Dink Unity
Today I was working on a dmod that will probably never see the light of day and I was thinking "man, it would be sweet if I could control the brightness of each individual screen through script". And then I realized I had a ton of other similar moments working on dmods where I thought about different dmodding features dink could have. And then I realized dink is frickin old and it needs a new engine rebuilt from scratch similar to the one made for Daggerfall Unity.
Now, just for the sake of discussion, I'd like to know if anyone who knows coding at all would have the slightest interest in making a dink unity/godot/unreal whatever. I'm a graphic designer (or trying to build a career as one) so my coding skills won't see much improvement any time soon (not that they were ever something meaningful). But is the rest of the community not as REPULSED by the ancient capabilities of DinkC?! Are you not sick of playing on a resolution 3 times smaller than your current screen? Do you not curse the fact that there's many simple functionalities that dink simply doesn't have?!
Let's talk
Now, just for the sake of discussion, I'd like to know if anyone who knows coding at all would have the slightest interest in making a dink unity/godot/unreal whatever. I'm a graphic designer (or trying to build a career as one) so my coding skills won't see much improvement any time soon (not that they were ever something meaningful). But is the rest of the community not as REPULSED by the ancient capabilities of DinkC?! Are you not sick of playing on a resolution 3 times smaller than your current screen? Do you not curse the fact that there's many simple functionalities that dink simply doesn't have?!
Let's talk
The weird thing is that while DinkC is awful in many ways, most other scripting languages for game engines lack the equivalent of:
Even the spiritual successor to the Dink engine (Novashell) failed to provide these, which made trying to create a simple conversation or cutscene absurdly difficult.
The secret is the *_stop and wait functions are actually pretty advanced programming concepts (like asynchronous reentrant procedures [edit: coroutines]) that DinkC makes easy and every other language makes difficult.
freeze say_stop move_stop wait unfreeze
Even the spiritual successor to the Dink engine (Novashell) failed to provide these, which made trying to create a simple conversation or cutscene absurdly difficult.
The secret is the *_stop and wait functions are actually pretty advanced programming concepts (like asynchronous reentrant procedures [edit: coroutines]) that DinkC makes easy and every other language makes difficult.
But, yes, it would still be worth trying to refresh Dink into another engine.
Even the spiritual successor to the Dink engine (Novashell) failed to provide these, which made trying to create a simple conversation or cutscene absurdly difficult.
The secret is the *_stop and wait functions are actually pretty advanced programming concepts (like asynchronous reentrant procedures) that DinkC makes easy and every other language makes difficult.
I guess. But I think they could be replicated, right? I mean, these functions aren't that complex that they can't be imitated through other means. Or so I hope. Either way, I don't think these functions warrant accepting all the other dozens of negatives that the engine has. I mean, it was a decent engine in it's time, but it's painfully old now.
The secret is the *_stop and wait functions are actually pretty advanced programming concepts (like asynchronous reentrant procedures) that DinkC makes easy and every other language makes difficult.
I guess. But I think they could be replicated, right? I mean, these functions aren't that complex that they can't be imitated through other means. Or so I hope. Either way, I don't think these functions warrant accepting all the other dozens of negatives that the engine has. I mean, it was a decent engine in it's time, but it's painfully old now.
It looks like GDScript supports coroutines and yielding. hurrah.
if this happens, i vote godot. duck unity
I agree with Skurn. Unity (and/or the company that owns it) has lost any respect for it I ever had.
so it's settled, then. Dink Godot is the future!!
hell yeah dude, ill sit back and watch and tell you duckers to hurry up from time to time. official motivator.
Honestly yeah, a Godot Dink sounds cool if anyone has the courage to try and make it! I'm learning Godot right now and having some fun just trying to make a super basic RPG Engine
Old thread, late reply. But my two cents:
I think it could definitely benefit Dink to have a version with an engine that makes new things easier to add and be less limiting. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be the same gameplay, but from what I've seen - Dink's current engine limits a lot of things.
Problem is, who'd make it? I know about two programmers who are active here, and they're already working on other Dink related stuff.
Also, it might need Seth's approval (I dunno how licensing works), but that's the least problem with the idea.
I think it could definitely benefit Dink to have a version with an engine that makes new things easier to add and be less limiting. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be the same gameplay, but from what I've seen - Dink's current engine limits a lot of things.
Problem is, who'd make it? I know about two programmers who are active here, and they're already working on other Dink related stuff.
Also, it might need Seth's approval (I dunno how licensing works), but that's the least problem with the idea.
December 22nd 2023, 08:21 AM
Bluedy
It could be a spiritual successor. I'd gladly work on this once some of my real life issues are settled. Generally, I think the two things missing that prevent community projects in the dink network from seeing the light of day are time and motivation. Motivation could be raised a little easier if just one of us showed progress, it would be enough motivation for others to join, knowing there's a solid driving force. Time is more complicated, though.
>Problem is, who'd make it?
The "someone else will do it" attitude everyone seems to adhere to in such threads means nothing will ever materialise, and wouldn't be feasible anyway. In the case of making something Dink-related in a full-featured engine such as Godot, Unreal, Unity, Love2D, Novashell, GameMaker or whatever else, the people who are going to attempt to expand upon that resulting output are going to have to already know how the engine of choice works underneath. In a sense, there is no possibility that someone can make something like people are assuming apart from maybe an importer for Dink's various data formats along with some basic boilerplate stuff for handling input, movement, and maybe text/dialogue. Nobody's going to drag themselves through hell and write a DinkC to GDScript parser! On top of that, everyone would likely have some differing opinion on things such as screen-stretching and camera management which would further necessitate anything being relatively bare-bones rather than a Windemere 2.0-style design by committee horror.
Anyone who's truly interested in some sort of "Dink in Godot" system should complete the "Dodge the Creeps" tutorial themselves while properly understanding the node and scene system, and then attempting to replace the player graphics with Dink and the enemies with slimes or whatever, and then building upon it from there to ascertain if Godot is even suitable in the first place. Licensing would be an afterthought unless you went around pretending to be Seth and claiming RTSoft endorsement or something like that, as the BMP graphics are available under a permissive license.
The "someone else will do it" attitude everyone seems to adhere to in such threads means nothing will ever materialise, and wouldn't be feasible anyway. In the case of making something Dink-related in a full-featured engine such as Godot, Unreal, Unity, Love2D, Novashell, GameMaker or whatever else, the people who are going to attempt to expand upon that resulting output are going to have to already know how the engine of choice works underneath. In a sense, there is no possibility that someone can make something like people are assuming apart from maybe an importer for Dink's various data formats along with some basic boilerplate stuff for handling input, movement, and maybe text/dialogue. Nobody's going to drag themselves through hell and write a DinkC to GDScript parser! On top of that, everyone would likely have some differing opinion on things such as screen-stretching and camera management which would further necessitate anything being relatively bare-bones rather than a Windemere 2.0-style design by committee horror.
Anyone who's truly interested in some sort of "Dink in Godot" system should complete the "Dodge the Creeps" tutorial themselves while properly understanding the node and scene system, and then attempting to replace the player graphics with Dink and the enemies with slimes or whatever, and then building upon it from there to ascertain if Godot is even suitable in the first place. Licensing would be an afterthought unless you went around pretending to be Seth and claiming RTSoft endorsement or something like that, as the BMP graphics are available under a permissive license.
