The Dink Network

Revisiting Outlander

December 15th 2014, 07:53 PM
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Hi, everyone! It's been too many years since I've been around the Dink Network. I have a lot of fond memories associated with here, and it's wonderful to see some of the same people still posting.

Today I played through Outlander -the first story from the demo plus two other stories. I haven't touched it for 8 years; it's kind of a Time Capsule from my 14 year old self. I couldn't run it with Dink 1.08, but it seems to work ok with Free Dink.

First impressions: Horrible Andrew Lloyd Weber music on the intro. Confusing story. Sophomoric dialog. Too much blood. Unsettling characters. Too many ways to die. Despite these embarrassments, it has a certain charm that makes me want to complete it. I like some of the map design and there are nice spells. The gameplay is interesting. Plenty of quirks and oddities.

I hope to release it sometime, hopefully in a finished state. Unfortunately, I forgot most of what I know about d-modding. Time to re-learn and hopefully do it better this time around. I have to fix a lot of game crashes, hardness errors, and graphic weirdness.

in conclusion, I'm still alive, glad Dink is too, and Outlander is slowly creeping along.
December 15th 2014, 08:00 PM
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Skull
Peasant He/Him Finland bloop
A Disembodied Sod 
Hey there! Always nice to see old Dinkers pop back in every once in a while. Hopefully you'll decide to perhaps even make your return permanent? Would definitely want to see Outlander finished. From what I remember, it's one of the best demos.
December 15th 2014, 08:44 PM
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CocoMonkey
Bard He/Him United States
Please Cindy, say the whole name each time. 
Outlander was very interesting, but I couldn't figure out how to make it very far. Glad to hear you're going to be working on it again.
December 16th 2014, 05:37 AM
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Wow, cool. I was intriqued by Outlander, even though I never got very far in the demo, either (it kept crashing on me).

Being alive is pretty fun.
December 16th 2014, 03:45 PM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
I hope you release it in a finished state someday too. It would certainly be something. If anything it'd give us players hope that demos CAN be finished... eventually. So yes, please do work on it. I will be waiting to play it.
December 16th 2014, 03:54 PM
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CocoMonkey
Bard He/Him United States
Please Cindy, say the whole name each time. 
Seriously... a demo hasn't been replaced by a full version since 2003. It'd be a landmark event.
December 16th 2014, 09:02 PM
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Glad to hear there's still some interest.

The demo suffered from bugs and quite a bit of vague-ness. I'm re-writing some of the story and characters because they're fairly weak. The demo sets it up for a passe "Save the world" quest...the later story adds conflicts of moral ambiguity and mental illness. with just enough "Save the world" to keep it traditional

I've been hoping to make it an epic, but it may turn out to be a quest. There's three "stories" and two dungeons complete, so it's about half finished. Screenshots to come.

Demos usually end up unfinished, huh. I always wanted to see Okaly D Dink and Back from the Grave completed.