The Dink Network

Crowns of Stone

April 16th 2019, 10:39 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I'm working on another dmod!

This time I'm reworking an unfinished dmod by one of the "greats" of Dinkdom, Mr. SabreTrout.

So far I'm rewriting a number of scripts, adding new sprites, coming up with a few new scenes, and making a few other changes to the existing "Valhalla" dmod and it's storyline. Eventually, I'll be adding to the existing 3 "Chapters" with a few more of my own. I expect this will keep me busy for many months, but as I get a better handle on the delivery date of the beta version, I'll be promoting it with screen shots and a few more hints on what the game is about.

(Please add your words of encouragement that will urge me to complete the dmod below.)
April 16th 2019, 10:58 AM
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Bluedy
Peasant He/Him Romania bloop rumble
I like Frutti Fresh 
Damn, I've never seen such a will and love for creating DMODs. Keep going!
April 16th 2019, 12:41 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@ Bluedy:
Damn, I've never seen such a will and love for creating DMODs. Keep going!

Thanks. I'm trying! All it takes is the idea that I have a few fans waiting out there.
April 16th 2019, 01:20 PM
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Bluedy
Peasant He/Him Romania bloop rumble
I like Frutti Fresh 
Well be sure you got me as a fan
April 16th 2019, 02:04 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
wait, when was sabretrout making a dmod called crowns of stone?
April 16th 2019, 02:39 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Skurn:

wait, when was sabretrout making a dmod called crowns of stone?

Never, as far as I know. If you read my original post for this thread more carefully it might be clear that I'm using his dmod "Valhalla" as the basis for my own, which I have named "Crowns of Stone". Sorry if there was anything confusing about my announcement.

By the way, I hope you'll put your software testing skills to work by giving me a hand with getting rid of some "bugs" when my Beta release is ready. You certainly proved you were good at that when you were testing my last dmod release.
April 17th 2019, 09:43 AM
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SabreTrout
Noble He/Him United Kingdom
Tigertigertiger. 
Crowns of Stone is a much better name than Valhalla.

Good luck!
April 17th 2019, 05:49 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@SabreTrout:

Crowns of Stone is a much better name than Valhalla.

You are too kind, oh great purple-star noble of the DN.

Good luck!

Thanks, it's been fun reworking it so far. You gave me a terrific basis for my changes & extensions to the story, the map and the dinkC scripts.
May 4th 2019, 01:28 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I just wanted you all to know that progress continues as I'm marching through the existing dmod, modifying and fixing things as I go. Also, I've started work on some map related changes and keep generating lots of notes for what I have planned for the remaining "chapters" of this dmod.

If anyone else is working on their dmod, please let us know that there is reason to hope and tell us about the progress you've made at late in the appropriate Forum thread.

Insert additional begging here as needed.
May 4th 2019, 03:03 PM
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I think it's really cool that you are finishing another person's unfinished Dmod SlipDink. I'm not sure, but that might be the first time such a thing has happened despite there being multiple Dmods with messages saying that others can finish it if they like.

If anyone else is working on their dmod, please let us know that there is reason to hope and tell us about the progress you've made at late in the appropriate Forum thread.

That time will come. I don't want to make a thread about my Dmod until I know about when it's going to be finished, as progress is slow due to other priorities. That said I'm still working on it, it's probably close to two thirds done, and it's already a pretty big adventure (it'll probably be in about the short epic range when finished). More information will be released in due time.
May 5th 2019, 05:36 AM
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RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
Been ages since I even played the D-Mod used for the basis of this. My D-Mod creating knowledge maxes out at placing sprites and using simple scrips as templates, so don't expect me to have a D-Mod in development anytime soon. Oh, and good luck for everyone who's making a D-Mod !
May 5th 2019, 10:07 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Thenewguy:

I don't want to make a thread about my Dmod until I know about when it's going to be finished, as progress is slow due to other priorities. That said I'm still working on it, it's probably close to two thirds done, and it's already a pretty big adventure (it'll probably be in about the short epic range when finished).

Impressive. It sounds like you are making good progress.

More information will be released in due time.

Well, maybe (a)starting a thread about your dmod and (b)letting Sparrowhawk know about it for his list may provide the stimuli you need to force you to be shamed into working on it more often.
May 5th 2019, 10:24 AM
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Exzcimus
Peasant He/Him Philippines
Change is constant, but Constants do not change. 
Progress?

Me, still having trouble with scripting dink rts.
May 17th 2019, 03:12 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
News on this dmod:

I've finished all modifications, enhancements, changes to storyline and changes to game play for the first 2 chapters of "Crowns of Stone" that SabreTrout had put together. Now, I'll be working on the map for the (all new) eastern side of the land of Garuman, and then adding my scripts for the upcoming chapters of the story.

