The Dink Network

The Goblins are once again threatening the world and it's up to Dink to save it, but the goblins have put up barriers to protect them from the humans and to get past Dink must find three magical amulets.

Playtime: ~2 hours.

(NOTE: There will be a Sequel called "Dink's Revenge")

*Best D-Mod of Q1 2010*

Iplaydink's latest DMOD is called Three amulets. It is a DMOD with a lot of new ideas, some are good, some are bad.

But let's start with the good. Three amulets is all about finding... Three amulets. Now this isn't particularly brilliant, but it divides the story into 3 distinct parts, each with their own country side, village, dungeon and endboss. Each of these parts are different and they contain a lot of new elements. Each dungeon has new puzzle elements, new enemies and an unique endboss. These bosses are especially cool and contain hidden ways of defeating them.

Unfortunately there are also some drawbacks. The most noticeable is the use of a new font which is very hard to read. Every 'u' looks like an 'a' in this font which turns lines such as "You have to save us" and "I am the hospital guy" into memorable lines, for the wrong reasons.

The graphics are another bad idea. While new enemies are usually a welcome extra in a DMOD these new enemies didn't really work out. They have a cartoon like style which doesn't really fit in with Dink. Their hardbox and depth que are not very intuitive either, which makes it very hard to figure out where to hit these enemies. Combined with the relatively high difficulty this makes the enemies quite a nuisance. The only exception to this are the little eye-like creatures towards the end of the DMOD which do work out pretty well. The enemies are balanced really well though; you really need to think about how you spend your magic tokens.

In terms of gameplay this DMOD has two faces as well. On one side is ingenious gameplay such as the endbosses and the many puzzles this DMOD has. On the other hand the game is very pedestrian, in every sense of the word. Not only do you have to walk vast distances in this DMOD, but also some things are explained to the extent of being annoying. On the other hand some things such as the use of the new 'magic token' system aren't explained at all. All of this does get better towards the end, but it takes some patience to get through the beginning.

Another problem is the prevalence of screenlocks. In many places there is a random chance of a screen getting locked, which means that you'll want to avoid entering a screen too many times as the screen will eventually get locked. This really hurts the feeling of discovery as you are determined to visit as few screens as possible. And even then the amount of screens getting locked can be pretty annoying.

The story is unimpressive but reasonably worked out and it has an interesting twist in it too. The end was a bit of a letdown, but all the intermediate 'endbosses' do make up for a lot.

But in spite of this DMOD's shortcomings I really enjoyed playing this DMOD, and I enjoyed the new endbosses and the new things iplaydink added to this DMOD. I can certainly recommend this DMOD.

8.7