The Dink Network

Smallwood Throwback Contest - Results!

Here they are at last - the results of the Smallwood Throwback Contest!

Very sorry about the long wait, it was all due to my soda mac... uh, important uh, very important...

Anyway, click on the comments to find out who won!




1st place
Lost Forest Romp by scratcher

2nd place
Dink Gets Bored by Paul

3rd place
Quel by metatarasal

4th place
Dink and the 4 Towers by merder

Congratulations everyone!

Three people judged the D-Mods in the end; Pillbug, MsDink and myself.

Here's how the voting went:

Lost Forest Romp
Pillbug - 1
MsDink - 1
Sparrowhawk - 2
Total - 4

Overall, this one was really well put together. The mapping, story, everything just worked wonderfully with each other. In my opinion, it also felt the most Dinkish.

There was a bit of a toss up for first but this gets my vote. Story was great, atmosphere and screen decorating great, scripting great and no hardness errors (pet peeve) I came across. I loved the look and feel of this dmod, it was very playable and I would play it again. Some giggles as well in keeping with the original Dink humour. Very polished, loved the burning hackable tree!

Dink Gets Bored
Pillbug - 2
MsDink - 2
Sparrowhawk - 1
Total - 5

This one definitely gets the "Most Humorous" award. If it hadn't been for the abrupt ending (understandable due to the deadline), I honestly wouldn't know whether to choose Scratcher's or Paul's. However, the ending was the deciding factor in who I'm giving my vote to for first place. Overall, I just felt more satisfied after Lost Forest than Dink Gets Bored. I think of this one as Mass Effect 3. The game was great, but after the ending you just want to punch someone in the throat.
[P.S: Paul, now that you have this and Crosslink on your record, I'd better see some finished projects lest you want me to devour your soul.]
[PP.S: In case of inability to inflict physical harm on Paul, soul devouring and throat punching may be substituted with "finish dmood nao" PM's.]


I loved this and it had me chuckling so much, love your humour, rivals the original in fact I think your humour is better! I knew he was gunna loose his stuff but you did it really well - nice and original. It finished too quickly and this is one of the reasons it gets second, even the original dink ended to a set date and still the story felt finished and the player satisfied. Picking a winner was really hard choice though. Oh and the name is spelt wrong tho (different to whats in the description)

Quel
Pillbug - 3
MsDink - 3
Sparrowhawk - 3
Total - 9

I really enjoyed this one. The mapping was very nice, and there were many good ideas that were new and interesting that still felt like the original Dink. A lot of what prevented me from giving this a higher score is that I often had no idea what to do next. I enjoy challenging D-Mods, and I don't mind if it takes me awhile to figure out what to do next. However, in terms of this contest the increased challenge of this one seemed to break the flow, and took away from the experience.

I loved this one too, quite original dink feeling, but, the other two just felt more excting to play. Great ideas played out but it felt a little restrained and I was at a loss at times to know what to do although still an awesome dmod.Scripting good as usual as was mapping,another excellent entry.

Dink and the 4 Towers
Pillbug - 4
MsDink - 4
Sparrowhawk - 4
Total - 12

An interesting idea held back by a few key factors. While the story behind it is pretty standard as far as plots go, the whole idea of the four towers and all the dungeon crawling doesn't seem as much like the original Dink. The main game has plenty of dungeons, but the way Four Towers was pulled off it seems like it could have worked much better without the contest restrictions. The mapping is a bit repetitive, but this could be due to the deadline and such.

The scripting was great in this but alas very greatly let down by screens void of any decoration at all. Dungeons a bit repetitive and as the monsters dropped hearts and didnt target you it didnt feel like a challenge. (eg:I killed all the first boss pillies by standing in a corner and pressing hit- they spawned and died and fed me hearts and I didn't have to move).



And a final message from Pillbug:

Overall I'm very pleased with what this contest brought. I submitted the guidelines with the intention that interest would be aroused in more people, and still have it give them a challenge. I think the guidelines took the focus away from special effects and new weapons and brought it back to the story, and it shows in the final product.