Publishing: A look at survival games – An infographic.

One of the most popular Role Playing Game among our enthusiasts is Resident Evil.  A series of survival horror video games against recurring outbreaks of zombies and monsters.  It is such a popular game that profits from the Resident Evil franchise alone are worth over $6 Billion, while similar games with various titles from the maker of Resident Evil, Capcom, sold more than 46 million titles. 

Batting for the Resident Evil franchise, the 5th series is the 3rd best selling game with over 8 million copies sold.  That alone generates $803 million dollars in sales revenue. It would be unfair to the other franchises if we only give credit to the 5^th franchise. The Resident Evil franchise released seven installments for the game with the top 5 series clocking their sales revenues between 543 million dollars to 803 million dollars.

All the Resident Evil series releases keep getting better and better — which just justifies our ache for more. The series defined the horror survival game since 1996. Introducing gamers and non-enthusiasts alike to the era of high definition realistic blood and gore.

With the success that the gaming industry is getting, it is interesting to think about and actually find out what makes the perfect survival video game. What makes people go out and buy the game, and then keep a look out for the next series?

Check out this amazing infographic presented by MikesGearReviews.com that goes through the whole Survival Video Game Industry and reveals how profitable it is to develop a survival video game.

Source: https://www.mikesgearreviews.com/survival-video-games-industry-infographic/

Personal note

Thank you, Mike, for sharing this infographic with us. It makes me think. Since would you consider a game like Minecraft or Zelda – Breath of The Wild a survival game? And what elements does a game need to have in order to be a survival game?

That’s a question I’m thinking about. But, this infographic is a nice base. In any case, if you are interested in survival gear and reviews of them, feel free to check out Mike’s website.

Thank you for reading my article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another blog but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!

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NekoJonez’s May 2017 Update

Hello there, it’s time for another update blog. The summer season is almost here and I think it’s time to tell you my schedule for the summer of 2017. Also, there are a few things I want to update you guys and girls about what’s going on behind the scenes in my life and my blog. While I’m introducing this update blog, you can enjoy a picture of my lovely cat Sparta napping. She turned 9 years old last month, so yeah. In any case, it’s time to get the updates rolling! 

My favorite gaming music #20 article progress

At the moment of writing this update article, I have to still write 20% of the article. After that, I’ll have to proofread the article, finish the layout and then put in all the tags and then do the final touches before I can publish it.

But, I can’t publish the article right away. I’ll tell you guys this, I first want to talk about a few games before I can publish the article. So, in the upcoming weeks, I’ll talk about those games. That’s all I’m going to spoil about that.

Writing this article is one of the biggest writing projects I have ever done for this blog. I can’t wait until it’s finished to show it to you. It’s going to be a very long article so, be prepared when you are going to read it.

If everything goes according to plan, I think I’ll be able to publish the article in either July or August. Remember, if you followed me on Twitter, you might have already known this.

Future content during the summer

While I try to plan everything out, sometimes I get a mail about an interesting game and I reschedule everything. But, I do have to say that I have the next 10 articles planned.

At this moment in time, my schedule has cleared up quite a bit. I finished my evening classes for this school year and the play ended last month. So, that means I have a bit more time for my personal life and this blog.

When I have the time, I might publish more than one post a week in this summer. But, because it’s summer time, I’m planning a few trips to meet up with friends and family so, it’s possible that I won’t publish articles in the weekend but during the workweek.  Pay attention, this will only be during the summer period. Because in September, my evening classes resume and not much later I’ll start to be in the rehearsals for the play in 2018.

I think it’s a great idea to follow me on Twitter since it’s so easy to publish quick updates. Also, feel afraid to tweet at me. I only bite in my food, so it’s all good.

Guest articles

Behind the scenes, I’m working with a few bloggers on a big project. I’m actually thinking about doing some collaborations with other bloggers. I won’t announce them in this article since they are still in the planning phases.

Speaking about guest articles, did you know I was a part of the Question of the Month articles in April and May? If you are interested in me answering the question of the month over at LaterLevels, well give it a look. I won’t spoil the question for June, but I have already submitted my reply for that!

Oh, if you are a blogger yourself and you want to do a collab with me, just send me a mail, tweet me or use my contact page. I’m open to collabs! I find them so much fun to do!