Plus I've got to work on some "special effects" for a number of the upcoming "in game movie" sequences. I'm excited!
June 2nd 2019, 01:04 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
News on this dmod:

I just finished a fun-prison sequence for Dink, and will be working on some more "map building" for the Eastern part of the land of Garuman.

Then I'll be doing some scripting for some special effects for a magic item known as "The Amurium Vertex".
June 12th 2019, 01:17 AM
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Sounds cool!
June 12th 2019, 12:17 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Thenewguy:

Sounds cool!

Well, I hope you enjoy it. I've still got plenty more map building to do, but I've finished about 30% of the land of East Garuman.
June 14th 2019, 12:43 AM
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MsDink
Peasant She/Her New Zealand
Tag - Umm.. tag, you're it? 
(Please add your words of encouragement that will urge me to complete the dmod below.)

I would LOVE to see u complete one of your own - its never the same redoing someone elses .. u can dooo eeet!!
June 14th 2019, 09:13 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@MsDink:
I would LOVE to see u complete one of your own - its never the same redoing someone elses .. u can dooo eeet!!

Ummm, I've already done several dmods.

o Before...
o All that Glitters!
o The Last Quest Part 1: The Oraculum
o THE LAST QUEST (part 2): The Iron Ring of Destiny

I'm confused. Are you suggesting that some of them are incomplete?
June 18th 2019, 12:17 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I've got 62 megabytes in the graphics directory and 5 megabytes in the sound directory, which is 10 times the number of bytes for graphics and 5 times the number of bytes for sounds (compared to the original "Valhalla" dmod).

There is still quite a lot of map development and coding ahead of me to complete the "Crowns of Stone" dmod. I hope to be finished by the end of summer or perhaps early fall. We shall see how things go. Anyway, by then I'll definitely release a few screen shots and a few more clues about the game, even if the beta release is not quite ready.
July 24th 2019, 05:58 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I'm up to 93 megabytes in the graphics directory and 6.5 megabytes in the sound directory. I even ran into problems because dink.ini was too big! But I am pressing on with over 250 scripts.

I've just finished populating an ancient temple with an interesting task Dink must complete (sort of puzzle) and a fierce monster. I'm having a lot of fun with the story behind the dmod too.

In a few days, I should move on to creating the last village that is part of the land of Garuman, along with all that will go with that.

I may even still make the "deadline" of end of summer or perhaps early fall. Then I'll be sure to ask for help in beta testing.
July 26th 2019, 05:15 AM
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MsDink
Peasant She/Her New Zealand
Tag - Umm.. tag, you're it? 
I'm confused. Are you suggesting that some of them are incomplete?
no i was suggesting to make your own instead of "finishing" other peoples
August 6th 2019, 11:56 AM
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RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
Looking foreward to play this. I barely remember Sabre's original D-Mod, you this will be a new experience for me.
August 6th 2019, 01:34 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@RangerLord:

Looking forward to play this. I barely remember Sabre's original D-Mod, you this will be a new experience for me.

Thanks! I only hope I can live up to the legacy of SaberTrout.

Progress continues:
o 281 scripts
o 7.1 megabytes of sound
o 94 megabytes of graphics
o I have almost completed one more "town".
o After I debug a couple of cut scenes, I'll soon move on to the last town and some side quests.
o Eventually, I'll work on the last location where our hero *finally* directly confronts the evil villain.

August 6th 2019, 08:07 PM
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toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
94 megabytes of graphics

You really like using fancy graphics
August 7th 2019, 10:07 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@toof:

You really like using fancy graphics

Well, I'm not sure they deserve to be called fancy, but I confess that I do try to add a few visually interesting elements to all of my dmods, and since they are all stored as uncompressed .bmp files, they certainly take up plenty of hard drive space.

Now, if only I could use more than 99 sounds per dmod!
August 7th 2019, 10:39 AM
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Exzcimus
Peasant He/Him Philippines
Change is constant, but Constants do not change. 
@SlipDink

Now, if I could only use more than 99 sounds per dmod!

You can make a particular sound differently by changing the sample rate (in Hertz) from the playsound command in your scripts.

I was looking for the .wav file sound of the bomb in the vanilla game, I haven't found anything that sounds like that, but then I realized that it was the fireplace sound which had some playing speed changes.
Changing playing speeds is magical, Give it a try!
August 7th 2019, 12:09 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Exzcimus:

You can make a particular sound differently by changing the sample rate (in Hertz) from the playsound command in your scripts.

Thanks for the tip!

