The Dink Network

Dink.ini Rewrite

February 11th, 2005
v3.0
Score : 4.0 tolerable
custom_simon.gif
SimonK
Peasant He/Him Australia
 
I've have tried out ver 1.1 of this dink.ini rewrite.

There is a readme file which is pretty good - telling me about versions and ways of installing the file. It did warn me to back up my current dink.ini file before installing - which is very good, as I would not recommend using this file on any DMOD you have done a lot of work on in which you have already re-arranged graphics and their slots. (I do this a lot - for such things as grouping all the button graphics into one sequence rather than having them spread out across 4).

On opening it I was impressed with the layout and spacing. It is clear and concise.

I liked the way the unused slots were listed at the bottom.

And then I noticed a few things which I thought would create problems. The first being that some of the listed "unused" slots - were actually not free - such as this line:

//130-133

The 130 group is for the pillbug. So I thought, I'd try out the dink.ini rewrite in a small mod I keep for testing graphics and that's when I started getting problems.

I placed my alternate savebot graphics in slot 132 and my windmill graphics in slot 133. I had a pillbug on my start screen already placed so I fired up the DMOD. Pillbug would change between the 131 (direction 1) walking pillbug graphics to either a windmill or the alternate savebot.

I also discovered another unwary trap which is more specific to my test mod and the fact I had already placed a sprite with the alernate savebot graphics when they used to be in slot 194. This is not a fault of the rewrite as such - but it does mean if you have reworked the original dink.ini prior to installing this rewrite you will have some trouble shooting to do.

There are other "unused" slots which are not really free (the spike graphic sequences for one) - and they will have the same weird pillbug phenomenon if you decide to place any new graphics in any of the listed "unused" 830s or 840s slots.

This error is due to the author's lack of understanding of how sprites utilise graphics to walk and attack.

Another thing I didn't like were the listing of the SET_FRAME_SPECIAL lines right under the specific load_sequence graphics lines. I preferred the original dink.ini layout which had all the graphic load lines and then the ones that change specific attributes of each graphic.

While I like the rearrangment of lines and believe that this part of the authors objective has been achieved to a good degree, I feel this file needs more complete testing of the listed "unused" slots to see what impact they have on the game, before it should be released let alone used by anyone else.

The author's objective of maing it easier to find available spots for new graphics has not been achieved and using this file in it's current state can create problems which for any author starting out in the DMODing process will find frustrating. For this last reason I give the file a low score.

Score 4.0 out of 10