The Dink Network

Dink's Father 1: Quest for the Scroll

August 24th, 2003
v1.00
Score : 3.0 tolerable
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SimonK
Peasant He/Him Australia
 
This is a romp. Dink leaves his aunt’s place to look for his father. Be warned this DMOD has several fatal game stopping bugs as well as a plethora of other annoying bugs.

Graphics: No new ones

Map: No attention to detail, stone walls repeat (no reason why as the original graphics include a set of 4 which you can use in a variety of combinations). Lots of big areas with nothing in, so lots of walking.

Sounds: no new ones

Midis: The new ones did nothing for me.

Gameplay: very basic and very tedious, if things aren’t done in the right order the game doesn’t progress. It has a number of bugs: a) the book of spells has a script with a filename longer than 8 letters so it doesn’t unzip with the correct name and therefore the game stops here until you go into the editor and fix this. Also the scripts for the sprites which control the sequence of getting fireball magic to get to the taxman don’t freeze Dink and they should or Dink can walk away and the DinkC commands that progress story don’t happen. Finally there is a bug talking to the guy on the volcanoe that froze the game completely. After this I stopped playing, there was just nothing to entice me to continue.

Going thru the author’s readme file he states that he spent 6 months on this DMOD and beta tested it himself. He needs to get another person to beta test as it is too easy to do the right thing/sequence of actions if you already know what those are. A good beta tester will try different things to see how solid this game is.

Overall 3 out of 10 (because of the bugs and boredom)
January 7th, 2003
v1.00
Score : 3.3 tolerable
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Cheeze
Peasant They/Them
 
Very interesting D-Mod name, very interesting and promising.
Just the words "Dink's Father" made me want to download and
play this one when I first saw it here. So... I've played it
and here's my review.

Plot/Story : Very nice idea, I don't recall any D-Mod ever dealing
with Dink's father, but then again, I haven't played all of them yet.
On the other hand, I thought Dink's father was dead, but I'm not really
sure about. Afterall, Dink's father could just disappear and be dead in
the eyes of everyone who knew him. In my own opinion, the idea is quite
nice. As for the rest of the story - it's very simple and I personally
dislike the end of the story, how the person just says "Haven`t i
mentioned that i am your father???". Disagree with me if you wish, but
I won't change my opinion on that. I'll talk about getting weapon and
magic in the Weapons/Magic section of my review. Oh and by the way, I
really like the well joke in the beginning. It's really funny, even
though it's old and I haven't seen it in any other D-Mod yet. Let's
say I give the Plot/Story 5 points for originality.

Map : Oh, there's a map? Aha, you probably mean the complete void full
of weird texture errors and things like that. The map is awfully empty,
I haven't found a single flower or a rock that can usually be found in
the wilderness. The maze part of the map is quite nice, but like the
rest of the map, it's awfully empty. And you can walk into the teleporter
at the end of the maze even with the screenlock on. Simply put, the map
looks like it was made by a six year old kid, therefore I give the Map 2
points. (The author got +1 point for how he made the volcano. Even though
it's simple, it's nice and original (as before, I haven't played all the
D-Mods [just around 25, not more] so I'm not really sure if it's the original
idea)

Weapons/Magic : Ahh, yes. Without weapons, you can't quite fight the opponents,
now can you? It's not easy to kill a slayer with your fists. The only weapon you
can get in this D-Mod (at least the only weapon I have found) is the Light Sword.
It costs three thousand gold coins. But... where are you going to get three thousand
gold coins? That's easy. The innkeeper says that a rich man has lost something in his
backyard. You'll go there and what do you see? Money scattered around everywhere. When
you grab it all, you will have exactly three thousand. By the way, I very much like Dink's
line "Hail the rich man!". Oh, did I mention that the Light Sword makes every fight easier
than stepping on a bug? Now let's talk abotu magic. The way how you get Fireball is quite
interesting and original, I like it. On the other hand, I don't like that I had to rename
the script file for spellbook, because by extracting, it was changed to 'spellb~2.d', instead
of 'spellbook.d'. That's a minus. The fireball itself looks more like Hellfire magic, but
why not? Noone ever said they're not supposed to look the same. Looking at it how it is,
I give Weapons/Magic 3 points for how you acquire them (plus side), and how they affect
the gameplay (minus side).

Scripts : I recall that the author wrote in the Readme.Txt that this was his first D-Mod
and that he can't script very well. It's true. I've already mentioned the script error for
'spellbook.d', but there is more. I'm not really sure if it is a bug, but one of the
wizards you fight (the twins) turns invisible and you need to kill only one to unlock
the screen, even though you can kill both. Because of using commands 'say' instead of
'freeze, say_stop, unfreeze', you have to (example: talk to the spellbook, Dink says
it's the spellbook, wait till the text disappears and then the spellbook is in your
possesion. If you leave the screen before that, you won't pick it up.) Same is with
getting the Fireball spell from the mage and with your father.

Monsters : As I said, the Light Sword makes all fights quite easy. There are three
bugs in the monster scripts/settings. The boss walks backwards, which made me laugh
when I first realized it and the taxman is just a sprite that moves, the person alone
is inanimate and finally, the already mentioned twin brothers.