I was surprised by how much you can do with that simple trick. I've been experimenting with frequencies since my first dmod. I also "overlay" (play several sounds at about the same time with varying delays in between them) too.
August 25th 2019, 04:31 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Well, progress continues. I've moved development to the last town in the story (WarmHearth) and have started to work on the various elements in that region.

I'm at 95Meg of graphics, 7.5 meg of sound and almost 300 scripts.

But, I don't think I'll make the deadline of Late Summer / Early Fall as summer is just about over and I've still a lot of work to do. I'll provide an early release to some beta testers first, before winter sets in (I hope).

But I'm still pressing onward! Now who else will make an updated announcement about any coming dmods, hmmm?
August 28th 2019, 04:47 PM
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toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
Now who else will make an updated announcement about any coming dmods, hmmm?

Still tickles my mind... Far fetched though. You can't make an entire dmod based on an intro, which is what I did my first, and probably the last time
September 17th 2019, 01:23 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I'm still charging ahead, but am not sure of the late summer/early fall deadline. But I'd say (at this time) that I think it should be ready for beta testing before winter starts.

valhalla
6.1M	graphics
900K	sound
488K	story
(111 DinkC scripts)

crwnston
99.0M	graphics
8.0M	sound
1.6M	story
(327 DinkC scripts)
September 17th 2019, 07:05 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
jesus, 99 million graphics files, 8 million sound files...

but what i dont understand is the 1.6 million "story", yet there are only 327 scripts. i'll need to consult my calculus for dummies handbook for that mystery.
October 6th 2019, 05:55 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Development continues.

119M	graphics
9.2M	sound
1.7M	story
(351 scripts in story directory)
October 8th 2019, 01:36 PM
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RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
What is the story of the D-Mod?
October 8th 2019, 06:13 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@RangerLord:

What is the story of the D-Mod?

A mysterious man named Hashut has plans to conquer GoodHeart and all surrounding kingdoms using evil magic and an unstoppable army. But Dink (with some help from his old pal Martridge) must stop him and his army! Dink must use weaponry, magic and something called wagic to save the day. On the way, Dink meets the Moogles and the utopian community of WarmHearth. He also comes to know 'the wise one'.
October 10th 2019, 07:07 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
So, now I've completed the map, which has about 3/4 of the squares(screens) occupied with terrain, interiors of buildings, etc. I'd say that makes it "quest size", right?

I've also completed the first pass on most of the scripts, though I will add some more as I continue. At this point, I'm performing "play testing", and improving scripts, removing "bugs", updating the walkthru.txt file, making some things work better, etc. So, things are moving right along.

October 17th 2019, 02:15 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Progress continues. I guess I'll miss my "early fall" deadline, but I'm still somewhat optimistic about releasing a beta before Saturday, December 21, which is the official start of winter around here.
October 18th 2019, 07:28 AM
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RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
It's nice to see that a new D-Mod is in progress. To be honest, recently it seems the community just went silent. The pessimist in me says Dink's becoming more irrelevant, but the idealist says that this is just temporary, there will be more activity in the future. Well, good luck for the D-Mod SlipDink!
October 18th 2019, 03:17 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@RangerLord:
It's nice to see that a new D-Mod is in progress. To be honest, recently it seems the community just went silent. The pessimist in me says Dink's becoming more irrelevant, but the idealist says that this is just temporary, there will be more activity in the future. Well, good luck for the D-Mod SlipDink!

Thanks for your words of encouragement, RangerLord! I'm hoping for more activity in the future too.
October 18th 2019, 08:12 PM
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Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
impossible until the game is available somewhere that people knows exists.
October 19th 2019, 11:22 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Skurn:
impossible until the game is available somewhere that people knows exists.

I know that you are trying to make a point about certain online venues not supporting our favorite role playing game. And you are right about that.

But, last I knew, it is still part of the "extra" software that several Linux "distros" are using. And people installing Linux at home might be more likely to seek out this software as it (like the operating systems in question) is free. We can't all afford the latest computers running the most recent version of Microsoft Windoze or Apple software.

For example, I know for certain that it is part of the extra software Ubuntu makes available for Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04.

It definitely ran under Android, ArchLinux, Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE as well as Ubuntu. I assume it still does.

So, I'd say, there is still some hope.
October 19th 2019, 01:38 PM
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toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
@RangerLord
The pessimist in me says Dink's becoming more irrelevant

Dink was once relevant?

@SlipDink
I think this dmod will be the final judgement of the state of this community nowdays. Though we are silent for quite some time, number of downloads for the dmods still shows some interest.

@Skurn
Our best bet to extend the lifetime of Dink is to somehow invite Yahtzee Croshaw to make a silly dmod. New people (much younger) are needed here.
October 20th 2019, 10:13 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Skurn & toof:
Our best bet to extend the lifetime of Dink is to somehow invite Yahtzee Croshaw to make a silly dmod. New people (much younger) are needed here.

