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272: Of Life - Black Guild Author: Blackguard Release Date: October 12, 2007
"Go away Dink, I have jobs."
"Of Life - Black Guild" is just kind of boring, honestly. There isn't much to it. The story seems to be no deeper than "Dink met an evil guy and ran away, but now he wants to find him and kill him." You don't find this out until Dink talks to a certain character, which is an odd way to set up your plot. The only things to make this DMOD stand out are a few new graphics.
There's a new status bar and inventory. I don't really like it, but it's competently done.
The map looks okay, if plain and a bit odd in places. There are some depth dot errors and some invisible walls. The main part of the game is a really dull cave maze. There's gold in the cave, but once you've gotten there, it's impossible to return and spend it. The level of excitement is not helped by the fact that there's no music in the DMOD. It's also not helped by the fact that all of the enemies are basic pillbugs except for one slayer.
At least there's a new death graphic for the pillbugs. There's a new blood graphic too.
When you finally catch up to the evil guy du jour (to get to him, you have to walk right into an ordinary cave corner, which somehow warps you), he's a joke. Actually, you don't even have to fight him, but you may as well. It would be tough to lose.
The boss casts acid rain at you. It never hit me, but that's kind of novel, I guess.
There are a lot of unused, modified graphics in the graphics folder of this DMOD. Some of them are from other DMODs, but quite a few of them are new. There are some complex recolors, a fire vortex effect, and an animation of the red barrel breaking like the brown one. If you were to release this stuff as a graphics pack, it'd have a better rating than the DMOD. Blackguard must have had big plans for "Of Life" at some point.
Other than that, there isn't much to say about this one. It is, at least, much better than the author's first DMOD, "Island of Hell." Next.
273: Happy Sunshine Land Author: Pillbug Release Date: October 21, 2007
"I'm ready for the tea party!"
"Happy Sunshine Land" is the sort of day-glo MS Paint world we haven't seen since "Bloop the Fish." Just look at it.
It's like injecting happy sunshine directly into your eyeballs!
There's no combat, no hardness except an attempt to keep you out of the "sky" that is easy to get around, and no screen borders. This is one of the shortest DMODs I've ever played. There's just four screens, each with an NPC who has a brief conversation with Dink. Dink himself is presented as an unbelievably polite young man, nice to a fault. This serves him fine until you get to the fourth screen.
I didn't for a second think that this pillbug was going to attack me; I walked right up and talked to it. By the third screen, I knew how this world worked.
Dink tells a woman, a "POliceman" and a pillbug that he's going to a tea party, but fate has other plans. It turns out that the dude who invited him is actually a demon! No tea awaits our unlucky hero - only death.
The spell can even reach you in the sky! There is no escape.
It, uh... isn't much of a game, but considering that Pillbug was only 11 years old at the time, it could be worse. The grammar and spelling aren't perfect, but they're better than I'd expect. The central joke - super-happy Dink expects friendly tea party, gets killed by a demon instead - is just amusing enough that I don't quite feel like handing out the DFMAOB. I mean, at least this one isn't impossible (or nearly so) to finish.
The reviews are interesting. Some people hate it and give it a rock-bottom rating, and I can't blame them. Other people found it amusing and give it a decent rating, and it's hard to fault that either. The standout is an enormous wall of text by yeoldetoast. Like my writeup of the second "Ghosts of the Cast," it pretends to investigate the mod's deeper meaning as a work of fine art, awarding a score of 9.5 that drags the average up to 4.0. It is a masterclass in bulls***, and I tip my hat. Toast expertly comes up with an overthought explanation for each of the DMOD's sloppy elements in order to argue that they're all not only intentional, but carry symbolic or allegorical meaning. My favorite part is his treatment of the ending: "Dink starts walking towards the table for the tea party, but even when faced with the horrible truth, the truth that there is no tea party and that he is going to die, he refuses to believe it and still is incredibly friendly towards the bringer of his impending doom. This demon at the table suggests that the end of Dink's tale is a biblical story of how one loses their innocence when faced with an event that changes one's world view." I am furiously applauding right now. He even uses the word "Bildungsroman," which I am man enough to admit I had to look up.