Misc updates

Here are some quick and smaller updates that I wanted to share.

Garage sale season is restarting. I can’t wait to go out on the hunt in the near future. I have a few ones already planned. Loot pictures will be on my Twitter when I find new games.

I have bought a 2nd 32GB SD card for my 3DS. Yeah, I was able to get a 32GB SD card full with games on my 3DS, I have since the 3DS released.

I was able to fix my gaming desktop finally. About time! It has been running excellent since Easter without any hiccups. So, the issue was that my 450W power brick was unable to get enough power to my hardware when it was under high load. I replaced the power brick with a 550W one, and it runs all the games I had problems with without any issue. I’m so glad I have my desktop back.

Also, if you follow me on Twitter, you might know that I tried to fix a computer I got from my grandfather in late April. It was a Packard Bell that I was unable to find drivers for anywhere on the internet. So, after replacing a faulty RAM stick and a new hard drive, I got the machine up and running again.

So, now I have two retro game PCs and a gaming desktop. My first retro PC is a Windows 98 SE machine with 512MB of RAM, 900MHz CPU, and 120GB HDD. The graphics are integrated on the motherboard. The new retro game PC is a Pentium 4 2,7 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 180 GB hard disk and the graphics are also integrated.

If you are wondering, my main gaming desktop is one that my uncle and I put together. It has a 3,7 GHz CPU, GeForce GTX 660, 120GB SSD, 2TB HDD and 16GB of RAM. It’s a powerful machine. While it doesn’t have the best graphics card on the market, I mainly use this computer for my evening classes. And in my evening classes, I have to use a lot of virtual machines and this computer is very good for that.

In any case, that’s everything I wanted to talk about in this update. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another blog but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!

Game Quicky: Space Max (Android) ~ Go To Space

Google Play link – Developer’s press release – Official website

So, today I want to take a look at an Android game called Space Max. The developer asked me to give my honest opinion on this game, so here we go. This game is developed by CrySoft Development and published by TinyGames. This game is available on Android and iOS devices. Because I don’t own an iPhone, I have played this game on my phone and my tablet. In this article, you will find my thoughts about this game. For those who don’t know how a game quicky works, I list what I like and dislike about the game and give my final opinion in the end. Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this article. 

The good

The tutorial for this game explains how this game works perfectly. It teaches the mechanics in a heartbeat.

While there are microtransactions, the first upgrades aren’t too crazy to buy. I have played various Android games where you get directly into a paywall, and this game doesn’t have that.

While this game has ads, they aren’t placed in annoying places. Also, they are used in a way how I think ads should be used. When you die, you sometimes get the chance of watching an ad to continue for free. This is a great idea!

The art for this game looks pretty cute. This game is adorable in my opinion. In that extend, the interface is designed in a great way. I have nothing to comment on that, besides that, it’s good of course.

This game doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it shows. The fact that you have to fart your way up and the crazy costumes you can unlock. It makes this game humorous to a certain extent.

Something I really like in this endless jumper is the fact that when you can go down for a little while. This is great to pick up bananas or bolts you just missed. In most other endless jumpers, this means instant death.

The bad

While I realize that it’s this game’s gimmick, but I got pretty annoyed by the farting sound effect rather quickly. After a few minutes of playing, I stopped playing for a while since I found the farting sound effect immature. It would be a great idea to have some option to mute the fart sound effect for people who get annoyed by this but want to play the game.

The controls can be annoying sometimes. While I understand how they work, you have to tap in the middle to go up, left to go right and right to go left. But, I think these two things would improve the game:

1. Give players an option to invert the controls. That when you tap left, the ape goes left. And when you tap right, the ape goes to the right. That would be great since my brain is hardwired to do that.
2. Place transparent buttons on the screen that make it clear where the straight up, go to the left and go to the right sections begin and end. That would make the controls of this game less frustrating and fairer.

The game seems to hang sometimes in the menus and during gameplay. Often when I press a button to go back to the game after I bought an upgrade, the game hangs for 4-5 seconds before it goes back to the game. A little waiting animation would be great.

I think that the blocks directly at the start of the game are overkill. It feels like this is an obstacle meant for in later parts of the game. I would honestly remove them or place them higher up.