According to http://fullyramblomatic-yahtzee.blogspot.com/ he can be reached on Twitter as @YahtzeeCroshaw.
========================================================
@toof:
I think this dmod will be the final judgement of the state of this community nowdays. Though we are silent for quite some time, number of downloads for the dmods still shows some interest.

A few downloads do seem to continue every day. I don't know that any dmod I make will be so significant as to "be the final judgement of the state of this community nowdays", but, I certainly hope that "Crowns of Stone" stimulates ongoing interest in all things Dink.

October 27th 2019, 10:44 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Progress continues as I proceed with play-testing while adding scripts and logic for overlooked contingencies.

I'm getting closer to beta release time. Who would like to give me a hand? I know Skurn is good at finding bugs. Anyone else?

120M	graphics
9.4M	sound
(381 scripts in story directory)

November 12th 2019, 05:16 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
I think there will be at least 400 scripts when I'm done. The graphics and sound directories have continued to grow too. I'm getting closer to completing the beta release!

121M	graphics
9.6M	sound
(398 scripts in story directory)


Unless the interest in helping me debug the beta release gets more substantial, I guess I'll just upload the beta for general release to everyone.

November 16th 2019, 03:57 PM
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Androrc
Ghost They/Them
 
Awesome, keep up the good work!
November 21st 2019, 10:44 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Androrc:
Awesome, keep up the good work!

Thanks for your kind words.
November 21st 2019, 10:52 AM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
While performing programmer play testing, I could not help myself. I added a couple more scenes and things for Dink to interact with.

Despite some other projects taking my time lately, I'm still optimistic about releasing a beta before Saturday, December 21 (the start of winter locally).

Herbie, you did a great job with helping me test and fix some other dmods, I hope you will be ready for the beta release coming soon to my google drive for you to start testing!

Skurn, you also seem good at finding bugs, so your help would be welcome too.

Anyone else interested (including you RangerLord ) is (of course) very welcome to help with testing. "Stay tuned" for the announcement of beta testing right here in this thread.

Oooo! I'm so excited.

122M    graphics
11M     sound
(406 scripts in story directory)


December 3rd 2019, 01:30 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Crowns of Stone .092 beta release announcement

The beta release of Crowns of Stone is now ready for downloads and testing. You can get it here ---> https://drive.google.com/file/d/157pNOy-Jkj_840P768guNIKG33urgEit/view?usp=sharing

The game topped out at about 3/4 of the map space being taken up and generous amounts of sounds and graphics. So, I suppose this is a good size quest.

My usual walkthru.txt file has been replaced by walkthru.html.

122M graphics
12M sound
(418 scripts in story directory)

Okay, Herbie, RangerLord, Skurn (and any others interested in helping out by being one of the first people to try out this dmod), let me know what you find.
December 6th 2019, 04:14 PM
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RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
First, when I visit the very first house in thw village, Dink talks about bottles - when interactig with a bookshelf.
I managed to talk to the petrified wizard twice.
When I enter the screen with the dungeon cell, my health decreases.
Also, the stone to flesh didn't disappear when I went into prison despite what the guard says.
At the screen in the dungeon exit a rat got stuck in the wall.
I have a problem with the fact that when talking to nothing, Dink is just silent. I mean, sure, the old messages are boring, but why don't you write new ones?
Also, I can pick up logs at the northern town part. Maybe you should take out the script from the ones you can pcik up after the bridge repair quest, because they are useless now.
Oh, and when my pack is full, that log near the sign ends up causing an endless dialouge loop.
Also, FreeDink crashes when I reach zero health in the snowy place.
The dragon hurts me after I give her the artifact if I walk into it.
The final boss was a little... underwhelming. True, he had a lot of hitponts, but he never managed to hurt me. He was fast, but didn't have a pattern. I used the banana weapon to defeat him.
I should mention that I used the walkthrough to get the final items needed for the ending. I don't think I would have found those on my own.
Speaking of it, the ending seems... rushed. I mean the rain effect is cool, but I don't have satisfaction for getting to it. What did Martridge do in the meantime? What happend to the kings who were turned to stone? How did the big bad's defeat affect the people?
I have to say, it was a good D-Mod, but sometimes confusing (I had a rough time navigating the winter area, but at least it wasn't a maze), and the mapping could use some improvement (not bad, but some areas looked boring - maybe you should use more new graphics?), and the ending was lackluster (maybe try giving the boss a better brain and some spells? I mean this guy can petrify people, I would love to see what unique spells he coul use.)
I liked the music choices. I have to say, this is your longest D-Mod yet, and with a bit of fine-tuning, it could be your best.
December 8th 2019, 11:44 AM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Thanks for helping out with your testing efforts Mr. RangerLord. I'm quite grateful for that.

