The Dink Network

Contest: Failure D-Mod

July 24th 2006, 10:00 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
Have you looked into creating a D-Mod, but can't really seem to get the ball rolling? Are you a seasoned D-Mod developer, but motivation is lacking? Are you Tal, but you need a pedestal in order to shine the teeming masses with your glory?

Well, here's a carrot-on-a-stick that might help.

For this D-Mod Contest, you must create a D-Mod where failure plays a large role. Most D-Mods focus on Dink completing one or more tasks. "Go save this duck." "Go get the cheese." "Escape the dungeon!" And, lo-and-behold, the player does what they're told.

But what happens if failure is an option... or a requirement?

View the comments for more information.

The Rules

Deadline: All entries must arrive at dwalma@gmail.com or be uploaded via the Upload Form before September 25th, 2006.

Eligibility: Non-staff members can participate. Staff members may participate in the contest, but they will not be able to vote or view the other entries before the rest of the community. Dan Walma cannot participate, because he'd just keep all of the prizes for himself.

Voting: Voting will be conducted by eligible staff members during the two weeks following the deadline.

Prize: Three prizes will be awarded, and they will be announced in the coming weeks. The 1st place winner will have his or her choice among the available prizes, and then the 2nd place winnner, and the 3rd place winner gets whatever is left.

If a group effort was involved in the creation of a winning D-Mod, only one prize will be awarded.

If a group or a person submits more than one D-Mod, they will only be awarded one prize, with the resulting prizes given to the other contestants.

Specifications: These requirements must be followed in order to be eligible for the contest:

The D-Mod shall give the player a clear goal to achieve. This goal must be the focus of the D-Mod, and cannot be a subquest.

The D-Mod shall prevent the player from achieving this goal, or make it possible to fail to achieve this goal.

When the player fails to achieve the goal, the D-Mod shall tell, show, or explain the consequences of this failure.

It is recommended that you create a typical RPG/Adventure-style D-Mod for the contest.

Size: There are not any size limitations, either in map screens or file size.

Cancellation: Prizes will only be awarded if two authors / groups submit D-Mods for the contest. Also, Dan Walma can cancel the contest at any time he pleases for any reason he chooses. In the unlikely event of the Death of Dan, it is doubtful someone else will foot the bill for prizes, so the contest will likely be cancelled.

Misc: If you have any questions, or think some of my rules are a bit silly, please post a comment or a message on the board.

Previously released D-Mods are not eligible, nor major parts of their map and/or story. For example, Sharp couldn't take Milder 3, make Milder fail at doing... whatever he tries to do, and submit it for the contest. However, if you wanted to have something like a SOB scorpion as an enemy (or character) that is allowed.

The point of the failure theme was to make it so people couldn't just submit a D-Mod they've been working on for months. So if have been working on a D-Mod for a while that fits in the rules, please start a new one.

You can submit more than one entry. But beware: you may end up 'splitting the vote', and allowing another D-Mod to win.

Example

If Dink must save a village from some zombies:
a) The village could be overrun by zombies because Dink took too long punching innocent barrels.
b) Zombie Milder could kill the zombies before Dink had a chance, and Zombie Milder becomes a better adventurer than Dink.
c) The zombies could just lumber away, with the threat slowly eliminated.
d) One or more of the above could be possibilities (in addition to Dink killing all the zombies).
July 24th 2006, 10:13 PM
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WC
Peasant He/Him United States
Destroying noobs since 1999. 
you death is not unlikely with all these noobs hating you Dan. Need some protection? And I am not talking about the good ol' 'college protection'..
July 25th 2006, 05:44 AM
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SabreTrout
Noble He/Him United Kingdom
Tigertigertiger. 
Nice idea. I'll have to get my thinking cap on. Ho hum.
July 25th 2006, 06:14 AM
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Simeon
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Any fool can use a computer. Many do. 
Nice, a contest Hopefully I'll get an idea nice enough to start development again
July 25th 2006, 02:40 PM
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cypry
Peasant He/Him Romania
Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice. 
Great contest ideea. I might give it a try. Just a few questions:
1. The DMOD should end after the failure, like that were the normal ending?
2. Are we allowed to use graphic packs and spell packs?
July 25th 2006, 03:49 PM
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wesley
Peasant He/Him United States
 
Can't decided if I want to enter this or just get back into FB2
July 25th 2006, 03:53 PM
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DaVince
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Olde Time Dinkere 
Cool idea, I'll join when (if) I can.

@Cypry: the rules state you can use external graphics...
July 25th 2006, 04:55 PM
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I might even enter it. Oh, how I feel sorry for you miserable souls. You must be so dreading having me release another file.
July 25th 2006, 06:19 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
1) Not necessarily. To use the 'zombies invade' example again, maybe Dink fails to save the town from zombies. The game could continue on a little after he fails, where he has to kill everyone (old evil zombie and recent fresh zombie townfolk) to trigger the ending.

Ideally, the failure would occur in the latter half of the D-Mod: failing at the very beginning doesn't make much sense. The player's main goal wouldn't really be the main goal if you spend two minutes trying to accomplish it.

