The Dink Network

All right everybody.

I'm drunk posting again. It's not so fun this time. I have problems. I got drunk after I read the contest results. Please don't mistake this for spite. I meant what I said about Revolution - I loved it, it deserved to win. It's nobody's fault but my own. I shouldn't have made Dinkgon Warrior. It was the only idea I had that at all fit the contest and I only made it because I didn't want the contest to fail. But it would have gone on without me. Again, it's nobody's fault but mine. I should have known nobody would like this thing but me. I loved it. I believed in it (the D-Mod). I ported things from Dragon Warrior to Dink and thought that would be good enough. Ultimately it's just another project that has an interesting idea and some work clearly put into it but is no fun to play for most people, like many projects I've passed judgment on in COTPATD. It shouldn't be a big deal. You win some, you lose some. Maybe SOMEBODY will like it. If not, at least I enjoyed making & playing it. It's not a big deal.

No, the real problem is that I've been treating this forum as a one-stop-shop for my self-validation. It's pathetic. I'm no writer. I'm no "Artist." I'm not even capable of maintaining an ordinary day to day existence. It's a sad sight. I drank alone in my house and it wasn't even that much alcohol but it's enough to get me wasted 'cause I'm such a wimp.

Everything you need to know about me, you can learn from this: I just watched a movie called Frank, a recent movie, and there's a character in it who latches onto genius and tries to use it as his ticket to stardom. Every review I found deplores this character. At best, they note that "some would-be artists are better off staying in the audience." I IDENTIFIED WITH THIS CHARACTER. I latched onto him. His redemption would be my own, but of course he didn't have any except at best maybe knowing it was best for him to get out of the way. Probably nobody's seen that movie. Ever see Amadeus? I identified with Salieri, except for the part where he tried to kill Mozart. But the real Salieri was actually a great composer (he was no Mozart, but if you've got no room between "Mozart" and "talentless hack" I don't know what to tell you) and did no such thing. I'm nothing like him. I'm nobody.

I am 100% aware that it's a bad idea to post this. That is why I'm posting it. If I don't, I can come back and pretend everything is ok, and I need to not do that. I am genuinely sorry. I don't mean to mess everything up for everybody and I hate to make a scene, but I can't keep pretending I'm ok. At least I moved this out of the silent protagonist contest thread so it doesn't screw that up forever if anybody ever looks it up in the news archives.

Again... sorry.

I should have known nobody would like this thing but me.

But... that's not true.

Hell, I'll go deeper into this. I can see where you're coming from as a sort of writer/entertainer type myself. I get how other people's works can overshadow another's. Really, it can be downright depressing when you put something out there and people either don't like it, or don't see it, or whatever, and it sucks when people even pay to be noticed more and leave people in the dust. Here, it's not really like that and you've clearly released things people enjoy - Malachi the Jerk, the Crazy Old Tim Plays all the DMODs Project, and seriously, Dinkgon Warrior.

I'm not sure how much of this is coming from being drunk, but I can sympathize. I had a ridiculous idea recently about changing all the dialogue in a Berserk episode to a bunch of chicken noises, changing everyone's heads, and some other stuff. Then I came to the realization that I'm really not a good editor and I can't really work on things alone very well, especially when I'm stuck with an editor that is completely unstable. Sure, Teamviewer was open, but I was only typing and just crawling my way though the video not really feeling up to doing it. Still, the result was good enough for me I guess. I got to the point where I said duck it and just edited the hand holding the behelit, the intro song, and Goto slamming his hammer down on a slab of chicken breast. I think it's ducking hilarious but the likes/dislikes say otherwise. Still, as much as it sucks to feel like nobody really enjoys things I put out, I do it anyways. Someone out there is bound to like it. Thus I like Dinkgon Warrior, and others probably do as well. Sure, it's annoying to have to deal with every enemy before going to a new screen, but it's quick and it's amusing when music can't play for more than like half a second before changing. More RPGs with turn based combat need more ways to get through combat quicker which is why I can't understand why people don't adopt how Earthbound handled it by skipping over combat you'd definitely win and just give you the reward instantly. Other than that, the ability to warp from a dungeon, warp to town, get powerful as duck quickly, and find elusive wizards that give you piles of XP is fine.

