The Dink Network

Hey,

Long-time Dinker here, I currently maintain GNU FreeDink, Dink Translation, used to co-maintain The Dink Solutions.

I lost my "9 Gems of Life II" redux in a disk crash years ago and never got the courage to start a real D-Mod since. Someday I will

beuc@beuc.net
http://www.beuc.net/
Private Message

Nexis wrote a good point about bugs. We should fix them, but we lose backward compatibility by doing so.

So I suggest we make a list: if you remember a bug in the Dink engine, write it down here.

You can also comment the previous reported bugs (maybe some of them can be easily fixed, or are not really bugs, maybe the bug was not described completely...).

Each bug should be described with 5 or 6 parts:
- Title: sums up the bug
- Explanation: details how this bug occur
- Eg: give an example - a DMod where the problem can be seen, a script that makes the bugs appear, the way we could reproduce the bug...
- Bad Side(s): the problems coming from this bug
- Good Size: sometimes bugs can be usefull to - see bug #1.
- Fix: how to fix the bug without a new patch from Seth

Here are some I found:
1) Title: Background sprites and auto-changing tiles
Explanation: We set sprite as background (press 2 in DinkEdit). Then, under it, we use a tile that automatically changes (as the fire or the water). After, when playing, when Dink.exe redraw the tile that changes, then the background sprite is 'replaced' by the tile, and is not redrawn.
Bad Side: of course, this spoil the design of the screen: some sprite can partly or completely disappear of the screen.
Eg: I set a dead branch as a background sprite near a lake, and when I played, the sprite had disappeared! It took me some minutes to understand why...
Good side: in Dink's Doppelganger, in the alien basements, when you kill a player, a cool effect occurs: his body only remains for a few seconds, and then disappear, because all the ground is in fact one of these "special tiles", modified to show a ground and not some fire or water - so does this bug need to be corrected?

2) Title: The wait(&ms) command is supposed to wait for &ms milli-seconds. But this gets faster is the computer is faster. Seth said he did not find where was the problem.
Eg: Dinkanoïd, cool on my P133, unbeatable on my P650.
The Other World intro, when the snow when reach the ground, this one is supposed to become white, but he does not on every computer (on mine, he become white before the snow reach the ground).
Good Side: I do not see any.
Bad Side: This prevent the DMod maker from doing complex timed animation or games.

3) Title: diagonals & hardness in locked screen
Explanation: when the screen is locked, or when the is no screen around the current screen (so Dink is also stopped at the edge of the screen), and when Dink is walking in diagonals at one edge of the screen, then he can walk through hardness.
Eg: in Lost in Dink, the are several screen going up toward the end boss (with lost of evil maiden, ducks and co), with DarkLands-like tiles. The screen is locked each time you enter a new screen. If you walk in the bottom of the screen, and go southwest, then you pass through the edge of the road.
Good Side: I can cheat and destroy this dang evil ducks & co without being hurt ))
Bad Side: I can be "trapped" in the other side of the road ((

4) Title: The 1-pixel height line just above the status bar
Explanation: In this line, regular sprite are not displayed, only 'noclip' sprite can be.
Eg: in DinkEdit, put a rock in the bottom of the screen so that in the game, we will only see its upper part (the lower part should then be in the screen below). Play this screen, and you will notice that the lowest pixel line of the rock is not displayed; the tile is displayed on all this line instead.
Good Side: ?
Bad Side: This is quite boring, above all in cutscenes where you did not drew the status-bar and make a sprite come from "under" the screen.
Fix: if possible, use sp_noclip(), but this cannot work in all situatoin (eg: in the cutscene where you did not drew the status bar and have tiles displayed - not only a black background).

5) Your turn now.