Reply to Reconnecting and Reminiscing
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Hello Dinkiverse,
I am an early years Dinker, primarily active during 1997-2000 when I published some half-baked unfinished DMods and did a lot of shit-posting. I posted on the old rtsoft.com Dink forums and then did lots of lurking and shit-posting on The Dink Network until about 2006. I spent my awkward formative teenage years messing around in the Dink community. I'm getting some strong cringe and embarrassment feelings looking through my post history, but I'm glad it has been retained. I owe Tal an apology, maybe others.
Since 2006 I have been in Silicon Valley working in tech startups. The HBO series "Silicon Valley" is scarily accurate to what I've been through. I took 2017 off from corporate work to focus full time on an indie game development career. I learned a bunch and have an ongoing MMO game project. Unfortunately, as of 2018, I'm back in a full-time job to pay the bills and the game project is nights and weekends. Dink and Dmods are a huge reason for where I am today. DinkC was my first foray into programming and it taught me the basics which I could then identify in other languages and systems.
During that time I peeped back into The Dink Community to get inspired and in touch with my roots. I played a few Dmods and saw Tim's posts. I left a comment: https://dinknetwork.com/forum.cgi?MID=179399#199138.
I recently saw Seth tweet the "Dink Smallwood: Two decades of duck decapitation" video. Upon watching the video, I ordered a copy of COMTPATD volume 1. Reading the book has been a real rough history lesson. Logging into The Dink Network I saw my old hotmail and ICQ accounts. Unfortunately, my hotmail has been deleted due to inactivity. I logged into my old ICQ account to find an old contact list containing the like of Dukie, CoComonkey, and Redink1. I was saddened to read that Dukie had passed at a young age. I remember telling my parents I had made friends online with a guy from Belgium. This was in the early Internet days and they were unsure what to make of it.
When I posted in 2017 I think I was aware of Tim's passing, but not distressed about it. The "Old Man" part of the title made me assume he had passed of natural causes. When I chatted with him back in the day I always assumed he was much older than me because he was well written and had more awareness of the world. After reading the book and researching the details of his passing I was really bummed out. It was hard to read Tim's review of Mike the Magician and to read that he felt we were buds. I regret not checking in sooner. I feel like I may have even stopped by and lurked throughout the years but didn't participate. I really did admire his early work and was saddened to hear that he felt so poorly about it. My perspective has always been that any creative output should be celebrated. It's much harder to take an active path of creation over a passive path of consumption.
I am very grateful for Seth and Dan Walma keeping Dink alive throughout the years. The world is a harsh place built on a foundation of suffering and The Dink community is something very special that has brought people joy, friendship, and creative expression.
I've had a few thoughts on the future longevity of Dink from a marketing and mindshare perspective.
+ In the indie game dev scene "game jams" are a regular occurrence. They generally have a time limit (48hrs) and a theme. I could see Dink and DMods being used as a fun alternative way to participate in game jams.
+ Speedrunning is a big gaming sideshow and cottage industry. Is anyone speed running the original Dink? I could see that being at an AGDQ or something.
+ Steam Itch.io, GOG.com etc For increased mindshare and distribution I would suggest getting the Dink game on as many platforms as possible.
I've often fantasized about making a hit as an indie game dev and getting famous. Then following up the hype of the indie success with an exclusive DMod as the next release almost as a troll move.
Anyways, thanks for reading all this. It has been cathartic for me.
I'm happy to help out the community in any way I can (marketing, software dev) and will be lurking more to see where I can contribute. I'm not going to commit to building a DMod or anything because we all know how that story goes.
I am an early years Dinker, primarily active during 1997-2000 when I published some half-baked unfinished DMods and did a lot of shit-posting. I posted on the old rtsoft.com Dink forums and then did lots of lurking and shit-posting on The Dink Network until about 2006. I spent my awkward formative teenage years messing around in the Dink community. I'm getting some strong cringe and embarrassment feelings looking through my post history, but I'm glad it has been retained. I owe Tal an apology, maybe others.
Since 2006 I have been in Silicon Valley working in tech startups. The HBO series "Silicon Valley" is scarily accurate to what I've been through. I took 2017 off from corporate work to focus full time on an indie game development career. I learned a bunch and have an ongoing MMO game project. Unfortunately, as of 2018, I'm back in a full-time job to pay the bills and the game project is nights and weekends. Dink and Dmods are a huge reason for where I am today. DinkC was my first foray into programming and it taught me the basics which I could then identify in other languages and systems.
During that time I peeped back into The Dink Community to get inspired and in touch with my roots. I played a few Dmods and saw Tim's posts. I left a comment: https://dinknetwork.com/forum.cgi?MID=179399#199138.
I recently saw Seth tweet the "Dink Smallwood: Two decades of duck decapitation" video. Upon watching the video, I ordered a copy of COMTPATD volume 1. Reading the book has been a real rough history lesson. Logging into The Dink Network I saw my old hotmail and ICQ accounts. Unfortunately, my hotmail has been deleted due to inactivity. I logged into my old ICQ account to find an old contact list containing the like of Dukie, CoComonkey, and Redink1. I was saddened to read that Dukie had passed at a young age. I remember telling my parents I had made friends online with a guy from Belgium. This was in the early Internet days and they were unsure what to make of it.
When I posted in 2017 I think I was aware of Tim's passing, but not distressed about it. The "Old Man" part of the title made me assume he had passed of natural causes. When I chatted with him back in the day I always assumed he was much older than me because he was well written and had more awareness of the world. After reading the book and researching the details of his passing I was really bummed out. It was hard to read Tim's review of Mike the Magician and to read that he felt we were buds. I regret not checking in sooner. I feel like I may have even stopped by and lurked throughout the years but didn't participate. I really did admire his early work and was saddened to hear that he felt so poorly about it. My perspective has always been that any creative output should be celebrated. It's much harder to take an active path of creation over a passive path of consumption.
I am very grateful for Seth and Dan Walma keeping Dink alive throughout the years. The world is a harsh place built on a foundation of suffering and The Dink community is something very special that has brought people joy, friendship, and creative expression.
I've had a few thoughts on the future longevity of Dink from a marketing and mindshare perspective.
+ In the indie game dev scene "game jams" are a regular occurrence. They generally have a time limit (48hrs) and a theme. I could see Dink and DMods being used as a fun alternative way to participate in game jams.
+ Speedrunning is a big gaming sideshow and cottage industry. Is anyone speed running the original Dink? I could see that being at an AGDQ or something.
+ Steam Itch.io, GOG.com etc For increased mindshare and distribution I would suggest getting the Dink game on as many platforms as possible.
I've often fantasized about making a hit as an indie game dev and getting famous. Then following up the hype of the indie success with an exclusive DMod as the next release almost as a troll move.
Anyways, thanks for reading all this. It has been cathartic for me.
I'm happy to help out the community in any way I can (marketing, software dev) and will be lurking more to see where I can contribute. I'm not going to commit to building a DMod or anything because we all know how that story goes.
