The Dink Network


From the COTPATD project.
Play a game of Hide and Seek.

Designed for infinite replayability, utilizes a fairly complex scripting system to keep things interesting.

For fighting look elsewhere.
Released:March 28th, 2008
File Size:507.58 KB
Release Notes:Initial version.
December 5th, 2008
Score : 3.8 tolerable
Bard Male Netherlands
I object 
Hide-n-seek is a DMOD designed to be infinitely replayable. While every DMOD could theoretically be replayed infinitely it is uncommon for a DMOD to actually be played more than once or twice. For a DMOD to be replayable a lot of times it needs to be slightly different every time you play it. The way Hide-n-Seek tries to do that is by playing a game of hide and seek in a landscape that is slightly different every time. Sounds good doesn't it?

Well, there are a few drawbacks...

First of all the differences between each game are minimal. The landscape is slightly different each time you play, but this randomness isn't much more than assigning a random frame number to a certain sprite. This means that the only difference between each game is that the flowers, grass and mushrooms have a different color. All the trees, lakes and cliffs are on the same spot every time. Furthermore this randomness only happens when you quit the game and start it over again. So if you play two games of hide and seek in a row all the flowers will be the same. The girls though are different every time you enter a screen, which is kind of strange.

The gameplay itself isn't that interesting either. You must find six girls randomly distributed over 22 screens. Then you should talk to them to indicate you found them. The moment you talked to all six of the girls you won the game. You can't lose the game, and if you win the only thing you will get is some compliments on accomplishing a task you couldn't fail anyway. A nice extra here would have been something like a timer. This way you could do a race against time, or score highscores. This highscore would primarily consist out of luck as the distribution of the girls is random. Obviously this would be a bit silly, but it is still a lot more interesting than just a message saying something like: 'Well done Dink!'

Is it an interesting file for developers then? Creating random landscapes is a nice trick, and Endy found a good way of pulling it of. Unfortunately it is quite a task to find out how it all works. Someone who is relatively new to DinkC will have quite a hard time understanding what is going on, even though some scripts have helpful comments. For an updated version I would love to see a tutorial on how to make something like this work for your own DMOD.

So this DMOD isn't really great to play more than once. And it is difficult for developers to understand and adapt the tricks themselves. It is more a showcase about what is possible. But the differences between each game are so subtle most people won't even notice it. So at present it doesn't showcase anything.

The conclusion then is that this DMOD has an identity crisis. It needs to choose whether it wants to be a development file, a game or a showcase. It has the potential to be any one of those, but currently it fails at all three. I'll give points for novelty and a nice looking map, but I can't help wishing for more...

Final verdict: