Planning an upgrade of Dink Smallwood *.exe
I am planning to refine and improve the Dink Smallwood game, it shall be Windows 98/98SE/ME/XP oriented and use DirectX 7 and/or DirectX 9.
To start with I want to..
- Make it backwards compatible with old DMODs as far as possible.
- Make a new DMOD type with file extension *.dmod2, which shall hold everything except extra graphic and sound made by the DMOD maker.
- Add as much graphic and sound as possible, trying to make extra media excessive.
- Add more game logic, focusing on AI etc.
- Make both the main game and DMOD editor available from a running program, much like many games these days.
- Add an DMOD redistibutable editor, managing to generate one single file to be portable, and will be easy to add.
- Support as many ideas of DMODs as possible.
- Have RTsofts blessing to reuse and redistribute the Dink Smallwood media for this specific project.
All this is going to take years to achieve, but with some luck I may have a promising beginning about one or two years, however I will still try making it for Win 98/98SE even though its service of fixes is over and Microsoft only will keep updates available for some more time (Comment: If you ever encounter difficulties to upgrade Win98 in the nearest future try installing IE6 first, it took me a little to realise it).
The DMOD2 will add a lot new possibilities and media that wont be reasonably achievable with DMODs.
It would be interesting for me to know if there is something I can add that the Dink comunity do identify as an essential improvement to the game.
I hope the Dink comunity wellcome my initiative, and I am eternally grateful for all help I will get from it.
To start with I want to..
- Make it backwards compatible with old DMODs as far as possible.
- Make a new DMOD type with file extension *.dmod2, which shall hold everything except extra graphic and sound made by the DMOD maker.
- Add as much graphic and sound as possible, trying to make extra media excessive.
- Add more game logic, focusing on AI etc.
- Make both the main game and DMOD editor available from a running program, much like many games these days.
- Add an DMOD redistibutable editor, managing to generate one single file to be portable, and will be easy to add.
- Support as many ideas of DMODs as possible.
- Have RTsofts blessing to reuse and redistribute the Dink Smallwood media for this specific project.
All this is going to take years to achieve, but with some luck I may have a promising beginning about one or two years, however I will still try making it for Win 98/98SE even though its service of fixes is over and Microsoft only will keep updates available for some more time (Comment: If you ever encounter difficulties to upgrade Win98 in the nearest future try installing IE6 first, it took me a little to realise it).
The DMOD2 will add a lot new possibilities and media that wont be reasonably achievable with DMODs.
It would be interesting for me to know if there is something I can add that the Dink comunity do identify as an essential improvement to the game.
I hope the Dink comunity wellcome my initiative, and I am eternally grateful for all help I will get from it.
Just so you know, most D-mods haven't yet been updated/verrified against the *current* version of Dink Smallwood. So people might night be the craziest about help, as we are already going through a fairly large change. 
Just a heads up.
Just a heads up.
Maybe a case for a new intergrated Dink game editor, it is actually kind of splitting to need jumping from the map editor and writing *.c scripts in a text editor.
I am planning one that do not require any C programming skills.
And about the changes, wy not make a new DFArc.exe and let it handle the problem, it may start either Dink Smallwood 1.06 (dink16.exe)/ 1.07 (dink17.exe)/ 1.08 (dink18.exe) depending in what it read in a small extra file among dink.ini etc in the dmod folder.
ex.
*.coor (coordination)
Needs only contaning the text 1.06 / 1.7 or 1.8
Nobody need to emediatly make a big change, the only thing they need to do is writing a *.txt file with the text in question and change its extention to *.coor
I am planning one that do not require any C programming skills.
And about the changes, wy not make a new DFArc.exe and let it handle the problem, it may start either Dink Smallwood 1.06 (dink16.exe)/ 1.07 (dink17.exe)/ 1.08 (dink18.exe) depending in what it read in a small extra file among dink.ini etc in the dmod folder.
ex.
*.coor (coordination)
Needs only contaning the text 1.06 / 1.7 or 1.8
Nobody need to emediatly make a big change, the only thing they need to do is writing a *.txt file with the text in question and change its extention to *.coor
Ok. Still, I'm a bit skeptic.
It is in your right to be, I aint gonna be ready with this in a long time anyway.
He might come a long way, he's from Sweden after all. I wish you the best of luck. And some pretzels.
- Make a new DMOD type with file extension *.dmod2, which shall hold everything except extra graphic and sound made by the DMOD maker.
Why? How would someone play a D-Mod that doesn't include all of the graphics and sounds?
- Make both the main game and DMOD editor available from a running program, much like many games these days.
This should be fairly easy to do, as the editor and the game currently share most of the same code. But, it'd take a bit of effort to upgrade Dinkedit to a point where it is easy to use.
Anyway, good luck.
Why? How would someone play a D-Mod that doesn't include all of the graphics and sounds?
- Make both the main game and DMOD editor available from a running program, much like many games these days.
This should be fairly easy to do, as the editor and the game currently share most of the same code. But, it'd take a bit of effort to upgrade Dinkedit to a point where it is easy to use.
Anyway, good luck.
Reply to redink1....
Concerning:
//redink1 comment starts here
- Make a new DMOD type with file extension *.dmod2, which shall hold everything except extra graphic and sound made by the DMOD maker.
Why? How would someone play a D-Mod that doesn't include all of the graphics and sounds?
//redink1 comment ends here
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This does only mean that *.dmod2 will hold references to only included graphic basically to save storage and produce a simpler DMOD structure with lesser files, the additive graphic and sound made by a DMOD author shall use the classical method of storing them in their respective folder.
I'm sorry if I have been fussy about it.
Concerning:
//redink1 comment starts here
- Make a new DMOD type with file extension *.dmod2, which shall hold everything except extra graphic and sound made by the DMOD maker.
Why? How would someone play a D-Mod that doesn't include all of the graphics and sounds?
//redink1 comment ends here
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This does only mean that *.dmod2 will hold references to only included graphic basically to save storage and produce a simpler DMOD structure with lesser files, the additive graphic and sound made by a DMOD author shall use the classical method of storing them in their respective folder.
I'm sorry if I have been fussy about it.
