Dinky Bomb

Dinky Bomb was a free multiplayer online game. Two players command 3 'Dinky' soldiers each, and take turns firing an assortment of weapons at each other in an attempt to wipe out the other player. Players have a score that is updated with every game lost or won. Players also receive a colored star to denote their relative rank, the highest of which is the much-sought-after black star.
The game known as Dinky Bomb has gone through several revisions over many years and has changed ownership several times. The more modern Deluxe version is owned by Atari, and has since been taken off the web.
History
Dinky Bomb was originally developed by David Pharo and Liam O'Donnell of spikything.com for the UK based company Gamer.tv in April 2002. It was highly successful, creating a loyal community of regular players (estimated at over 1 million) worldwide. An early version of the game can be found here.
In 2004, for strategic reasons Gamer.tv decided to downsize its games branch. It moved Dinky Bomb, along with two other popular games (Oddballs Bowling and Voodoo Magic) to a new website. When the games moved, the forums associated with the games were closed down. The community of players that had sprung up around the games, unwilling to lose contact with each other, made a few different sites of their own, the most successful of which was gamerparty.com.
When Gamer.tv decided to totally discontinue support for the games, gamerparty.com bought the games and the weplayhere.com web domain, and began to host and service the games themselves. This team composed of the owner, Gregg Baker, an online user called "Gaffer" (Steve) who helped move the games and who set up the new server back end, "Neo" (Damien) who designed and implemented new characters and lobby animations, and "Grampz" (Terry) who helped administer the forums.
As of early 2007, WePlayHere was sold to Atari. In June 2007, Atari dismissed every WePlayHere moderator, precipitating a mass exodus by the long-time fans of the games. On September 26, 2007 Atari closed the WePlayHere gamesite and on September 28, 2007 closed the forums as well. It is generally believed that the site was closed because the site traffic did not justify the operating costs.
The fans who left the Atari-owned forums returned to the long unused gamerparty.com, where they maintained a community despite no longer having the games. "Grampz" took over management of the site on January 1, 2008. "King" (Stephen Ware) joined the team and recreated the backend, thus allowing GamerParty to re-launch Dinky Bomb Original on April 27, 2008. However, the community had finally suffered one blow too many, and without funding it eventually died out.
How to Play
First, a player challenges another player to a game in the lobby by clicking on that player's name and pressing challenge. Then each player has the option of which dinky to choose—they all have the same properties, so which one a player chooses does not necessarily matter. Then, whichever player challenged has the option of which level to choose. (The 12 levels to choose from were: Full Tilt, Windy Antarctica, The Jungle, Snowdown, The Lab, Low Gravity, Cyber City, Toxic Factory, Rocky Mountain, Dinky World, Corny Island, and The Kid C Cafe.) After the game has fully loaded, the challengee has the opportunity to attack first.
In order to attack an opponent(or one's own dinkies), a player has the option to aim his/her shot and/or move his/her dinky. This is accomplished by the use of the arrow keys: the up and down arrows change the aim, and the left and right arrows move the dinky. Then a player presses the Ctrl key on the keyboard; the longer it is held down, the more powerful the shot is.
Notes: By pressing the buttons ctrl and t at the character select screen, a "secret" character is selected-- The terminator.
By typing in /windowsill during a game of Dinky Bomb, different weapons are used, although they have the same properties as the normal weapons. The rocket is replaced with a baby, the bomb with a cow, the raygun with a tomato, and the molotov with a cat.
Weapons
There were 6 different weapons available.
*The default weapon, a missile, would shoot in an arc. (unlimited ammunition)(1-92 damage)
*Ray Gun would only shoot straight, impact point relying on angle and distance. (unlimited ammunition)(1-99 damage)
*Heavy Bomb, also shot in an arc, but since the bombs are 'heavy' they did not go as far. (2 per Dinky per game)(1-96 damage)
*The Mini-gun would spray many bullets within a short distances. (unlimited ammunition)(5-30 damage)
*Molotov Cocktail bottles bounced off of the terrain and were the hardest to use. (3 per Dinky per game)(5-200+ damage)
*Railgun was the only special weapon in the game. It shot straight and penetrated all terrain. It would do exactly 50 damage to any Dinky on either team that came in contact with the beam. (Ammunition for this gun was obtained by doing an attack of 96+ damage or through map relative objectives.)
Molotov Cocktail:
The Molotov Cocktail weapon is different from all the rest in that it can do over 100 damage. This means that it is possible to kill an opponent's Dinky in a single hit if done correctly. Over the course of a few years, the veteran players developed and memorized a host of different "molotov shots" that could be used in each level. The hardest level is arguably "Full Tilt", which took place in a pinball arena. Players who mastered the molotov shots here were practically unbeatable
The Dinky Bomb and WePlayHere Community
One aspect of the game that most players find very attractive is the active community of Dinky Bombers and other gamers that socialize at the WePlayHere Forums. Some players have been known to play every night for several years at a time. The game lobby and forums are actively moderated by a dedicated team of volunteers, and these "mods" can often be found in the lobby socializing with the players or trying to improve their own ranks.
The forums have since been closed, but the archive (with limited memories) could be find here:
Closing Notes and Ranks
Ranking System: As a player gained or loss points, his/her star's color changed.
*If a player has not yet played a ranked game (or has reached -1500) then he/she will have a gray star, the "Unrated" star.
*If a player has a score between -1499 and 299, then he/she will have a green star, aka the "Harmless" star.
*If a player has a score between 300 and 599, then the player will have a yellow star, aka the "Improving" star.
*If a player has a score between 600 and 1199, then he/she will have a blue star, aka the "Dangerous" star.
*If a player has a score between 1200 and 1499, then that player will have a red star, aka the "Deadly" star.
*Finally there's The Black Star. A player that attains the rank of the "Untouchable" star must have a score of 1500 or above.
When Dinky Bomb Deluxe (DBD) was officially closed down, the top 5 scores read:
*1) Vega - 2444
*2) Exorcist - 2287
*3) -Sanitarium- - 2278
*4) Practice - 2269
*5) Flare - 2228

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See Also

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