
*********** DINK ENGINE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS ************

We all believe we can create a better and more interesting
RPG - but not all of us get a chance to try it.

Until now. ;>

This directory has information and files to help you create
your own world and characters for use with the Dink engine.

You can then pass around a zip with your world to anybody
else who owns Dink, and viola, they can play it, easily,
without messing up their other saved games or dirs.

First, try out an addon or two yourself, go to our
webpage at www.rtsoft.com/dink and find the files
section and download a few, and use THEM as templates.

Description of each item in this directory.

DINKEDIT.EXE - You can now see every screen in Dink, and
modify the world.

SOURCE FILES - Go into your dink/dink/storys dir.  You can now use
any text editor to examine the C files and see how they work, and steal
scripts for your own use. (and change them to see what happens..)

For instance, attaching these to an item does this:

bar-e.c - Makes a barrel smashable. (empty)
bar-sh.c - Makes a barrel smashable & small heart appears.
bar-gh.c - Makes a barrel smashable & gold heart appears.
box1-e.c - Makes box1 smash.(empty)
box2-e.c - Makes box2 smash.(empty)

The above also take care of mundane things like never coming back, and
ever after, if someone enters that screen they will see the smashed
version.

en-slimb - Makes a blue slime.  Life, experience, damage and sound effects
           are all taken care of.  (comes back 5 minutes later)
en-pill - Weak pill bug.  (only gives small hearts)
en-pill2 - Fast pill bug. (gives gold too)
s5-sec1 - Attach this, and if bombed it will change to a gold heart.

Anyway, you get the idea.  Scripts can be traded too, you don't have to
make a huge addon, you could make a 'super monster' for other guys
to play with.

TUT1.TXT - This is the first tutorial on how to make a world from scratch.
           I did not have time to make the rest in the series at this time,
           please hit my webpage for additional tutorials, as you will
           need them.

DINKC.CHM - Contains a list of most DINKC commands and has information
            on what is and isn't allowed.  <- the BIBLE of DinkC!
COMPILE.EXE - Use this on a .C file to turn it into a .D file.  Why?  It
              makes the file smaller and faster, and strips out your
              comments.  Also makes it REALLY hard to read.
COMPALL.BAT - I have this and COMPILE.EXE in my story dir, I run this and
              it batch compiles every .C file in the dir.

FFCREATE.EXE - Use this in a directory with .BMP's, it will make a dir.ff
               file, (fast file) containing EVERYTHING in the dir.  Dink
               can optionally use this to greatly enhance loading time.
               (for your own addon graphics)

DEVELOP.TXT - More info on general developing info, including the features
              of dinkedit and Dinkc.

GRAPHICS directory - This includes all the graphics used in the game in
                     .BMP format.  This is here so you could easily look
                     and see how they are made, and also easily modify
                     them for your own Dink addon.

                     You may NOT use these .BMP's for any 'for profit'
                     venture - without permission first.  But someone
                     making 'Christmas Dink' by painting a beard on
                     each frame and making a replacement .ff and
                     distributing that would be fine.  Cool, in fact.

                     (note, the graphics directory has been cut to reduce
                     download size.. check the dink authoring page at
                     www.rtsoft.com, I'll put it up here eventually)

Thanks for looking into this, it isn't a point and click operation, it
requires quite a bit to make Dink worlds - but this also gives you the
power to do some very unique things that no one has thought of.

- Seth  (seth@rtsoft.com)
