The Dink Network

~ Grasp of Darkness 2 dev thread ~

June 7th 2014, 04:27 PM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
GOD2 DEV THREAD YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHH!!

I'm workin' on da prequel to Grasp of Darkness! I began working on it when the Dink's Demise contest started earlier this year! I'm making so much progress that I accidentally changed my desktop background to one of Dink's idle sprites, true story!

This DMOD will take place before the events of GoD1, before Dink destroyed Seth and saved the world. It will be an alternate storyline of the original Dink Smallwood game where Milder will play a key part. It will probably be Quest sized.

Quick intro story so far:
Milder is on a hunt for a gift to Lyna and stumbles upon Martridge's cabin. He breaks in and steals a cursed gem. On his way back, Milder sees Lyna and Dink talking. He rushes towards them ready to show his awesome gift he got to Lyna. Of course he trips and the gem falls to the ground, breaking apart. The gem opens up a portal! Dink and Lyna is engulfed by it! But, Milder hangs on to a tree and didn't get sucked in. Martridge appears to Milder and then it's team Milder/Martridge and team Dink/Lyna to figure out what the fudge is going on and how they will get back to Stonebrook. Pretty rad, right?

This will be a completely new thing to try, a puzzle DMOD hybrid. It will not spoil too much but it will include the following things:

Levels:
I'm aiming for a lot of different levels that the main guy will advance through. There will be 6 different worlds with 10 levels each making 60 levels at the moment. There will also be bonus levels and stuff and more levels or worlds may be announced later. The toughest thing will be level design for all the levels!

Mechanics:
I have worked most on this, mechanics. The main concept for how the puzzler will work is taken from another game, but there was so little promoting that cool mechanic in that game. It is semi-turn based and it has squares. The puzzle part requires thinking and you have all the time in the world but the boss battles will be intense!

Unforgiving difficulty and getting 100%:
In GoD1, to get the ultimate reward at the alternate end of the game, you have to collect every powerup and weapon throughout the game. Doing something mediocre isn't enough! I'm taking this concept to GoD2 but instead of loading a game/resetting the game just because you missed a gold pile, I'm letting players go back and do the levels again to get 100% as savepoints will be rare. You will go through the game faster and the game will be more easy if you skip getting all the points for a level, but you may miss out on stuff later on. Player's choice.

Oh, and the game will have the GoD1 level of difficulty... at least... this is GoD2 after all.

Screenshots:
Level sidebar for the first world. Our guy has completed one level. The current level will sparkle.
A small portion of a new status screen. Been working a lot on status screens lately.

GIFs:
GIF of Dink sprinkling some blue grass seeds over himself! This is what Dink will do when you complete a level. Confounding isn't it?

Fun statistics:
- 7 map screens -
- 192 .c scripts -
- 410 .bmp graphics (includes DLC from the DN)-
- 11 sound effects & 7 midis-

Updated 9/9 2014

Latest gossip:
Most of the time, you won't need the strength, defense or magic stat at all. You won't even need an inventory!
You can't move with the directional keys most of the time . WASD movement baby!
"Braver" is a "gamble" stat. Fail a level, braverscore is set to 0 (sucks). Clear the level, you keep your braverscore and can use it to buy stuff. You are not forced to bet though...
June 7th 2014, 05:05 PM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
YAY A NEW MOD. Also, YAY A PUZZLE MOD. I've been longing for one of those.
June 7th 2014, 11:16 PM
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ExDeathEvn
Peasant He/Him New Zealand rumble
"Skinny Legend" 
Dare I say, Erufutu?
June 8th 2014, 05:07 AM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
June 8th 2014, 10:37 AM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
What. I'm not sure what to think of that.
June 8th 2014, 12:15 PM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
His hand looks like a foot.
June 10th 2014, 05:18 AM
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metatarasal
Bard He/Him Netherlands
I object 
NEW DMOD ANNOUNCED YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHH!!
June 10th 2014, 03:06 PM
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" NEW DMOD ANNOUNCED YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHH!! "

July 22nd 2014, 02:52 PM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
Aww man. Seems an algorithm I've identified for level design for my DMOD is, to my surprise, NP-hard which is kinda a complex decision problem that is annoyingly complicated if not impossible to solve. DAMMIT

From this, I guess there is no simple way to figure out level design... So that will take a while. If someone here are more of an algorithm-freak than me, then please PM me!

EDIT: Well, at least I think it is. Tough to identify.
July 22nd 2014, 04:05 PM
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CocoMonkey
Bard He/Him United States
Please Cindy, say the whole name each time. 
Searching the web for the phrase "NP-hard" is enough to make me feel like the world's biggest moron. Even attempts to explain the explanation of the explanation of what it means mystify me.
July 22nd 2014, 05:26 PM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
Hehe, indeed CocoMonkey. It's not a pretty picture!
September 8th 2014, 06:27 PM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
Small update! Many, many more grafix has been finished and some gossip revealed.
September 8th 2014, 07:33 PM
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leprochaun
Peasant He/Him Japan bloop
Responsible for making things not look like ass 
yay gothip!
August 28th 2018, 04:06 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
Any chance this dmod is going to be revived and finished?
August 29th 2018, 02:13 PM
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quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
You guys sure like digging around in old threads.

It is not on my agenda sadly. However, I did come a long way in development gameplay wise.
The DMOD is kinda cool though and levels can be generated with scripts. I could post some stuff about it and see how things develop... If you're curious on the main game mechanic, I direct you to a magnificent reddit thread where I had some questions about generating levels for my DMOD.

Too bad there wasn't an easy answer... If any of you algorithm nerds out there has a solution, feel free to contact me mwahaha
August 30th 2018, 04:32 AM
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QuIzTiS
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
But don't forget to play Grasp of Darkness 1, it is one of the better DMODs out there, true story.
August 30th 2018, 05:05 PM
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SlipDink
Peasant He/Him United States bloop rumble
2nd generation. No easy way to be free. 
That sounds to me like all the more reason to impress us with a sequel!

November 29th 2018, 01:26 PM
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Quiztis
Peasant He/Him Sweden bloop
Life? What's that? Can I download it?! 
Man where was I going with this, talk about sophisticated code.
July 19th 2021, 04:00 AM
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ExDeathevn
Peasant He/Him New Zealand rumble
"Skinny Legend" 
Void Update()
{
int &requested;
int &Progress = &requested;
}