First, when I visit the very first house in thw village, Dink talks about bottles - when interactig with a bookshelf.

Yes, that was part of the Valhalla logic, that I left in place. I figured that was because, it turns out that bottles are rather important (in another house). I'll make some changes for that though. It is rather silly at present.

I managed to talk to the petrified wizard twice.

I'm not certain what you are saying here. I assume you are saying that you spoke to him after he was un-petrified twice? I need some details please. I'm not sure what needs to be fixed here, but I assume it had to do with the use of talk() instead of touch() to start the interactions with the statues. As you may know, using touch() instead of talk() to start a conversation allows you to disable a 2nd touch using [sp_touch_damage(&current_sprite, 0);] as soon as Dink touches the target. So, I'll make that change from talk() to touch() for the 4 statues.

When I enter the screen with the dungeon cell, my health decreases.

Ah, it is supposed to. The idea is that he has been starving and shivering for a few days. Dink even says "I'm growing weaker every day.".I'll add some more transitional text (before Dink speaks) for that to make clear why he has lost health points and also use some visual cues to support that idea.

Also, the stone to flesh didn't disappear when I went into prison despite what the guard says.

The guard says, "I also thought it wise not to touch that green stuff you had in a bottle. It smelled awful..." and I thought that made it clear that the guard DID NOT remove the stone-to-skin balm. I'll reword it a bit.

At the screen in the dungeon exit a rat got stuck in the wall.

Yes, I had that problem once in a while during testing too. I'll try moving around the rats a bit again.

I have a problem with the fact that when talking to nothing, Dink is just silent. I mean, sure, the old messages are boring, but why don't you write new ones?

Talking to nothing? Are you saying it would be a big improvement if I used my own version of certain standard scripts to replace some of the things Dink says by default? I already wrote and used a dnotalk.c for this sort of thing. Is there something else you are talking about here? I'm sort of confused about what you are trying to tell me.

Also, I can pick up logs at the northern town part. Maybe you should take out the script from the ones you can pcik up after the bridge repair quest, because they are useless now.

Well, I thought it was kind of fun to force the player to have to drop them after picking them up by mistake, but I'll change that, since I don't want to irritate the player.

Oh, and when my pack is full, that log near the sign ends up causing an endless dialouge loop.

Oh, well we certainly don't want that. Dink is just supposed to be able to drop it using the backpack checking feature. I'll fix this too.

Also, FreeDink crashes when I reach zero health in the snowy place.

I think I know why. I cannot reproduce this issue, but I made a fix that might prevent it.

The dragon hurts me after I give her the artifact if I walk into it.

That's confusing. Dink should still be frozen in place until the dragon picks up the artifact. He should not be able to "walk into it". I'll add another freeze(1); to the code that get's Dink into the Dragon's lair and another freeze(1) just before he drops off the artifact. Maybe that will fix it.

The final boss was a little... underwhelming. True, he had a lot of hitponts, but he never managed to hurt me. He was fast, but didn't have a pattern. I used the banana weapon to defeat him.

The banana weapon is actually quite formidable, as Karl points out when he says "...the effectiveness of this unique yellow weapon grows with your experience.".That being said though, I recognize that I did not make the final confrontation as exciting or challenging as I wanted to. I think I'll work on that a bit though.

I should mention that I used the walkthrough to get the final items needed for the ending. I don't think I would have found those on my own.

Hmmm. I was hoping that was something the player could discover on their own. Did Dink exhaust all conversations in the town of WarmHearth?

Speaking of it, the ending seems... rushed. I mean the rain effect is cool, but I don't have satisfaction for getting to it. What did Martridge do in the meantime? What happend to the kings who were turned to stone? How did the big bad's defeat affect the people?

Perhaps I'll add another visit to Dink from Martridge. He can help explain how to get to things in the WarmHearth area with a few more hints too, if the player thinks he or she needs help with that. As for the ending lacking some closure, I should point out that the wise one has explained to Dink that all will be well when Dink slays his enemy and I thought that would be enough. I guess I was wrong. Perhaps a few words about how everything wraps up at the end of the game would help here.

I have to say, it was a good D-Mod, but sometimes confusing (I had a rough time navigating the winter area, but at least it wasn't a maze), and the mapping could use some improvement (not bad, but some areas looked boring - maybe you should use more new graphics?), and the ending was lackluster (maybe try giving the boss a better brain and some spells?

Yes, I think I'll work on the final boss battle a bit.

