people could work on their own seperate map files independently from one another.

More variables and sequences and MPG/AVI support... yeah, good ideas.

i know this sounds kind of awkward, but there needs to be more types of brains. let's say that you want a missile to be able to lock on to a target, there could be a brain set to where you can use variables to control the flow of the missile, like make it curve and stuff, and as it curved it could possibly rotate the sprite instead of having to make a whole new image for every degree of curve

The biggest thing I can think of is continuous scrolling, rather than jumping from screen to screen.

I don't know, it'd be great, but then in other hand it'd be like a new game if there was no screens.. and screenlocks are really idyllic.
It would be a shame to get rid of them.

Anyways, I've thought about "continuous scrolling" much enough myself, and so far I think it's a good idea. Although it WILL change Dink a lot.

And here's a list of features I can rememorize in a couple of minutes, since I'm going to sleep soon: (Well, at least to read a book)

* Continuous scrolling
* More item/magic slots
* MP3 support
* IT support
* Allow larger maps, the thing someone mentioned earlier in this thread was real good.
* Better sp_follow brain (since in the current sp_follow followers get stuck in nearly everything and don't move diagonally)
* Make sp_nohard(); work. (not 100% sure if I wrote that correctly, it's a year since I last tested the command)
* Allow Mouse/keyboard at the same time
* Make command for mouse button 2 (or all the 3, although a few people have 3 mouse buttons today)
* Allow editing the levellup, like the amount of xp needed, maximum levels, all kinda stuff.
* Allow moving the number/health- bars on the status bar
* Allow "better looping" (don't really know the word here, since I don't know much about C)
* JPG/GIF/PCX/etc. support
* Multiplayer feature
* Fixes to the multible Dinkedit bugs, multi-screen feature etc. etc.
* Allow editing Dink's "nothing to do"- statements
* MUCH more global variables
* Allow editing the commands that take place when you press buttons like space, enter, ctrl, arrows, etc.
* Make a "command" or something, that allows player to write with the keyboard without having to "build" a contraption like used in SOB when answering to the riddles. (I use far too much "".. hrmph.. Mind me, I'm TIRED.)
* A better timer plz. (So no-one has to start a loop in the beginning of a dmod (like I do) that counts the time anymore.)
* Make a simple command to make dink not to die when his life reaches 0
* Allow to give Dink "more life" without the life bar going over the end of the status bar. (simply, allow making a life point thinner/smaller/have more lines.)
* If possible, make it possible to have other shapes of harnesses on items by editing the hardness than the quadrangle. (so that you don't have to edit the hardness of the screen anymore)

Hmm.. Yeah. I see myself I'm turning hard-to-understand, mindless, crazy, foolish and extremely tired. Good night. I'll post all the great and- less great features I've ever had in mind as soon as I rememorize them. Well then. Sleep tight everybody. (everybody go to sleep, even if there was a day now in where you are.)

Yeah... more brains would be quite spiffy. Or even better: a way to define new brains. Imagine if you could alter the way Brain 9 worked by editing a DinkC script, or some other configuration file.

Um... just curious: why are you calling your project Dink2? It doesn't seem to have much to do with Dink at all. And Seth still owns the trademark for Dink Smallwood, in the possible event that he makes a sequel, so I doubt he'd appreciate having another project out there that uses the same name.

Just give it a brand-new name. Like "Gulfire" or "Firebolt" or something.

Well, I think him creating a sequel would be highly improbable, but your idea for a new name is a good one. I'll just refer to it as Dink2 for now.

This is probably too hopeful, but would it be possible to have a point and click adventure game in the third person from different angle than the normal dink straight-up? That would be awesome, especially since no one makes new 2d adventures anymore. And instead of the old adventure interface icons, you could click the right mouse button to change function like in Redink's basement dmod.

<moved>

One thing I'd like to see (if at all possible...) is the ability to have a party-type deal. You know, where you have five or six people adventuring together and each one levels up separately and has different skills... sounds kinda hard to me, though.

This link shows Seth saying he'll make a Dink 2 at some point!!

Sorry Merlin

well i would like it if using this code that people could create more dinkedits!
windinkedit is ok but more dinkedits with more options would be great

I want complex maths to Dink! Eg. (&crap1-&crap2)/&crap3+&crap4

Alli, you can do that now, just with lots of globals.