Pillbug (who must be 18 by now) is developing a sequel to this that is apparently a more serious DMOD and features a neat-looking achievements system. I'm looking forward to it.
274: One Screen D-Mod Compilation Authors: Sparrowhawk, Ciprian "Cypry" Oprisa, Beuc, Adam "DinkDude95" Bisset, Joshriot Release Date: October 21, 2007
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.5) on The Dink Network.
I've played this one before. I admit, the name and rating got me too curious to wait, and I played it back around the time I started this project. There are only two reviews, but they're both extremely positive, giving this compilation a unique place among the top-rated DMODs.
Joshriot continues to do somewhat unusual things with title screens.
This was the result of a little contest announced by Joshriot on September 2nd. Entrants submitted a DMOD with only one screen, and Josh compiled them all into one DMOD. This would have been more involved than a simple copy and paste job. He had to make sure they all work together, which included making mouse control available to some of them but not others. The winners were decided exclusively by Joshriot. As with the other DMOD contests, I'll cover them from last place to first.
4th place: The Three Barrels by DinkDude95
In a tiny dungeon with no obvious exits, "some random old guy" challenges Dink to pick one of three barrels. If you choose the right barrel, as I did on my first try, the game is over as soon as it starts. If you choose a different barrel, you have to go to the Room of Doom to fight a bonca.
The "Room of Doom" is actually just that enclosed space on the right. Hey, it had to be one screen.
The bonca isn't terribly difficult, and after you win, you get the same ending you get by choosing the correct barrel: Dink is transported into the room of gold, but there's no way out. How did Dink get in here, anyway?
There are a couple of minor problems with this tiny DMOD. Dink can clip behind the wall at the top, and although the fireball is equipped automatically, the inventory graphic won't display unless you go into the inventory and re-equip it.
It's pretty barebones as a game, but Dink's silly interactions with the ornery old guy are kind of fun.
3rd place: Dink Mines by Beuc
This is a Dink implementation of the game Minesweeper, which everybody knows. You use numbers to figure out where the mines are. This version is missing some features that other versions have, most notably flags. It does have something the Windows version doesn't - a catchy little tune backing it up. It's still bopping around in my head.
Victory!
The game works well, although it does take quite a while sometimes to update the field after you click. It has to check and update all the involved squares one at a time. It's not difficult because of the low number of mines, but it still took me a few tries to win. Unlike the Windows version, the location of the mines is set before you click, so the first click isn't safe. I got unlucky and clicked a bomb first twice!
It's always fun to see a familiar game remade in Dink. This one took some tricky scripting due to DinkC's lack of some common programming features. Beuc writes in an included readme that in an early attempt he quickly ran out of variable space, a problem I can't imagine DMOD authors run into that often.
2nd place: Bugmania by Sparrowhawk
In "Bugmania," you squash pillbugs by clicking on them. Your mouse pointer is replaced with a mallet.
There are four levels. Because of the one-screen limit, the level is changed using visions. The last level also changes the grass background to a wooden floor; I'm really not sure how this is accomplished. In the first level, pillbugs pop up and disappear like a game of "Whack-A-Mole." Level two has you saving a girl from the pillbugs, in level three you have to kill the pillbugs and avoid the rabbits and ducks, and in level four you (the mallet) have to escape from a bar by finding a "secret" passage.
Eww, bugs.
I kind of suck at quickly clicking on things, but it's fun to mash madly away at everything. There's also some humor to this one. The girl in level two isn't so enthusiastic about being saved because of the mess. If you save all the ducks and rabbits in level 3, those ever-scheming ducks turn out to not be so innocent, and in level 4, you can go ballistic all over the bar if you feel like it.
Mwahahaha!
There are a couple of pillbugs who get stuck on hardness, but other than that, I'm impressed with the level of polish "Bugmania" has. There's even a nice credits sequence where pillbug-and-hammer antics happen as the words scroll by.
