The Dink Network

The votes are in and the final ranking has been calculated. The ranking, along with various (mostly) anonymous comments and criticisms collected from the judging process (with some editing) are as follows:

1. Hack 'n' Slash

"My jaw hit the floor when I saw those dance moves"

"As a counterweight to the brutality, there's also lots of dancing, which I like, and which also is very creative. Collecting notes makes exploring the map more exciting without unbalancing the game."

"It definitely made an interesting change."

"This entry is kind of a mish-mash of stuff, and feels like SimonK threw this together as an experiment. But that experiment had really cool ideas, so consider it a success."

"This is definitely the best of the contest entries."

"I can see why people think there should be more gold available. However, Hack n' Slash goes way too far"

2. Expanded Dink

"The teleportation system is definitely something we should have had 25 years ago."

"It feels that the additions are a bit... uninteresting."

"The main thing I like about this one is the idea (and execution) of a fast travel system."

"It can be argued that the original game needs more gold, but it really doesn't need higher stats."

"I find the added areas nice, with Leprochaun's trademark mapping."

3. Quest Log

"It seemed like a real expansion to the main game, adding content and integrating it very well. I expected way less than the initial title would suggest."

"I'd rather play the whole game with it."

"The additions in Quest Log are visible from the start, and are done in a way that encourages the player to hit, poke, and prod at things to see what will happen. There's a gold mine's worth of discoveries if you're prepared to go digging."

"I really liked Martridge being there as an advisor. It really could help new players through the game."

4. Kingdom of the Pigs

"This one definitely made me laugh the hardest, and I had fun forcing myself to remember the original dialogue choices. The colour-shift effect on the text was also very nice to see."

"Well, this is... an interesting one."

"I found the joke funny for the first few minutes. However it's not worth playing much more than that, unless you want to know what it feels like to play Dink as an illiterate person."

"Kingdom of the Pigs was great, but there's no way I could put up with oink oink for like every dialog line for a whole game."

"It really annoyed me that I could not navigate the menu."

"I'm somewhat ashamed that I spent multiple hours in making this. My main motivation was making sure RangerLord lost his bet."

5. Best Friend Milder

"It does fit the theme of the contest, but it could have been explored more deeply."

"The dialogue changes are somewhat amusing."

"It could have included some new scenes or something."

"Only the scripts related to Milder have been modified. Even in those scripts, the changes are smaller than I expected."

"It doesn't come with all the files of the main Dink game, only having the files that have the changes. This is actually a positive for me."

"Dink and Milder's rivalry is by far the longest lasting conflict in the original game. It's also a conflict that the player is powerless to affect at all until the very end, at which point the player can either make Dink the greater man or have payback against Milder. As such, I don't really think this makes the game better, but I like how it made me think."

"I just don't feel the apparent effort was on the same level as the other mods."