Just have new globals for all the stats of the people, and have them change based on who you are playing at the time.

Or if you want them all out at the same time, you could even add an extra status bar thingy somewhere that displays it all, which yes, would probably be easier doing it with the source rather than scripting..

And this is going to be kinda a weird one, that'll probably only apply to me.. but..

In my dmod, I use MP, and the way I have it right now, a number (the same sprites as the str, def, and mag numbers) appears at the top part of the magic spell icon in the status bar. This works pretty well, it flashes a bit on screen scrolls, but otherwise it's perfect. The problem is, though, that it's scripted. Thus, there's always a script running, looping, checking your mp and making sure that the number it displays there is correct, and that it adds it if you change screens. This may be mean to slow computers, or if I just have too many things running all at the same time.

I guess the best way to do things like this would be to wait until there's a good organization of people working on the engine, and have someone add it in just for me? I guess everyone would have it then, if they wanted to use it, but probably wouldn't use it. I think that's the best method, anyway, everyone having the same engine, and upgrading it as new stuff is added..

Dang! Oh, well. At least I will[can] help with cleaning up the source code.

Oh, how about naming restrictions, such as the global bug with comman names, items only being 8 chars, and so on.

And yet another one that may be reasonable:
A better pause command? The one they use for leveling is really bad. First off, it redraws the background, which gets rid of corpses and blood, and more importantly to me, splashes my status screen on the background. Also, it only works well in a single if statement, which is only useful for.. well.. leveling..

Is the source out for pilgrim's quest, I haven't played much of that (i'm meaning too) but i saw that there was a status screen type thing, wondering if he froze the game or not... I'm still trying to find a good meathod.

I've got some ideas too. I was too lazy to read through the whole post, so some ideas might be already mentioned.

- sine and cosine functions for circular movement.
- high-score for arcade-style things
- I agree with redink1, we need more globals.
- So why not rewrite the savefile-format?
- Engine-changes saved in plugin files.
- Animated gif, instead of frames.

- sine and cosine functions for circular movement.

Yeah... along with other math functions. Like math_abs(), math_sin(), math_cos(), math_tan(), and so on.

And because sine and cosine are pretty useless with just integers, we'd probably need to add in a 'float' variable type as well.

- high-score for arcade-style things

This can already be done with the Dink engine using the existing save game format, with little trouble. It doesn't make much sense to add in more confusing redundancy.

Though... it would be nice to have a separate 'global' save file that could be used for high score saving and other misc. applications like saving preferences.

- So why not rewrite the savefile-format?

Because you'd have to be extra careful about backwards compatibility and such. But that shouldn't be too much of a problem; just have the new dink.exe detect the old format and convert it.

- Animated gif, instead of frames.

Um... no.

OOh, i got a good one

A brain, that follows (shadow) and also loops a seq (unlike the current shadow brain)

I hate that there's a hammer shadow but you cannot easily use it...

Though I am not too enamoured with the idea of changing Dink, I am starting to come around to the idea. I think the best idea mentioned is by far that of having more brain types....that would be fantastic.
But I'm still not sure about adding MP3's and suchlike...but being a dial-up guy that's fairly obvious. I suppose there would still be d-mods with and without things such as this, but one thing I like about the DN is pretty much everybody is on an equal footing in what can be done.
By the way, I have decided CC and AKT are NOT the best games on the network! Upon replaying it, I have decide "Cycles of Evil" is without a doubt the most fabby thing ever.

do NOT think "music" when you hear the word mp3, it IS a format for compressed sound, and thats why people use it for music, But as for dink it would be used for compressing all the sounds to some very tiny sizes without ANY loss, This will only help to cut down download sizes, try to understand..

now if someone wants to stick his favorite gangsta hiphop mp3's in his dmod that is his stupid move, even NOW people can stick 10mb wavs in their dmod, even I tried that..

anything that compresses stuff used for a dmod should be welcomed by modem users..

but as for brains you are right, but it can be taken further, like ability to script brains..