1st place: Hit the Pillbugs by Cypry
Here's another game where you click on pillbugs. This time, your cursor looks like a fist. It's actually a very different sort of game from "Bugmania." Before each level, you're instructed to click on the different-colored pillbugs in a certain order. You have to do this without making a mistake under a strict time limit. As you reach higher levels, the colorful isopods start using tricks on you, like moving each time you click them or changing color when your cursor is over them.
If you fail to beat a level, you get sent back to the minigame's title screen, but you can start from level 5 once you've reached it. There may also be other milestones.
The big stone tells you when you've passed or failed a level.
I don't know how many levels there are in "Hit the Pillbugs," because even after many tries I never got past level 7, where you have to hit a green pillbug ten times in ten different locations. Actually, I never even managed to hit the pillbug nine times. Like I said, my reflexes for this sort of thing are not good. It's a neat idea, though.
The "One Screen DMOD Contest" seems to have encouraged some interesting new thinking. It would be cool to do this sort of thing again.
275: Escape Author: LadyValoveer Release Date: October 24, 2007
"I DO NOT WANT TO DO ANY STUPID QUESTS!!"
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.4) on The Dink Network.
The author's name starts with "Lady," and they're represented in the game by a sprite that looks like a woman, but they have a male symbol on their forum account. That's interesting.
Here's a great plot for a DMOD: Dink has developed a kind of cosmic awareness of his situation. He's told that he's just a pig farmer setting off on a quest for the first time, but he knows better. Although he doesn't have specific memories, he feels that he's done this sort of thing before many times, and he's weary of it. He resolves to somehow escape the cycle.
Dink is especially sick of fighting pillbugs.
Of course, Dink's effort to escape his endless series of quests takes on a form pretty similar to most of them. The DMOD effectively pokes fun at some common elements of DMODs. Dink complains every time he has to run an errand for somebody, and there's a great scene where Dink hides behind something to hear some evil villains conspire about their plan, like he does in any number of other DMODs. There's a strong implication that this is only happening because it's how things are done (Dink comments, "I think I'll hide behind these boxes for no reason!"). Dink soon gets fed up, refuses to do this sort of thing again, and walks out on the scene. One of the villains wonders forlornly, "But who will foil us?"
Let me tell you, for someone who has played as many DMODs as I have, this is satisfying.
Dink's goal leads him to oppose the author, of course. The "author as main villain," like most concepts that were used in the original game (come to think of it, the "hiding and hearing plans" thing is one of these too!), has been done to death. Here, though, it just makes sense. Also, "Escape" confronts some of the contradictions in this idea. If the author controls everything, how can Dink possibly oppose them? Dink questions this point to an NPC, and they don't have an answer. Another character comes from a different world, and arranges for Dink to meet her outside of this world, where she gives him something that prevents the author from simply controlling his mind.
Dink confronts Lady Valoveer.
Although Dink defeats the author in combat, he fails to escape. Ultimately, believing he has won just allows the author to control him even more easily, and the cycle begins anew. "Well, that was one heck of a waste of time," remarks the character from another world who helped Dink at great personal risk. I suppose that an ending where Dink escapes the cycle would ring false. How could he, when DMODs continue to come out? Dink is as trapped as ever. He'll be our plaything until we all get bored.
General silliness abounds in this DMOD in addition to the main plot. You meet a tree full of skulls that calls itself the "MIGHTY TREE OF DEATH," and you have to help it romance another tree that it's got a crush on. This is accomplished by finding a bag of magic duck poop. It's actually pretty funny. "I'll accept his pollen any day," says the other tree upon receiving his gift.
Aww, that's adorable.
And then there's the giant, talking turnip. Doing IT a favor got me "turnip magic," a more powerful fireball. It's possible to get a "turnip sword" instead, but I think the magic is probably better.
Behold the turnip magic. It even burns down trees.
"Escape" has some hardness errors, and there's a cutscene where a character is supposed to turn into a bonca, but turns invisible instead. The final boss is a laugher, at least if you got the turnip magic. Still, I really liked this one for a great concept and for having funny and entertaining writing.
