The Dink Network

--2000 Part 3: "It's all nonsense anyway"--

062: Isle of Croth Author: Simon Klaebe Release Date: February 21, 2000

REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or over (9.1) on The Dink Network.

Simon Klaebe is widely regarded as one of the top DMOD authors, with titles like "Stone of Balance" and the top-rated "Pilgrim's Quest." I don't think I've played his mods before, although come to think of it, I might have played "Dink Goes Boating" when I visited in 2006. It's ringing a bell.

Isle of Croth (I like that title screen, it reminds me of Mike Snyder's work... makes me nostalgic) is a quest of reasonable length and quite a good DMOD for a first attempt, I thought. It contained some fun and fresh ideas. I wouldn't give it a 9 out of 10, but hey, ratings are pretty arbitrary anyway. It features a difficulty selection, and unlike the Thanksgiving mod, this doesn't just adjust Dink's stats - instead, it alters enemy placement, which is a lot more work. I played on "Hero," the highest difficulty setting, because I am a bad ass. On this setting the game is indeed very difficult at the start, but it eventually gets very easy, which means that the other difficulties must get even easier than that. This isn't the way difficulty ramps usually go, and I've got to say that it feels pretty odd. The enemies you encounter throughout the mod are the same ones you've been encountering since the beginning, while your stats go from pathetic to absurdly good. This is something I'd have changed, but I still had a good time.

Dink is sent to investigate the Isle of Croth, home to gold mines and a resort, when ships filled with gold and tourists stop coming from there. In a shipwreck, Dink loses his weapons (makes sense), magic (Um... all right) and muscles (...what?). Oh well, it's more than most mods do to explain your weak start. The isle and many of its buildings are filled with stone giant "zombies" that have been raised from the dead by a mad magician of some sort. You'll run into many of them, which is certain death at the start of the game, but you'll want to dodge a few at the inn in order to get the hellfire spell, the throwing axe and a megapotion. This mod contains more powerups than any other I've seen, and it's fun for a while dodging the tough enemies to nick them and build yourself up. There are underground areas to explore with a lantern and some people hiding in a well (I like the way that screen is done) that you'll need a rope to access.

This isn't a very story-heavy DMOD; mostly you just explore, fight, and find a few things that you need. There are a fair number of scripted objects to interact with, and there are generally comments for hitting things, which I always like to see. Once you get underground (I checked a guide because I happened to miss one trivial thing; it wasn't an unreasonable thing to expect the player to come across), you'll find a whole town down there; it's remarkable how quickly these Crothans adapt. There is some cool stuff down there, including a casino with proper animations and sound effects (actually, there are great new sound effects for all sorts of things in this mod). There's a bartender you can get drunk, which is pretty funny. You can also pay to get random stat-affecting potions as much as you like, or visit a brothel. The naked ladies there are generally about twice as tall as Dink. Pay the max to see Jenny and you'll get +10 to every stat, plus a ludicrous amount of experience. Let me make this clear - it sent me from level 9 to level 13! I didn't imagine this would be where I'd break my record level of 13 from Prophecy of the Ancients, but it was. I could easily have reached an even higher level, but there was no need.

There's a few puzzles you have to solve that I could see somebody getting stuck on, but I didn't find them at all unreasonable and figured them out pretty easily. In acquiring what you need to reach the end, you'll learn about the catastrophe that befell Croth. Dink seems disinterested in the exposition and just wants the goods. I can relate.

The wizard boss at the end was unbeatable even with the crazy stats I had until I used the secret acid rain magic to lower his defenses, after which he was toast with one Hellfire ball. The ending text informs us that Dink would someday become a King. I wonder whether Simon followed up on this idea in any of his later mods.

By the way, I didn't run across any serious bugs in this one. The only problems I noticed were visual.

I wouldn't put this one in the top tier, exactly, but I thought this was a creative adventure and enjoyed finding my way into the cracks of the brisk challenge early on as well as stomping my way through the latter part, even though, as I said, that isn't ideal. Yeah, give this one a play.

063: The Catacombs Author: Paul Pliska Release Date: March 19, 2000

The wizard who made by far the best demo ever returns with an unusual concept: instead of starting Dink off with set stats, how about using the stats from a save from the original game? It so happens that I still have one of those from when I played back in August.