I admit. You convinced me. Mp3 is cool for sounds. (mp3 music sucks anyway. I don't want no 'real' songs in my game)
Though I'm still against high color. heh

Ok, how about we add the friggin mp3 support, and only use it if it makes sense and you feel justified doing so. Sheesh, quit yer bickerin

Oh, and a good suggestion (i think it hasn't been said yet)

Maybe add a number of times to loop a goto command? So you'd have

loop:
//stuff
goto loop(5);

or something.. and it would go 5 times (duh) and thus eliminating having to make a variable and adding one and checking..

if for loop support was added, you could easily do that
eg
for (int i = 1; i < 6; i++)
goto loop;

Um... wouldn't that be more like:

for (int i = 1; i < 6; i++)
{
//Crap
}

i think that it should have mp3 support but for small mp3's only
just for sound effects and stuff
then use midis for the background music

something like that, redink , i didn't put the brackets because it will recognize the next line as if it were in brackets...just example syntax

while i'm thinking about it...maybe a hardbox shouldn't be so much of a "box". maybe we should make the "box" more user definable as in shape of it...there should be a tool to stretch and fit it just the way you like it. i know that's what hard tiles are for, but it's hard to make a hard tile fit nicely on a sprite, even with the hard.dat rewrite.

The warp properties of a sprite (map #, X, Y) can be set only in dinkedit, not by a script.
DinkC procedure needed

Yeah, if you could draw on harness with a brush, that would be VERY useful for fixing all those dang hardness errors.

Man, this topic started quite a few days ago, y'know, I think we should stop thinkin about possibilities. Come on, the source will be available but until then...stop dreaming (I think)

Uh...
/me looks around
[whisper]It's alread been released[/whisper]

lmao

"32-bit graphics would be difficult as well. What file format are you going to be using? BMP doesn't support 32-bit to my knowledge... though I suppose the DirectX texture format would work. So maybe it would be easy."

Could you use png? I think it supports all the way up to 48bit.

Maybe all you people have broadband but as a dial-up user I'm really worried about mp3 support. Spending 5 hours to download a dmod because it has 100megs of mp3's is not my idea of fun. And you know some developers would do that.

Ok, so nobody else whines about the mp3s, I will say this and make it real clear for anyone to understand (if you wonder if that might be directed at you, it probably is!)

If an author releases a dmod with mp3s, that doesn't mean it will have a ton, or be really large. They can be quite small, and also short and looping. Not to mention sound effects will be smaller.

Also, if they do make it large, they'll be smart enough to provide an alternative download without the mp3s, or people simply won't download it. It's quite simple.

So, now that I've cleared that up for everyone, you programers can get on with putting mp3 support in, and you developers can decide whether your dmod is worthy of lots of mp3s or not (*hint, most of yours aren't!)

*SNIFFLE*

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! people! get broadband!.. modems are so.. 80's..

regards,
eld and the millionaires with expensive sci-fi broadband..

Broadband isn't available everywhere Eldron. Even if you want it, you can't always get it, as the services are not there.

I'd get broadband, but...
1) It's never gonna be available here
2) I'm not moving anytime soon
3) I don't know if my computer could handle boradband.. It's old. It was old when it was new.

This may sound stupid, but I'd like to see if statements such as, if (sp_dir 1, 8) , instead of just having them for variables. It won't really follow the rules of programming, but it sure is simple.

Hi,

"The rules of programming"?

Anyway, it would be more interesting to know what the change you envision would /mean/, as opposed to what it could /look like/.

I see two interpretations of this, although there may be more:

(a) function calls within 'if' conditionals (I believe DinkC doesn't allow that ATM, although I could be mistaken)

(b) Range comparisons, i.e. the call would mean something like "evaluate the 'true' branch if and only if sp_dir is greater than or equal 1 and less than or equal 8, and the 'else' branch otherwise" (assuming that an 'else' branch always exists).

-- Christoph

I don't know a lot about programming, but what I meant by its rules was that it doesn't exactly follow any other programming language. But, something about an automated bank machine told me I was wrong. So yes, I do mean calling an if command that would check for the function within it.

Hi,

Apart from assembly languages and DinkC, all programming languages I recall using support what you are suggesting, although with a slighly different syntax.

-- Christoph

nevermind

Oh, sorry I really have no idea about any programming language apart from DinkC

get "The Complete Idiots Guide to C++" << that book owns

Right, did you learn from it, too? I also suggest this for your library.

That's funny

Yeah, that store has qual... well, at least, interesting stuff.

Tile control - being able to specify number of tiles that can be animated, how long a delay between files, and having a toggable random element to this timing, that would be nice. And support for large sized and/or larger numbers of tiles.