I mean this guy can petrify people, I would love to see what unique spells he coul use.) I liked the music choices. I have to say, this is your longest D-Mod yet, and with a bit of fine-tuning, it could be your best.

Thanks for your kind words and thanks again for your all of your help. I'll work on this dmod a bit more and then release it again.
December 9th 2019, 07:22 AM
death.gif
RangerLord
Peasant He/Him Hungary bloop
The nation above all 
For managing to talk to the wizard twice, I mean after he teleports away, I can talk to his empty space and it starts the same dialouge. If I leave the screen and reenter, this does not occur.
As for the cell, I mean every time I reenter the screen after being freed the health just decreases (or increases if low).
As for the guard, it seems I misunderstood.
I'm trying to tell that unlike the main game, Dink doesn't have his idle messages like "Huh?". I mean if I press space and there's no scripted object nearby, instead of a message from dntalk, Dink is silent.
As for the dragon, the issue is I'm able to walk into her when I'm able to get the spell.
To be honest, I don't remember the dialouge from WarmHearth, but finding the shield was easy. For the other two others, I would have not figured out the dust alone I'm sure. And I managed to forget what the other item was.
December 9th 2019, 10:14 AM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
As before I must say thanks for continuing to help out with your testing efforts Mr. RangerLord.

For managing to talk to the wizard twice, I mean after he teleports away, I can talk to his empty space and it starts the same dialouge. If I leave the screen and reenter, this does not occur.

Okay, I think I've made changes to address that. Thanks for explaining what happened in a bit more detail.

As for the cell, I mean every time I reenter the screen after being freed the health just decreases (or increases if low).

Ah! Okay, now I know exactly what went wrong. Thanks.

As for the guard, it seems I misunderstood.

Okay.

I'm trying to tell that unlike the main game, Dink doesn't have his idle messages like "Huh?". I mean if I press space and there's no scripted object nearby, instead of a message from dntalk, Dink is silent.

Ah! Now I know how to fix that.

As for the dragon, the issue is I'm able to walk into her when I'm able to get the spell.

Oh, now I understand. I know how to fix this now too.

To be honest, I don't remember the dialouge from WarmHearth, but finding the shield was easy. For the other two others, I would have not figured out the dust alone I'm sure. And I managed to forget what the other item was.

Okay, the next version I release will have an optional hint book to read from. That should help!
December 10th 2019, 12:37 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Oh no! As I am working on "Crowns of Stone", I've generated the dreaded [out of var space, all 250 used] error!

So, there will be a substantial delay while I do a lot of recoding to use fewer variables.
December 11th 2019, 04:03 AM
bonca.gif
Christiaan
Bard They/Them Netherlands
Lazy bum 
Try this: https://www.dinknetwork.com/file/supervar_source/
December 11th 2019, 10:03 AM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@ Christiaan:
Try this: https://www.dinknetwork.com/file/supervar_source/

Thanks very much for pointing out this technique. I already use this method to store values. I first discovered this method of storing multiple pieces of information in one variable in the {"The Ultimate Cheat" version 3.1: "Set/Recall Beacon" function} script "[ ult]srb.c" and have used variations on it several times in assorted ways. I also developed a way to store up to 31 pieces of true/false-binary information in my Checkbit script.

So, I have no shortage of methods available to me to resolve my running out of variable problems. It's just that now I have to go back an apply more of them here and there to reduce the chance of this error popping up again. It is easier to not use all these elaborate techniques and simply declare another global variable. Now, I must "go back" and "pay the piper" for my "wasteful" behavior.

However, I'd still like to thank you again for your kindness in pointing out the supervar technique.
December 11th 2019, 11:22 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
Hello
I really enjoyed playing this Dmod, and I wish I had something to say that hasn't been said, but I don't.
However, it is good I don't, since it means there is not much negative to say about this Dmod.
There is one thing, but it is only personal. While playing, I always had the feeling that I would end up messing the storyline, since some options(like the dungeon) were open from earlier than needed. After playing that part I realized I could have not messed up since you can visit those places twice. However, I played a good part of the game afraid of ruining the storyline.
(I also kept all the logs I found thinking I would need those to make another bridge. It was a real bother for stocking up food.)
other than this, I really loved this game, and hope the full version will be in the forums soon, so more people can play it

PS: I only used the walkthrough because I was tired of walking randomly to find a way into the blueisland, I would have wandered into the right screen anyhow. the shield was easy, and there was an NPC who actually tells you where the dust is.
December 12th 2019, 10:23 AM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Silberfarben:
I really enjoyed playing this Dmod, and I wish I had something to say that hasn't been said, but I don't.

Well, when it is available for download from the DN, be sure to give it a good review then.

