The Dink Network

Shady Stranger

Summon Magic and Appear Action Sequences Reveal Sequences
October 3rd, 2011
v1.00
Score : 9.7 exceptional
duckdie.gif
Months after being treated to some sneaky peeks of this file, I have to say: MsDink has a knack of making awesome graphics. However, this alternative character was more than even I would have wagered for. It's not just the character -which is excellent in itself- it's also an animated street lamp, a new tree sprite, and some tiles. Let's start with the character.
When I clicked Start, the character appeared in a cool Appear sequence, electricity and all. Although it went by a little too fast, I was electrified (pun not intended.) I then went in all four directions and stared at the Idle sequences for a while. They were all very well, and he was turned a little to the side making him all the more 'mysterious.' However, when he was facing in the downward direction, it looked like he had his hands on his hips and was wagging his butt, which made me laugh. He looked a bit too '8-bit' from the shoulders up while facing left and right too, but hey, it's a .bmp image!
His hit and magic sequences were very well done, the same motion as Dink, but not a single recycled part. He could crawl too, although the 'block' into which he crawled was a bit too opaque and could be seen easily.
His death sequence was probably the best sequence, detailed and all so you'd keep staring at the last frame for a long time. He'd fall in the Dink motion, but his feet wouldn't face the sky like Dink. Instead, he lay down and died.
He had a push sequence. Excellent, but his shoes changed color when he pushed. He had a new sequence for when he acquired a fireball spell, in which he'd 'summon' it while flames (or rather, flame hoola-hoops) danced around him.
The reveal sequences were the coolest thing in the whole file. He (or she) could take off his cloak (which covers his eyes too) to reveal himself to be Dink, Milder or, gasp, Dink's mother. Milder looked a bit feminine while taking it off though, because of his legs.
MsDink had put some text under everything new, making it kind of like an advertisement pointing out all the nifty features. Among these were a new tree sprite (didn't see much difference though) and an animated street lamp -- better than SimonK although the lamp swung a little too slowly. (Changing the .ini lines can fix that.)
Going ahead, there were snow to mud and snow to grass tiles. These were good for creating, if you please, some run-down building in a snowy area, to make it look thoroughly un-looked after.
So there you have it. The Shady Stranger. I'm a bit bitter at not being one of the testers, but it's even better than SimonK's graphics, I reckon, all the same.