Features for D-mod developers

Debug mode

After pressing Alt+D or running with -d on the command line, a setting may be found in the settings menu to switch on "Developer Mode". This displays the normally hidden features such as the inbuilt cheat, and potentially data-destructive sprite and map data editors.

To type into text boxes, it is advisable to mouse over the relevant box first before attempting to type, or to gain exclusive keyboard input by activating the console. Sliders can have their default limits overridden by CTRL+clicking on them.

The Lua console does not currently support every feature in DinkLua.

PNG Graphics

The Portable Network Graphic format may be used for sprites and tiles as d-mod resources (not main data). All colour depths should be supported.

Sound effects

From 0.7, the loading of MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and FLAC files as sound effects is supported with load_sound().

Background Music

Builds that are linked against MixerX (usually the case) support the following extra codecs with playmidi():

• MP3

• FLAC

• Opus

• Various game console formats (SPC/VGZ etc)

• Pxtone

New/ported DinkC commands

• get_client_fork() will return 3 to check for YeOldeDink.

• get_client_version() returns the version string multiplied by 100. For example, v0.91 will return "91".

• get_platform() returns the platform roughly corresponding with RTDink's values

• play_mod_order(int pattern) changes the pattern number for tracker formats.

• get_dinkspeed() returns the internal variable that controls the player sprite speed.

• set_disable_savestates() switches off autosave if passed a 1.

• playavi(string filename) will allow you to play a video file of some sort. Requires FFMPeg's FFPlay to be installed on the user's computer.

All of these are available under DinkLua as part of the "dink" table such that get_platform() becomes dink.get_platform() etc.

Dink.ini

In 0.95, adding the following to dink.ini will change various settings at launch:

• dinklua_enable switches on the DinkLua scripting backend.

• dinkc_off switches off DinkC.

• gfx_diag_idle_enable allows for all 8 directions for player sprite idle sequences.

• gfx_alttext_enable switches on alternate text display, for multiple colours in text.

• gfx_alttext_disable switches off alttext display and locks it from the player.

• sprite_enable_smart_movement stops brain 9 monsters from getting caught in corners.

• sprite_enable_large_talkbox allows for the player to talk to NPC-brained sprites from a greater distance.

• sprite_pig explosion_seq sequence replaces sequence 164 default sequence with "sequence" for the pig brain.

• sprite_duck_explosion_seq sequence as above for ducks.

• sfx_bass_boost mult applies a multiplier to the bass frequencies of sound effects as per "mult". 1.5 is a good starting value.

• gfx_tiles_anim_off switches off the animation of water and fire tiles.

• gfx_tiles_water_start sheet sets "sheet" as the first in the sequence for water tiles

• gfx_tiles_water_length sheets determines how many sequential tilesheets to use for water tiles.

• gfx_tiles_fire_start sheet sets "sheet" as the first in the sequence for fire tiles.

• gfx_tiles_fire_length sheets determines how many sequential tilesheets to use for fire tiles.

• gfx_full_fade_enable fades down everything without leaving white. Text will be invisible.

• input_controller_set_key key sets the key script to be used with the L1 button on the controller. 67 would be "C", for example.

New brains

• 9000 - a "pingpong brain" similar to the sequence loop brain (6) that goes back and forth instead.

• 9001 - the "circle" brain that moves a sprite around the centre of the screen according to its brain parameters. Functionally useless.

• 9002 - A rewritten bounce brain that uses dink.ini box params instead of sprite bounding boxes to determine when to bounce back. Good for DVD player idle screen simulation.

Changed DinkC commands

Specifying a frequency of zero to playsound() will cause the sound to be played back at its native speed. This is independent of script backend.

Differences in behaviour

• Save file data will list the date and time rather than the level if selected by the user, unless a manual string is specified through scripting.

• The twirling arrows in choice menus will use all frames in the sequence rather than restarting at 7.

• Loading a new text typeface through initfont will check for a TTF file in the root of dmoddir as well.