Alas, in the real world it isn't so simple as, say, copying a save file into the new DMOD's directory. "Catacombs" comes with a "Transfer DMOD" installer. This is a separate DMOD you must run before playing in order to strip that save file of all the things specific to the first game (say, information about editor sprites on the map). The transfer mod is an exact copy of the original game (in fact, the map file and some other things are copied from your /dink/ dir by the installation program) with one difference: when you load a save, Dink will say he needs to see King Daniel. It strips your save file (it's actually going through the screens and setting all the editor_type values to 0) and sends you on your way. This is quite clever, but it's also a bit clunky, and having to go to all this trouble highlights how difficult of a task this actually is. If anybody else wanted to do this, Paul's made it clear that you can just use his transfer dmod and import scripts, but I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that nobody else ever did.

As they say, "Don't knock it if it works." It does. All your stats, gold, items and magic carry over from your save. You have a chance to drop items before the DMOD starts properly (what are you doing with that pig feed, anyway?). Trying to drop the fists results in Dink saying "No, I'm rather attached to this." Heh.

King Daniel wants Dink to go do something yet again. This time, he's sent to investigate a silver mine where miners have been mysteriously dying. Above the mine, some aspects of the original game are duplicated. You can bet on bonca fights, buy bombs and elixirs. You have to buy a lantern to light levels of the mine lower than the first. The lantern shadow graphic is different than the one made by Dan Walma that's been used in three DMODs so far.

I wish I could say that the DMOD itself was as interesting as the technical achievement that sets it up, but it's not. It feels empty enough that I'd say this was mainly intended as a demonstration of the savefile transfer system. It's kind of a shame because I'm sure I remember people talking about carrying over the stats as something they wanted to see. Here somebody proved it could be done, but it was never really used for much. Oh well.

The mine has three levels. The first one is well-lit and contains no enemies. The second one has some neat recolored cave tiles and has some boncas that have been powered up to the point where they take a few hits from the light sword (these are the only enemies in the DMOD apart from the boss). This level contains a lot of pits that cause instant death if you touch them, which is annoying. Other than that and a miner you have to find and convince to go back up (but do you really? I'm not sure), there's nothing here but a bunch of twisty passages that mostly have nothing going on. It's kind of boring.

The lowest level is worse, though. There's nothing there at all but a whole bunch of empty, nearly identical rooms. There are some very creepy sounds that are supposed to guide you using Dink Smallwood's 3D sound effect, but this is actually misleading and not an effective way to navigate. After floundering for a while, I gave up and looked up the directions on the Dink Solutions. Finally you come to an Ancient without a form. He becomes a flickering copy of Dink and walks around trying to punch you.

Here, this DMOD offers some validation to those who bothered to purchase the Flame Bow in the original game. The boss's defense is too much for the throwing axe to damage him, and getting close is very dangerous, so bows, which do more damage even than the Light Sword with power shots if you have bow lore, are your best bet. Remember, the flame bow has power shots all the time. I ended up using the basic bow, which took forever.

I'm glad I saw this done, but I can't recommend this actual DMOD. The worst thing a DMOD can be is boring, and for most of its length, that's what this one was. I didn't hate it, it was just kind of "meh." It's too bad, because Paul's considerable skill is evident in parts of the mod.

064: The Adventures of Ed the SCV Author: Dan Walma Release Date: April 5, 2000

What madness is redink1 cookin' up this time? Why, it's yet another DMOD based on a game by Blizzard Entertainment. Unlike Warcraft, I have never played StarCraft. This probably affected my view of this mod somewhat. By the way, Starcraft actually came out shortly AFTER Dink Smallwood. I think this is the first time a DMOD was based on a game like that.

Actually, I've played this one before, during my little return to Dink in the second half of 2000. I had dim but definite memories pop up when I started playing it again.

Ed is a Science Vessel operator in a colony about to be overrun by the Zerg. A dimensional rift sends Ed and the Zerg into an alternate dimension (Dink's world, of course). That's about it for plot. Along the way he meets a few other vehicle operators, who helpfully stay alive just long enough to give him new weapons before dying and mysteriously taking their vehicles with them somehow. Amazing.

This is an uneventful little romp using StarCraft graphics in which the screen is often crowded with an absurd amount of enemies that all target you. There are no savebots and no save slots - when you do certain things, the game autosaves to slot 1. None of it is very exciting except the weapons.

The weapons in this mod are actually quite cool. All three of them are based on the bow (that is, you charge them up). The electro-mine is actually a little sparky mine that you place on the map. It waits for an enemy to blunder along into it, then damages them with a strength based on how much you charged before releasing. This creates a different style of combat where you can make a field of dangers for your enemies, and it'd be cool to see something like this implemented in an "ordinary" DMOD. The second weapon, the missile launcher, is just like the bow except with an explosion at the end, good for damaging nearby enemies as well. The final weapon is, though its shots use a new graphic, definitely a bow that shoots hellfire-style shots. This is amazing. Mowing down the Zerg hordes with it is by far the most fun thing you can do in this mod. And honestly, I can't believe it hasn't occurred to me before: this is exactly what the flame bow should have been all along. Once you consider it, can there be any doubt? There wouldn't have been anybody complaining about the Flame Bow then, I'll bet.