"Go away Dink, I have jobs."
"Of Life - Black Guild" is just kind of boring, honestly. There isn't much to it. The story seems to be no deeper than "Dink met an evil guy and ran away, but now he wants to find him and kill him." You don't find this out until Dink talks to a certain character, which is an odd way to set up your plot. The only things to make this DMOD stand out are a few new graphics.
There's a new status bar and inventory. I don't really like it, but it's competently done.
The map looks okay, if plain and a bit odd in places. There are some depth dot errors and some invisible walls. The main part of the game is a really dull cave maze. There's gold in the cave, but once you've gotten there, it's impossible to return and spend it. The level of excitement is not helped by the fact that there's no music in the DMOD. It's also not helped by the fact that all of the enemies are basic pillbugs except for one slayer.
At least there's a new death graphic for the pillbugs. There's a new blood graphic too.
When you finally catch up to the evil guy du jour (to get to him, you have to walk right into an ordinary cave corner, which somehow warps you), he's a joke. Actually, you don't even have to fight him, but you may as well. It would be tough to lose.
The boss casts acid rain at you. It never hit me, but that's kind of novel, I guess.
There are a lot of unused, modified graphics in the graphics folder of this DMOD. Some of them are from other DMODs, but quite a few of them are new. There are some complex recolors, a fire vortex effect, and an animation of the red barrel breaking like the brown one. If you were to release this stuff as a graphics pack, it'd have a better rating than the DMOD. Blackguard must have had big plans for "Of Life" at some point.
Other than that, there isn't much to say about this one. It is, at least, much better than the author's first DMOD, "Island of Hell." Next.
273: Happy Sunshine Land Author: Pillbug Release Date: October 21, 2007
"I'm ready for the tea party!"
"Happy Sunshine Land" is the sort of day-glo MS Paint world we haven't seen since "Bloop the Fish." Just look at it.
It's like injecting happy sunshine directly into your eyeballs!
There's no combat, no hardness except an attempt to keep you out of the "sky" that is easy to get around, and no screen borders. This is one of the shortest DMODs I've ever played. There's just four screens, each with an NPC who has a brief conversation with Dink. Dink himself is presented as an unbelievably polite young man, nice to a fault. This serves him fine until you get to the fourth screen.
I didn't for a second think that this pillbug was going to attack me; I walked right up and talked to it. By the third screen, I knew how this world worked.
Dink tells a woman, a "POliceman" and a pillbug that he's going to a tea party, but fate has other plans. It turns out that the dude who invited him is actually a demon! No tea awaits our unlucky hero - only death.
The spell can even reach you in the sky! There is no escape.
It, uh... isn't much of a game, but considering that Pillbug was only 11 years old at the time, it could be worse. The grammar and spelling aren't perfect, but they're better than I'd expect. The central joke - super-happy Dink expects friendly tea party, gets killed by a demon instead - is just amusing enough that I don't quite feel like handing out the DFMAOB. I mean, at least this one isn't impossible (or nearly so) to finish.
The reviews are interesting. Some people hate it and give it a rock-bottom rating, and I can't blame them. Other people found it amusing and give it a decent rating, and it's hard to fault that either. The standout is an enormous wall of text by yeoldetoast. Like my writeup of the second "Ghosts of the Cast," it pretends to investigate the mod's deeper meaning as a work of fine art, awarding a score of 9.5 that drags the average up to 4.0. It is a masterclass in bulls***, and I tip my hat. Toast expertly comes up with an overthought explanation for each of the DMOD's sloppy elements in order to argue that they're all not only intentional, but carry symbolic or allegorical meaning. My favorite part is his treatment of the ending: "Dink starts walking towards the table for the tea party, but even when faced with the horrible truth, the truth that there is no tea party and that he is going to die, he refuses to believe it and still is incredibly friendly towards the bringer of his impending doom. This demon at the table suggests that the end of Dink's tale is a biblical story of how one loses their innocence when faced with an event that changes one's world view." I am furiously applauding right now. He even uses the word "Bildungsroman," which I am man enough to admit I had to look up.
