The Dink Network

Scourger (The)

The red guy is the titular villain. He's apparently the scourge of walls. From the COTPATD project.
Description
In my previous DMOD: "Quest for the Gems" a wizard is resurected. In this DMOD you need to beat him.

*Best download of november 2005*

*Best D-Mod of 2005*
Released:April 1st, 2010
File Size:1.83 MB
Downloads:1110
Release Notes:Version 2.0 is a large improvement to the original DMOD. It adds an extra world towards the end and has multiple smaller updates to other areas. I hope the story is even better this time!
Play:Play this D-Mod right now in your web browser! (More Info)
 
September 4th, 2009
1.1
Score : 9.8 exceptional
death.gif
This epic-sized DMOD is excellent. It does not overwhelm you with its massive size from the outset; you begin on a small island, seemingly with a relatively easy task to perform. As you progress, you find out that many smaller tasks need to be done in order to achieve the main objective, and slowly, the story unfolds, each time in bite-sized chunks, except that each bite often turns out to be much larger than it sounds at first.

The Good:

The story structure is excellent. While the plot isn't really deep and engaging in the way Cloud Castle 2: Scarab is, for example, it is also well-presented, and often in the way of funny setbacks to your main objective. Each puzzle appears simple at first, but you quickly discover many sub-tasks and other side-quests as you go---this gives a real sense of adventure and exploration rather than a narrowly-scripted story (even though that's what it really boils down to).

There are also many lands to explore, and many interesting characters to meet. There are several different lands that you visit; each is a refreshing change from the previous. It gives a good sense of depth to the game.

The puzzles aren't especially complicated, often involving finding very cleverly-hidden things. They are more-or-less on the right difficulty level (although repetition of the same kind of puzzles, like mazes, detract a bit from this---see next section). Except for one or two harder puzzles, they don't involve brain-racking convoluted solutions, which makes it nice for casual play.

There are also many secrets and bonuses to find; this encourages the player to explore the map thoroughly, which is something very helpful in a game with many maze puzzles and find-the-object puzzles.

The new graphics are also very well done. The desert spike creatures are especially good. The way they flip and flash their spikes make them appear quite threatening---this is a very nice effect. The red wizard, however, I found a bit disappointing: he looks like just a regular wizard sprite passed through a greyscale filter and then color-shifted to red. A little more effort on using slightly different tones of red, for example, would be a great improvement.

The monster difficulty is also quite good: not too simple to be trivial, but not overly hard either (esp. if you take the time to explore and find the hidden bonuses). The monsters in the last maze are a bit ridiculous, though; IMHO other monster types should have been introduced, instead of just using the same ole boncas (with only a color change), pillbugs, and slimers, just endowed with ridiculous speed and damage. A well-placed dragon or two would add a lot, as would a couple of stone golems, say. (Or one of the many new monsters introduced by other dmod-ers.)

The Bad:

The recurring "find the location" or "find the object" puzzles get a bit tedious, especially with a large map laid out in the way of a maze. Examples include finding the leaking cave, finding the roadblock, finding the slayer, finding the gold rock, and finding the last temple. (Yes, yes, it's the a-MAZE-ing village, but really, how many mazes can you solve in a single game before it becomes a-MAZE-ingly annoying?) Finding the 12 stars is a maze/treasure hunt puzzle of an acceptable size. But the other ones, mentioned above, are just a tad too tedious. Besides, there is no real twist to each successive maze, so it really adds no additional interest to the game. If some of the mazes involved unexpected surprises, however, (such as, say, a one-way trapdoor somewhere, or needing to do something special to cross a chasm, say) then there might have been a good justification for them.

A few hardness errors, especially in the last maze, are very annoying. Those 1-pixel errors are especially bad, since it gets tricky to "unstuck" Dink if you accidentally walk where you aren't supposed to be able to. Overall, though, the game is quite good quality, and besides these few errors, don't have nasty problems that make it unplayable.

Some of the NPC interactions could be improved: often, an NPC will say something to the effect of "OK, I'm going to/we're going to do X now" but simply continues standing there as if nothing has happened. This breaks mimesis. It would be better if they actually went and did what they said they were going to. Of course, given the size of this dmod, something like this may be too tedious to script; a good compromise is to have them walk off the screen before Dink is unfrozen---that gives a visual cue that they're off to do X (even if X itself isn't actually scripted).

Anyway, in spite of its flaws, this DMOD is an excellent choice for a light-hearted epic-sized adventure. There's a lot of fun to be had, and you won't regret giving it a try. I give it a 9.8.
TopicPostsPosterLast Post
stuck in goblin village3kpetermnNovember 25th 2012, 01:40 PM
Is this supposed to happen?3duckhaterNovember 1st 2012, 12:29 PM
Bug in dmod or freedink6shevekOctober 28th 2012, 07:12 AM
Pickaxe - blacksmith2Jonas0075October 17th 2012, 06:17 PM
Anypody who used my walkthrough please say...17skullJuly 21st 2012, 11:34 AM
stuck7karan42June 1st 2012, 01:50 AM
Bug in The Scourger?10STEVEOctober 1st 2011, 04:20 AM
1st test the maze timed run15zippysoxJuly 29th 2011, 12:11 PM
Knight in guys cellar2zippysoxJuly 25th 2011, 10:04 PM
magic9terminatorFebruary 25th 2011, 07:54 AM
Knight inside fence - Help please!2McBrideFebruary 9th 2011, 05:26 AM
bonca5KungLeoAugust 19th 2010, 04:52 PM
Anyone played/playing the scourger?11joker2785December 4th 2009, 07:40 AM
the temple in scourger5aoppsOctober 31st 2009, 04:27 PM
DMod of Interest9dinknewbie99May 23rd 2009, 05:24 AM
Walkthrough to Scourger8skullMarch 24th 2008, 09:16 AM
The 5th Body13DEATHis2006February 22nd 2008, 07:05 PM
stuck with the rock2dreamwizardJanuary 20th 2008, 06:15 PM
stuck in town of Uy5mazza33December 5th 2006, 06:33 PM
Scourger: Ending - Is this supposed to happen?5ImagineThatJune 21st 2006, 02:56 PM
Permit from the Mayor3ejv2June 21st 2006, 04:13 AM
Golden Rock in Cave5BiskyMay 15th 2006, 02:15 AM
Scourger:Temple at Undergreound village5jdswhmsiApril 8th 2006, 08:01 AM
The Scourger2LugMarch 5th 2006, 08:59 AM
Stuck as goblin searching for chopped tree7ialeksFebruary 8th 2006, 05:27 PM