I guess you're different about these things. Maybe not though, I'd probably drink a lot of booze out of depression and you've obviously got more followers to the things you do than I do. Still, there's bound to be someone that enjoys what someone puts out. So here's one of them.

lmao
tbh i played all the entries all were great fun , personal 'thank you' from me for entering the contest.

...but i felt revolution to be the most original fun idea and had good fun in it running around whacking stuff with ham

I enjoyed the crap out of Dinkgon Warrior. If you ever want to expand on that, I'd love to do it with you. Maybe I'm just a sucker for turn based combat though.

Boy. I should quit drinking when I'm depressed. Failing that, I should at least quit using the Internet in that condition.

Thank you guys for the kind words. I was obviously depressed already and reading the results made me more depressed. Then I realized how utterly ridiculous that was and that led to the bizarre rambling above. Sorry again if I offended anybody thereby. It's kind of embarrassing.

Hey, you're an awesome and fun dude and I think I speak for us all when I say you don't need to apologize for anything. I also think I speak for us all, when I say your return and recent contributions to this website have been some of the most important moments in the Dink community's history, so thank you for that.

You've obviously gone through a lot of crap in life that has caused you to become very depressed. I guess seeing your D-Mod come in last place just triggered another depressed moment for you. I haven't had time to play any of the contest D-Mods yet, but even if I ended up not enjoying yours as much as the other ones, I wouldn't think any less of you as a person. That goes for all the D-Mods and their authors in the contest.

That being said, I think maybe you should quit drinking when depressed. Or even when you're not. And no, not because of drunk posts on TDN, those don't bother anybody. But you're obviously very down sometimes, and alcohol isn't the best combination with that. And knowing some of your history, it might not be the safest thing for you to do. Just saying.

This place changes people.

we've all posted embarrassing things here in the DN.
I would not classify your "ramble" as embarrassing though.
You're merely stating how you're feeling and that's only human.
The people here SHOULD speak kindly to each-other, it should set us apart
from other forums and such. And this time we did. And i'm proud.
As for your entry coco, unfortunately i'm using windows 8 so its hard to get dink
set up onto it. so i havent played your dmod. But from what has been said it sounds like a perfectly good dmod. There are alot of shite ones out there. (like mine) yours is obviously high above them

I haven't finished it yet, but even if Dinkgon Warrior wasn't fun (which so far, I'm enjoying it enough to keep playing) it's still a very clever use of the Dink engine. I certainly have noticed flaws in it, like lack of secrets and exploration (moving on the world map is very slow because of the encounters). But even with that as the case, it has got my imagination rolling on all that could be done with a similar concept in the Dink Engine, or even as a standalone game. It's very unique, and for that you should never be disappointed that you made it. And the 2000 mode was a very good idea.

Also, listen to Skurn. He made a bunch of good points there.

Also, listen to Skurn. He made a bunch of good points there.

The world has stopped making sense. Although I AM glad even the seemingly most diehard trolls can turn into seemingly not quite so trollish, not quite so diehard... goblins.

I'm terribly drunk myself, so I'll just say this: Don't underestimate the value of contributing to something like Dink. It's a fine source for self validation. Sure, creating a cool dmod or doing a project like COTPATD won't rid the world of mites, but it's a creative endeavor that brings joy to several dozens, hundreds of people. It's not unreasonable to think that 50 years from now, someone will stumble upon these creations through something similar to the wayback machine, and enjoy reading/playing them. Heck, maybe Dan will still be hosting this site by then.