Hey look, I found a hardness error. Hope this thing's waterproof!

I lied a bit, there is one more thing to the plot, but it's quite silly. Hints are dropped throughout that the Zerg are being controlled by some horrible white thing. At the end, you're taken to a weird psychadelic screen, where you discover what that thing is - it's R2-D2. Wow, Star Dink flashback. Artoo has tons of hitpoints (seriously, TONS) but is otherwise not difficult. You win, but things don't work out so well for Ed. Poor Ed.

There's not much reason to play this apart from the new weapons, but those weapons ARE pretty cool. Heck, I want a flame bow that shoots hellfire arrows. Awesome.

065: The Shadow Guild (Demo/Beta) Author: Lurvas Release Date: April 13, 2000

The dmod.diz makes this seem like a genuine beta intended for debugging and not intended for forming an impression of the game. Why, then, was there any kind of public release? Who knows.

For all that, this isn't another barely-started trifle like "The Orion" as I expected. There's actually a fairly big map and some things to do in it, although if there's a real story of any sort (or any reason for that title) I never picked up on it. I did get the feeling that this really was intended to be an early version of a project the author seriously meant to finish.

Here's an oddity - this is the only combat-containing mod I've seen start you out with 0 attack. There are plenty of potions around to make up for it.

The map looks okay - at least it isn't incredibly sparse like everything I make - but on the other hand, things are stamped seemingly at random all over the place to the point where dodging all the trees and bushes is kind of a pain in the ass.

I have to admit I was kind of amused by all the silly dialogue. There's a lot of it because just about everything is scripted, including things like beds and tables. The dialogue was so incredibly silly that it reminds me of the silly crap I wrote in my old mods, except with even worse spelling and grammar (they are spectacularly bad in this mod). I'm not saying it was good, but I was amused by how far off the deep end it went.

I could relate some of the things that happen, but it's all nonsense anyway. It's the same reason I didn't bother taking screenshots. You do get the herb boots here, in case you're keeping track of that. If I were a beta tester, I know what I'd submit in my bug report. There's a certain screen that locks even though you can enter it from a direction that makes it impossible to reach the enemies, and you can only leave by cheating. There's a point where you have to buy a 500 gold longsword, but there aren't nearly enough boncas around to make that kind of cabbage. After making 212 gold honestly, I gave up and cheated. Not long after that, there's a slayer to fight (I barely won), and I think this must be the final boss. Nothing happens after defeating the slayer, but shortly after that the game gives up on things like hardness. There's a lot more map, but no way I can see to access any of it. I understand why there's no proper ending, but SOME kind of indication you'd reached the end would be nice. So it goes. This one is probably best left forgotten.

066: The Saga Authors: Xanthos and Vigilante Release Date: April 26, 2000

This was intended to be the first part of a series of short DMODs that were supposed to be released bi-weekly. Naturally, it's the only installment ever released.

The only thing worth seeing here is Dink wearing denim pants. They did a good job! It looks way better than those silly old green tights he's always wearing.

Dink is assaulted by a gang of blue merchant sprites, who steal his claw sword. This is followed by a very short quest for revenge - I really can't see how it was supposed to lead into some kind of "saga." Sometimes I wonder if anybody even knows what that word means. It usually refers to a story that chronicles generations of a family, but I guess it can also simply refer to a long dramatic story.

No saga here, just some plain outdoor screens (containing one pig farmer you can briefly converse with) followed by a short cave. There are boncas in the cave, but you're not equipped to fight them, so you just walk past them until you get to some screens with a total of eight blue guys to fight. They're not difficult. One problem I had, though, was that when you walk onto the first "boss" screen, you're likely to get stuck in the hardness there. I had to warp out using Ultimate Cheat. Anyway, when you beat the blue guy boss, the game simply ends. I guess this sort of thing would be understandable if they'd actually managed to make it into a biweekly series, but as it is, the only thing worth remembering here is those slick pants. So choice!

I hope I wasn't too judgmental in this part. Really, only the last two mods were bad, and not even they were approaching Dink Forever sort of bad. Anyway, see you next time for another installment of the series more than twice as popular as pretending to be illiterate!