Language : I won't say much to this. It's terrible. Spelling errors, wrong sentence
structure, lines like "the wizard haves the scroll" and such. Because I'm not sure
if the author's native language is not English or if the author's too young to use
a dictionary to find out the correct spelling, I won't rate this part. If you're very
young, then you're excused. If English is not your native language, then you're excused
too, but don't forget that you can always use a dictionary. And one more thing - Too many
exclamation or question marks are usually the sign of strange mind.

Good things in this D-Mod : Some original ideas like the well, volcano and the four teleporters.

Bad things in this D-Mod : Script bugs, texture bugs, empty map and everything else mentioned above.

Overall : This would make a _great_ D-Mod if the author worked on it more. Nice ideas,
but the results are terrible.

Score : 3.3 (like I said, I didn't rate some parts, so they didn't affect the final
score in any way)

And the moral?
"Every start is difficult. You mess up so many times before you make something good.
Don't let this failure to break you, dear Lancemads. Practice scripting, have someone
else to test the game for you and viola! Before you know it, you'll be the master of
D-Mods."
January 6th, 2003
v1.00
Score : 6.5 fair
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Binirit
Peasant She/Her
 
Storyline: Dink goes on a search to Brooksville to find his father.

Map and graphics: The map is very large for this rather small story and alas almost completely empty.

Music: The music is quite different then the midi’s in other D-mods, and that is refreshing. The midi’s played in the inside of houses are real nice, but the ones played outside at the first part of the game do not really fit the situation. The music on the Ice Island however does.

Good: The labyrinth is done very nice and it is original too. The volcano is made very nicely too. The plot to this story is quite unexpected. The wizard end boss walks backwards: perhaps not intended that way, but it looks real funny.

Not so good: The barkeeper says a rich man is in the back, but there is no man, just his money. There are backgrounds of grass and road when you are inside a house. A lot of trees are not stamped onto the adjoining screens. A hint in the game would have been handy to let the player know you can save by pressing escape. The enemies in the beginning (screen with wizards, screen with spikes, and screen with stone giants after each other and all with screenlock) are impossible to beat without using cheat. You can not level up since there are no easier enemies such as pillbugs. There are no ways to heal, beside the occasional heart you get from killing an enemy. A house is stamped wrongly. Sprites do not talk, only when the storyline is correct. To defeat the two end bosses you have to use cheat since they are ridiculous strong.

Overall: A D-mod that has a nice touch, but also a lot of irritating things.

Fit for: If you use cheat, you can enjoy a little adventure.
September 20th, 2008
v1.00
Score : 2.0 horrible
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In a few words, this dmod sucks horribly.

You're intentionally forced to run around oversized, incredibly plain areas that are completely void of life, and that's about it. Dink should at least get herb boots early in the game, but instead, he gets a light sword. What??? One of the game's few enemies does admittedly have unnecessarily many hitpoints but it's the danged trekking around that gets to you, the monotonous fights against monsters that are far too slow to give any kind of challenge are almost like a welcome break from the rest of this shootwalk.

For a dmod that only has 40 scripts, it also has too many bugs. Dink can get frozen when talking to people, or in one instance be unable to continue the game until you rename a script in the story folder. Very little testing seems to have taken place, even by the author himself, which would be disheartening if the game was otherwise worth playing. It does actually show promise in the beginning and some of the dialogue is pretty funny, it almost seems like Lancemads got fed up of having his effort only translate into a few minutes of gameplay, and turned to one of the shoottiest methods available to extend playing time without seeing trouble. For shame.
December 8th, 2004
v1.00
Score : 7.9 good
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Glennglenn
Peasant He/Him Norway
GlennGlenn doesn't want a custom title. 
Plot.Dink goes and looks for his father in brooksville.

graphics: Nothing new

midis:Yay I like them

Map:Not bad at all. The volcano was nicely made

And about that rich guy that didn`t find his money. He didn`t find it because he is so rich, that he doesn`t notice the gold because it is so litle

Overall. A nicely mapped D-Mod that is very fun to play, but it can be a litle bit boring sometimes too

January 8th, 2003
v1.00
Score : 7.6 good
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Kat
Peasant She/Her Canada
We can out-drink most Americans! 
Dink's Father 1 – Quest for the Scroll

Dink goes to look for his father.

The Good: This is the first Dmod made by Lancemads, and as first Dmods go, this is not bad at all. Nice music is heard throughout the Dmod, as Dink goes searching for his father. A few tricks/clues along the way help Dink achieve his task.

The Bad: Nothing really new here, same old houses and such, with Dink getting a light sword right off the bat. After getting help with the firescroll, that did not want to get picked up, I found it was useful for burning one tree, ( and to throw at my 2 enemies). There were some other hardness errors, as the game would freeze on occasion. Some overlapping of pictures and you had to get the people talking in the right order or nothing would happen. I am not going to harp about the spelling errors as I figured out what was being said, anyhow.

Overall: A very good job for Lancemads first dmod, and I hope to see more Dmods of his soon.