What do other people have that they can feel good about? Working 40 years straight as a lawyer? A truly meaningless achievement. The only worth of such an existence is the paycheck you get at the end of the month. Creating a single good dmod contributes more to the world, so give yourself some ducking credit, dammit. You don't have to be a once-in-a-million prodigy to create unique and worthwhile things.

;_; you guys

This place is the best.

The world has stopped making sense.

Does this mean... I am the world to you? Please don't let it be the booze talking.

One part that Sparrow cut off was the part where I mentioned that it was a very hard decision between choosing Silence or Dinkgon. Dinkgon was more polished and complete (and fun, after my initial hurdle), but Silence was more intriguing and tantalizing (even if it didn't follow through completely).

One thing that this community doesn't do a very good job at is providing feedback; most of the recent files have none, or maybe one, review. Many news posts go by without much commentary. Like stomper's Bored of the Rings; it looks like a giant D-Mod from the map he posted, and the only feedback I can find is leprochaun's review and a post saying that they had some errors installing it. And that's all.

It's very disheartening to pour time and effort into something and then hear nothing back (part of that is we've gradually shifted to a community of D-Mod authors without many people actually playing D-Mods anymore). The biggest (and best) exception to this is COTPATD: one of the motivations behind working on Revolution was knowing that eventually I'd be able to read some well-written feedback on it, and get a different perspective on what I was trying to accomplish.

Also, I'm not sure why you think you're not a writer (even if it's in a drunken/rambling context). I'd say you're easily the best writer posting to the forum, even your ramblings communicate ideas clearly. I feel like your posts would fit right alongside other content I read online at sites like avclub.com (where they do reviews of new and classic tv show episodes, a similar hurdle of writing a few hundred/thousand words about something that's pretty similar to the last dozen articles), and your writing surpasses the dreck they post to tv.ign.com. And you've written, what, 200,000 words? 300,000 words? It's a darn lot.

here here!

I haven't thought to check before. Right now it's 256,638 words.

I get frustrated with my writing a lot. I fret over how formulaic the writeups are, or compare them unfavorably to stuff I read online that's brilliant. I guess it's the same way with Dinkgon Warrior. When I made it, I thought to myself, "this is an odd, kinda wonky little thing I've made here. I like it, but everybody is going to hate it." And then when I didn't get any feedback right away (and no votes in the contest), I assumed everybody indeed hated it. And I was already depressed due to totally unrelated reasons, so... this wreck of a topic happened.

I wouldn't call this thread a wreck. It's good to get your feelings out there and this community is more supportive than probably any other out there (excluding Tumblr, YouTube probably...uh. Most other places). I guess it's the fact it's small and it seems punching heads off ducks and wanting incestuous relations with your aunt after mercilessly killing her husband in front of her brings in the better people.

I dunno.

If you compare your work to other peoples constantly, you're just gonna make everything harder on yourself by thinking you could never be as skilled or talented as them, and you'll just end up giving up and never going anywhere. I'm struggling with this too with my music. My lyric writing, which has never been good, has slowly evolved and improved as I've put more effort and meaning into what I'm trying to write. This existential breakdown I had last month has helped to inspire a couple new songs I've been progressively working on as a coping mechanism to get past my depression, and also to become more skilled at writing. Where it's started to evolve is that I'm trying to shake the mentality of the formulaic structure of how I used to write and instead I'm slowly trying to write better, less structured songs for a more personal and unique style. It's not something that comes easily to me but I'm putting a lot more time into my lyrics. Now, if I compared what I write to some of my favorite musicians and their epic lyrics, well I'd probably be in the same boat and stop trying before I even got started. The same goes for my drumming. If I can even be half as good a lyricist or drummer as my idols, I'd be okay with that. I won't let their talent overshadow mine, because I'm a different person from them, and I have my own style, talents, and ambitions.

I found this song on Youtube completely by accident a few days ago, and I hate myself both for finding it and liking the crap out of it, but the important part is the meaning behind the song. If you try to live up to perfection, you'll just disappoint yourself. But if you be yourself you can break free, do your own thing, and be happy. At least, that's what I get out of the song. Honestly, I found this song at the time I needed it most. This song has helped me realize that I just need to do my own thing, and if it fails, well I'll just keep at it.