There is one thing, but it is only personal. While playing, I always had the feeling that I would end up messing the storyline, since some options(like the dungeon) were open from earlier than needed. After playing that part I realized I could have not messed up since you can visit those places twice. However, I played a good part of the game afraid of ruining the storyline.

That's good to know. I was careful to make it impossible to corrupt the storyline. As far as I know, that is impossible. But I appreciate your comments here.

(I also kept all the logs I found thinking I would need those to make another bridge. It was a real bother for stocking up food.)

Hee hee. That was sort of the intention I suppose. Well, at least I made it easy to drop them all at any time.

other than this, I really loved this game, and hope the full version will be in the forums soon, so more people can play it

Great. Don't forget to leave a review of the official DN version once it is available then!

PS: I only used the walkthrough because I was tired of walking randomly to find a way into the blueisland, I would have wandered into the right screen anyhow. the shield was easy, and there was an NPC who actually tells you where the dust is.

Okay, I figured that RangerLord must have missed that NPC clue about the dust, but I'm adding an (optional) hint book to the final version anyway. And, I'm glad that the walkthru.html file was of help to you. That is what it is there for. I always feel a bit frustrated when I cannot complete a dmod (or any other type of computer adventure) and I want to give all the players of my dmods a chance for success.

Thanks again for your comments.


December 14th 2019, 08:01 AM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
Indeed
I will give it a good review
I also agree with ranger lord about the ending, although we know evil won't resurface anymore.
The stone to skin potion seems to kill people at random, hopefully the King doesn't die
Or did the spell get fixed after Hashut died???
Some little details that are not essential, but the audience will surely like to know
December 14th 2019, 11:47 AM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Silberfarben (&RangerLord too):

Indeed
I will give it a good review

Hooray!

I also agree with ranger lord about the ending, although we know evil won't resurface anymore.

Yes, I've taken those comments to heart and made sure to add a bit of ending to the story, that I hope everyone will enjoy.

The stone to skin potion seems to kill people at random, hopefully the King doesn't die

Don't worry about the various rulers! I've covered that in my new wrapup() to the game.

Or did the spell get fixed after Hashut died???

I guess you will just have to play-test it again to find out.

Some little details that are not essential, but the audience will surely like to know

Got it!

Anyway, I'll be making available a 2nd beta release in a few days (maybe even a week or so), right here. I was going to just upload it to the DN, but I made so many changes that I think it needs re-testing by someone other than myself. I documented over 15 changes including a substantial rewrite of a great deal of code to reduce the chance of the dreaded [out of var space, all 250 used] error coming up again!

Thanks to you both for your help and kind words!


December 16th 2019, 08:42 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
I would love to test the newer version!!
I will hopefully will be able to, i dont know if i will have wifi in a weeks time, and if i dont i probably wont have it for the next two months either
anyway, keep up the good work!!
December 17th 2019, 09:52 AM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@ Silberfarben:
I would love to test the newer version!!
I will hopefully will be able to, i dont know if i will have wifi in a weeks time, and if i dont i probably wont have it for the next two months either

Well, I'll do my best to complete my current testing and development effort within that time-window, but I suspect that various RL seasonal social commitments will interfere with that over the next few weeks.

I'm sorry to learn that you will be disconnected from the network for so long a period of time as two months. I hope all is well where you are and that such a long time away from the network will be reduced for you somehow.


anyway, keep up the good work!!

Thanks for the encouragement!
December 19th 2019, 12:58 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
The work continues!

At present, I'm spending a lot of time debugging the new, expanded final boss battle. I think this will be the first time in Dink's "history" that he will have to face down two new types of attacks I think I've come up with.

Once the endgame looks solid, then I'm hoping to do at least one "run-through" test of the dmod myself before releasing a new (and final) beta. This upcoming beta release will definitely NOT be backwards compatible with previous save-game files.

Once we move out of beta testing, I will (of course) upload the dmod to the DN.

14M sound
127M graphics
436 scripts
December 21st 2019, 11:52 AM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
Keep on the good work
I look forward to seeing these new attacks!!
And all fears were fortunately confounded.
I will (hopefully) play the beta!!
December 21st 2019, 12:41 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Silberfarben:
Keep on the good work

I'm trying to!

@#^%&**;~}! (Curses!)

As I feared, Holiday RL activities keep interfering with this vitally important work on my dmod!


I look forward to seeing these new attacks!!

Well, I just hope they make the game a little more interesting.

And all fears were fortunately confounded.
I will (hopefully) play the beta!!

That's great news!