2) Yep.
July 25th 2006, 08:02 PM
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Marpro
Peasant He/Him bloop
 
Woho! This is really cool
July 26th 2006, 06:21 AM
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SabreTrout
Noble He/Him United Kingdom
Tigertigertiger. 
Hang on... is this just a clever ruse so that authors who don't finish their d-mod can still enter it, and claim that it was they, the author, who failed?

Not that I would do that, of course.
July 26th 2006, 08:44 PM
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Chrispy
Peasant He/Him Canada
I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to.I guess. 
Nope. The only failure is failure itself. Praise of failure is in fact, success, you would have failed at failing, thus rendering yourself inelligible for the contest be the fact that you've already lost (won).
July 27th 2006, 01:32 AM
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A duck is only a duck in the case that it is a duck, and not non-existent as a duck, and not an entity differential from a duck. However, with that in mind, it is an intrinsic property of itself to be itself, therefore, perpetuating that it in itself is not the object of its own affliction, matter, or stance, cancelling the property of itself that makes it exist, it exists, to sum up what Chrispy said.
July 27th 2006, 07:14 PM
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carrie2004
Peasant She/Her Canada
*chomp* 
WHAT! AGH!

Okay, are you saying that we need to create a dmod with more
than one possible ending and that one of those endings must be
total and complete failure for dink? But I can put several different
endings right?
Does dink at least get a chance for a good ending or only
a choice of different types of failures?
July 27th 2006, 09:41 PM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
Possibilities:

a) One ending, failure.
b) Multiple endings, all failures.
c) Multiple endings, at least one failure.

For c), having 9 successes and 1 failure would be kind of missing the point of the contest... the success/failure ratio should be about equal.
July 27th 2006, 11:20 PM
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Chrispy
Peasant He/Him Canada
I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to.I guess. 
There's also the bitter-sweet ending.
July 28th 2006, 03:33 PM
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Phoenix
Peasant He/Him Norway
Back from the ashes 
Ah yes, the kind of succeeding failure... You saved the townspeople, but their village can never be lived in again.
July 28th 2006, 04:01 PM
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Erwin
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Friendship is magic 
Or the other way around.
July 28th 2006, 08:51 PM
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Chrispy
Peasant He/Him Canada
I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to.I guess. 
I prefer the save world from the evil dude, only to see an asteroid come and destroy it all, while you and the bad guy watch flabergasted.
July 29th 2006, 05:36 AM
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Erwin
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Friendship is magic 
Or you could be or join the bad guy and destroy the world yourself.
July 29th 2006, 07:11 AM
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Chrispy
Peasant He/Him Canada
I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to.I guess. 
I'm trying, but it's *hard*.
July 29th 2006, 10:07 AM
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wesley
Peasant He/Him United States
 
if you joined the bad guy and destroyed the world... wouldn't that be success, not failure?
July 29th 2006, 10:34 AM
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DaVince
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Olde Time Dinkere 
Bah, I don't think I can enter. Way too busy with other projects.
August 8th 2006, 03:40 PM
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a1s
Ghost They/Them
 
not if the two of you fail to do it... (Dink isn't the only hero in the land, you know).
August 23rd 2006, 05:42 PM
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ehasl
Peasant He/Him
 
I have a feeling now that all the good ideas are used up in this thread. No-one will dare to use one of the ideas here. Or maybe they think that they are the only one daring, because I wrote that. Or maybe they will now again expect everyone to try being the only one. Or maybe I am confusing everybody, including myself, more than necessary so nobody knows what to do.
?????????
The failure D-Mod concept reminds me of Half-Life. SPOILER follows...

In the end of the game you kill the main boss fellow, and then you meet G-Man. He offers you two choices: One is joining him and live, or something like that. The other choice is being thrown (teleported) to a room with a lot of monsters, in other words death. Failure. But at least you have saved the world, it is just that you are dead, so it does not matter to you... But both choices end the game with rolling credits on the screen and such.

Hi, by the way.
September 9th 2006, 04:26 AM
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Erwin
Peasant He/Him Netherlands
Friendship is magic 
I read the rules over again and does it mean that if you had a little bit of D-Mod laying around that you created yourself before the D-Mod contest and if you used it for the contest it doesn't count?
September 9th 2006, 08:11 AM
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redink1
King He/Him United States bloop
A mother ducking wizard 
Yes.
September 9th 2006, 03:39 PM
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cypry
Peasant He/Him Romania
Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice. 
I decided I won't give up. Although it's about only a half done, and I have just one week left, I still want to enter the contest, so I'll try to finish it.
September 9th 2006, 04:53 PM
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Marpro
Peasant He/Him bloop
 
That's the spirit Cypry! Cheers!

and also...

The end is near!
September 10th 2006, 12:07 PM
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cypry
Peasant He/Him Romania
Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice. 
Don't worry about the competition. It's gonna be horrible. But I think I can finish it in time.
September 22nd 2006, 03:13 PM
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slayer4990
Peasant He/Him Canada
Foppery and Whim! 
umm....alright then, none of those work, either
September 24th 2006, 03:16 PM
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SabreTrout
Noble He/Him United Kingdom
Tigertigertiger. 
Just sent my entry to Redink. It's so sloppy... I didn't have enough time to fix the smallest of bugs. So the thing with the tree, just ignore it.