Pillbug (who must be 18 by now) is developing a sequel to this that is apparently a more serious DMOD and features a neat-looking achievements system. I'm looking forward to it.
274: One Screen D-Mod Compilation Authors: Sparrowhawk, Ciprian "Cypry" Oprisa, Beuc, Adam "DinkDude95" Bisset, Joshriot Release Date: October 21, 2007
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.5) on The Dink Network.
I've played this one before. I admit, the name and rating got me too curious to wait, and I played it back around the time I started this project. There are only two reviews, but they're both extremely positive, giving this compilation a unique place among the top-rated DMODs.
Joshriot continues to do somewhat unusual things with title screens.
This was the result of a little contest announced by Joshriot on September 2nd. Entrants submitted a DMOD with only one screen, and Josh compiled them all into one DMOD. This would have been more involved than a simple copy and paste job. He had to make sure they all work together, which included making mouse control available to some of them but not others. The winners were decided exclusively by Joshriot. As with the other DMOD contests, I'll cover them from last place to first.
4th place: The Three Barrels by DinkDude95
In a tiny dungeon with no obvious exits, "some random old guy" challenges Dink to pick one of three barrels. If you choose the right barrel, as I did on my first try, the game is over as soon as it starts. If you choose a different barrel, you have to go to the Room of Doom to fight a bonca.
The "Room of Doom" is actually just that enclosed space on the right. Hey, it had to be one screen.
The bonca isn't terribly difficult, and after you win, you get the same ending you get by choosing the correct barrel: Dink is transported into the room of gold, but there's no way out. How did Dink get in here, anyway?
There are a couple of minor problems with this tiny DMOD. Dink can clip behind the wall at the top, and although the fireball is equipped automatically, the inventory graphic won't display unless you go into the inventory and re-equip it.
It's pretty barebones as a game, but Dink's silly interactions with the ornery old guy are kind of fun.
3rd place: Dink Mines by Beuc
This is a Dink implementation of the game Minesweeper, which everybody knows. You use numbers to figure out where the mines are. This version is missing some features that other versions have, most notably flags. It does have something the Windows version doesn't - a catchy little tune backing it up. It's still bopping around in my head.
Victory!
The game works well, although it does take quite a while sometimes to update the field after you click. It has to check and update all the involved squares one at a time. It's not difficult because of the low number of mines, but it still took me a few tries to win. Unlike the Windows version, the location of the mines is set before you click, so the first click isn't safe. I got unlucky and clicked a bomb first twice!
It's always fun to see a familiar game remade in Dink. This one took some tricky scripting due to DinkC's lack of some common programming features. Beuc writes in an included readme that in an early attempt he quickly ran out of variable space, a problem I can't imagine DMOD authors run into that often.
2nd place: Bugmania by Sparrowhawk
In "Bugmania," you squash pillbugs by clicking on them. Your mouse pointer is replaced with a mallet.
There are four levels. Because of the one-screen limit, the level is changed using visions. The last level also changes the grass background to a wooden floor; I'm really not sure how this is accomplished. In the first level, pillbugs pop up and disappear like a game of "Whack-A-Mole." Level two has you saving a girl from the pillbugs, in level three you have to kill the pillbugs and avoid the rabbits and ducks, and in level four you (the mallet) have to escape from a bar by finding a "secret" passage.
Eww, bugs.
I kind of suck at quickly clicking on things, but it's fun to mash madly away at everything. There's also some humor to this one. The girl in level two isn't so enthusiastic about being saved because of the mess. If you save all the ducks and rabbits in level 3, those ever-scheming ducks turn out to not be so innocent, and in level 4, you can go ballistic all over the bar if you feel like it.
Mwahahaha!
There are a couple of pillbugs who get stuck on hardness, but other than that, I'm impressed with the level of polish "Bugmania" has. There's even a nice credits sequence where pillbug-and-hammer antics happen as the words scroll by.