December 21st 2019, 03:55 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
No matter how much it takes you; it will be great.
And even if you are doing IRL stuff your brain still works on it
It ends up being even better

Nah I'm joking
how can IRL matters keep you occupied from making a DMOD!
JUST DON'T HAVE A LIFE!!
December 24th 2019, 01:18 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
It's a Christmas Miracle! :-} I have finished my attempts to make the final battle more interesting and address all known bug reports.

Now, I just want to "play through" once more myself to see if I missed anything... then I'll make the 0.95 beta version available for testing.

128M    graphics
14M     sound
(432 scripts in story directory)

December 30th 2019, 01:07 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Well, I fixed a few more things and now I'm working on a tough bug that has just started coming up in the final battle.

Sigh... so the beta 0.95 release will be delayed until I can fix it.
December 30th 2019, 01:22 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
keep on it!
December 31st 2019, 12:08 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Happy New Year!

I've completed over 20 patches and improvements since the last beta release AND managed to resolve what I think is a DinkC problem with a workaround on the last day of this year!

Hooray!

Here's what I ended up with:
128M    graphics
14M     sound
435     scripts in story 
.

Let the crwnston-v0_95_beta.dmod beta testing begin!

I hope to only have to fix a few things this next time around. Then I will release the 1.0 version to the world!

Special Thanks to SabreTrout for giving me a GREAT dmod to start with and for inviting others to "finish" it...

...AND "Thanks In Advance" to all my beta - test staff.

January 5th 2020, 10:24 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
How did I not see this!
congrats!!
I will beta test it ASAP
even I have to sleep

my bleary sleep-deprived eyes can make out a very interesting dmod from the files I see.
January 6th 2020, 10:37 AM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@Silberfarben:
How did I not see this!

Perhaps you were too busy building your own dmod?

congrats!!

Thank you for your kind words.

I will beta test it ASAP

Thanks!

even I have to sleep

my bleary sleep-deprived eyes can make out a very interesting dmod from the files I see.

Well, if you are better rested, you will probably be a more effective tester.

January 10th 2020, 12:10 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
This is what the 1.0 version that I'm about to upload to the DN topped out as:

128M	graphics
14M	sound
435 files in story


I hope you all enjoy it (and give it a good review ).

January 10th 2020, 12:27 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
very great!!

I will indeed give it a good review as promised.

also
is it the same as the lastest beta testing file?

January 10th 2020, 04:03 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
very great!!

Thanks for your kind words.

I will indeed give it a good review as promised.



also
is it the same as the lastest beta testing file?

No. See version.txt for details.

January 12th 2020, 10:19 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
YEAH!!

GO SLIPDINK!

congrats!

you will get your review

also you almost beat me to the first release of the decade
January 13th 2020, 02:07 PM
duck.gif
toof
Peasant He/Him
I disagree. 
I saw the file size. 27Mb... Odd I thought, knowing SlipDink's passion for graphics. Then it started decompressing. 5 minutes into it, it is still decompressing. My body started decomposing, and it is still decompressing.

I dunno if I'll get a dmod or NASA's database of catalogued astronomical objects.

This is some serious compression power that I didn't knew about.

PS
I hate it when the spellchecker android robobot squiggles words written in proper English. Like catalogue,colour etc...
January 13th 2020, 03:51 PM
spike.gif
SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
@toof:
I saw the file size. 27Mb...

Hmmm. You should be seeing something closer to 22Mb in size for the dmod file (and about 168 Mb once uncompressed). If you are not getting that, then something might be wrong.

x@y:~/.wine32/drive_c/Program Files/Dink Smallwood$ ls -lh c*d |cut -b 31-
 19M Dec  3 13:26 crwnston-v0_92_beta.dmod
 22M Dec 31 11:52 crwnston-v0_95_beta.dmod
 22M Jan 10 12:09 crwnston-v1_00.dmod
x@y:~/.wine32/drive_c/Program Files/Dink Smallwood$ du -hs crwnston
168M	crwnston
x@y:~/.wine32/drive_c/Program Files/Dink Smallwood$ 


January 13th 2020, 04:00 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
I got 21.9 MiB

compressed.
January 14th 2020, 01:17 PM
peasantmp.gif
Skurn
Peasant He/Him Equatorial Guinea duck bloop
can't flim flam the glim glam 
I hate it when the spellchecker android robobot squiggles words written in proper English. Like catalogue,colour etc...

tell me about it. as if the american way of spelling is somehow magically correct. we totally invented english, with the help of our saviour, jesus godchrist joseph.
January 16th 2020, 08:26 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
There goes my review!!


should be up soon.

EDIT: It is approved already.
January 16th 2020, 08:39 PM
knights.gif
Silberfarben
Peasant She/Her
Lady Silberfarben, mighty ruler of the Silbershire 
hmmm

I noticed your Dmod Before... does not have a review...