I bring all this up mostly because in the last couple months I've gotten the sense that both of us are going through similar things in some way or another, and I just wanted to share my perspective on my own problems and how I'm trying to deal with them and move on with my life.

The world has stopped making sense. Although I AM glad even the seemingly most diehard trolls can turn into seemingly not quite so trollish, not quite so diehard... goblins.

I'll admit it is the most changing of sudden changes I've ever seen. Good... job, Skorn. I mean, Skurn.

Feedback, feedback, I'll get to that. When I've finished my second DMOD and ready to win DMOD of the Year 201X, I promise I will review at least 30 DMODs before submitting it!

Good... job, Skorn. I mean, Skurn.

Just call me ‖¦‖¦¦∣‖‖|∣¦‖‖∣‖‖∣‖¦∣|‖‖‖||‖

It's very disheartening to pour time and effort into something and then hear nothing back (part of that is we've gradually shifted to a community of D-Mod authors without many people actually playing D-Mods anymore). The biggest (and best) exception to this is COTPATD: one of the motivations behind working on Revolution was knowing that eventually I'd be able to read some well-written feedback on it, and get a different perspective on what I was trying to accomplish.

This is the big reason I'd love to see COTPATD continue even with future releases. Because it's quite literally almost the only bit of feedback any of the D-Mod authors get these days.

i wonder what can be done to revive the community back to active state
last year i had a dream of getting dink smallwood on steam greenlight and having the game on steam with the editor and all the dmods as a workshop and even probably achievements and what not + steam cloud would have brought dink to a new generation of pc players.

but after 10 emails to seth and no response a year later i gave up. Hes dug into that mmo deep.
it is so easy to get greenlit these days imagine if crap like this got greenlit
http://store.steampowered.com/app/329950/

dink would probably be the fastest games to get greenlit

holy crap, Slaughtering Grounds is still available to buy? That's a crime.

So is Starforge.

Honestly, getting a shitload of new members around would probably ruin the feel this place has. As it is now, we're pretty much all acquainted with eachother or even further, and we've certainly all said at least something to another user. We're, as people have said before, a cult. Not the dangerous ones with altars and kool-aid, but a safe one where we ask how to kill someone or find some dangerous weapon to use to kill someone. We've all punched the heads off of ducks to please some mysterious power whether we know it or not, had ridiculous adventures ranging from world saving to feast saving by finding a thing of cheese, or mercilessly gangbanged an entire town with the power of hellfire.

We don't want outsiders to come ruin that. They're weird.

>part of that is we've gradually shifted to a community of D-Mod authors without many people actually playing D-Mods

Do you have any hard stats confirming that? What are DMOD download figures like now compared to previous years?

The thing about steam is that the whole thing is completely enclosed in the steam world itself aka if the game did launch on steam you wont be getting any new fans here since each game gets its own discussion forum that can be accessed within the steam client.

So people tend to stick on the steam forums for steam games to such a point that some of the major developers have stopped responding to to their own game forums and use the steam ones instead.

My thing is that for me dink smallwood represents a great time in pc gaming , it should not be allowed to be forgotten but should adopt to the modern gaming changes.

The game got released on ios and android when those platforms were becoming decent for games , we never got tons and tons of new fans just because the game released there.

But as long as we don't have each DMOD here available on the Workshop, who's to say people won't flood here once they learn there's much more to find?

haha you don't need a account to download the dmods

SMAK cocomonkey geesh u entered, you completed (and blew me away with how sort a time it took u to do your scripting) your dmod was awesome and totally contributed to the spirit of the contest, u competed way earlier than anyone and did a great job!!

u dis ya work again i put u over my knee U did great (and I woulda said so earlier if i wasnt away for the last two weeks )

*two millenia