1st place: Hit the Pillbugs by Cypry
Here's another game where you click on pillbugs. This time, your cursor looks like a fist. It's actually a very different sort of game from "Bugmania." Before each level, you're instructed to click on the different-colored pillbugs in a certain order. You have to do this without making a mistake under a strict time limit. As you reach higher levels, the colorful isopods start using tricks on you, like moving each time you click them or changing color when your cursor is over them.
If you fail to beat a level, you get sent back to the minigame's title screen, but you can start from level 5 once you've reached it. There may also be other milestones.
The big stone tells you when you've passed or failed a level.
I don't know how many levels there are in "Hit the Pillbugs," because even after many tries I never got past level 7, where you have to hit a green pillbug ten times in ten different locations. Actually, I never even managed to hit the pillbug nine times. Like I said, my reflexes for this sort of thing are not good. It's a neat idea, though.
The "One Screen DMOD Contest" seems to have encouraged some interesting new thinking. It would be cool to do this sort of thing again.
275: Escape Author: LadyValoveer Release Date: October 24, 2007
"I DO NOT WANT TO DO ANY STUPID QUESTS!!"
REPUTATION NOTE: This DMOD is one of the select group with a score of 9.0 or better (9.4) on The Dink Network.
The author's name starts with "Lady," and they're represented in the game by a sprite that looks like a woman, but they have a male symbol on their forum account. That's interesting.
Here's a great plot for a DMOD: Dink has developed a kind of cosmic awareness of his situation. He's told that he's just a pig farmer setting off on a quest for the first time, but he knows better. Although he doesn't have specific memories, he feels that he's done this sort of thing before many times, and he's weary of it. He resolves to somehow escape the cycle.
Dink is especially sick of fighting pillbugs.
Of course, Dink's effort to escape his endless series of quests takes on a form pretty similar to most of them. The DMOD effectively pokes fun at some common elements of DMODs. Dink complains every time he has to run an errand for somebody, and there's a great scene where Dink hides behind something to hear some evil villains conspire about their plan, like he does in any number of other DMODs. There's a strong implication that this is only happening because it's how things are done (Dink comments, "I think I'll hide behind these boxes for no reason!"). Dink soon gets fed up, refuses to do this sort of thing again, and walks out on the scene. One of the villains wonders forlornly, "But who will foil us?"
Let me tell you, for someone who has played as many DMODs as I have, this is satisfying.
Dink's goal leads him to oppose the author, of course. The "author as main villain," like most concepts that were used in the original game (come to think of it, the "hiding and hearing plans" thing is one of these too!), has been done to death. Here, though, it just makes sense. Also, "Escape" confronts some of the contradictions in this idea. If the author controls everything, how can Dink possibly oppose them? Dink questions this point to an NPC, and they don't have an answer. Another character comes from a different world, and arranges for Dink to meet her outside of this world, where she gives him something that prevents the author from simply controlling his mind.
Dink confronts Lady Valoveer.
Although Dink defeats the author in combat, he fails to escape. Ultimately, believing he has won just allows the author to control him even more easily, and the cycle begins anew. "Well, that was one heck of a waste of time," remarks the character from another world who helped Dink at great personal risk. I suppose that an ending where Dink escapes the cycle would ring false. How could he, when DMODs continue to come out? Dink is as trapped as ever. He'll be our plaything until we all get bored.
General silliness abounds in this DMOD in addition to the main plot. You meet a tree full of skulls that calls itself the "MIGHTY TREE OF DEATH," and you have to help it romance another tree that it's got a crush on. This is accomplished by finding a bag of magic duck poop. It's actually pretty funny. "I'll accept his pollen any day," says the other tree upon receiving his gift.
Aww, that's adorable.
And then there's the giant, talking turnip. Doing IT a favor got me "turnip magic," a more powerful fireball. It's possible to get a "turnip sword" instead, but I think the magic is probably better.
Behold the turnip magic. It even burns down trees.
"Escape" has some hardness errors, and there's a cutscene where a character is supposed to turn into a bonca, but turns invisible instead. The final boss is a laugher, at least if you got the turnip magic. Still, I really liked this one for a great concept and for having funny and entertaining writing.