I also found 2 bugs:

1. In some cases, when I died, I saw powerups and bananas underneath the starting area.
2. When you press left or right at the start instead of in the middle, you die in mid-air.

Something I wish the game had was a pause button. I played this game at breaks and when my break was over or when I had to pick up a call, I had to either quit the game or let myself die so that I don’t loose any progress.

Conclusion

The idea of this game is pretty interesting. At the surface, this game looks like an interesting game. But, as soon as you start playing it for while, the flaws start to show. The fart sound effect, the lack of proper controls, the game that sometimes hangs and the lack of a pause button can be a deal breaker for some people.

I honestly think that with a bit of polish, this game would be so much better. But how the game stands now, at the time of writing this article, this game is mediocre and lacks any punch to make a difference in the sea of endless jumpers that exist on the Android Play market.

Like I said, the game has a lot of potentials, but the flaws drag the game down. I’m sure that a few patches to this game can fix the issues I mentioned. Since this game does some interesting things to change up the usual endless jumper gameplay.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 3/5

Gamer’s Thoughts: “Games are a waste of time”

Happy Mothers day 2017! A phrase I hear my mom saying from time to time is: “I don’t understand why people enjoy games.”. That question actually made me think. Why do we gamers enjoy games? Why do people who don’t play games see them sometimes as annoying or time wasters? Well, in this article I’m going to give my two cents in the discussion. As usual, feel free to leave a comment about your opinion and/or my opinion in the comment section down below. 

Why do I play games?

First of all, let me explain why I play games. In an article last year, I tried to explain why I play games. But in most of the article, I talked about why I collect games.

So, why do I play games? Well, I think it’s because of several reasons. The first reason would be because I grew up in a time where playing the Gameboy was the hip thing to do on the school playground. Pokémon was extremely popular when I was in elementary and I was hooked. Then my family took me to various garage sales and flea markets. I bought more and more games on the Gameboy and I got hooked.

The second reason is because it was a very easy conversation topic. When I was on a trip, I was able to talk to other kids easily thanks to games. Phrases like: “What are you playing?”, “Have you played game X” or “How far are you into the game?” are phrases that often crossed my lips as a child. I made so many friends thanks to games.

A 3rd reason would be that I was so interested in reading and telling stories. But why am I less addicted to movies or books then? Well, the interactivity is the biggest reason. The fact I can make a difference in the world the game is so important to me. That’s why I love games that have a great story.

So, in conclusion, I think due to nostalgia and the interactive nature of gaming, I got hooked on gaming and never let go. Nowadays, I even have a 4th and 5th reason. My 4th reason is that I’m interested in how people get entertained by games. If I had the right skills, I would have studied game design.

And my 5th reason is this blog, honestly. I love to share stories of games I played. And writing a blog about them is one of the best ways to share them. The best way is YouTube, but I burned out on making videos…

Why do people play games?

I’m quite sure that gaming is here to stay. While some hardcore gamers won’t like the next sentence, but due to the casual mobile gaming market, there are much more people play games than ever before.

The fact that gaming is a national sport in South Korea and that people earn their living with playing games are more proof that gaming is here to stay.

I think that the reason why people play games is similar to why people watch Netflix all day or read books in their free time. It’s their way of entertaining themselves. To relax after a (stressful) day at school or work.

People will always look for a way to entertain themselves. Another reason is that the current generation is growing up with a culture where video games are everywhere. Speaking about that, games are becoming more and more accessible to young children. And look at me, when you do something since childhood, it isn’t easy to let go.

Why games can be annoying/uninteresting

 When I ask people who don’t play games, I sometimes get a reply like: “I don’t have the time for them” or “I’m not interested in them.” Which are both very valid arguments, in my opinion. But they aren’t good answers to why people can find games annoying or a waste of time.

Well, I have a few theories for why people think that games can be annoying. Keep in mind, this is just a theory. Why I think people find games annoying. Also, let me make on thing clear, I’m talking in very general terms in the following theories. I know that we as humans are a more complex race.

My first theory is that people don’t like the interactivity of the games. They enjoy TV-shows where they can sit down and just take in the content. Or you could replace TV-shows with movies, books, plays, concerts…

A 2nd theory is one I think makes a lot of sense of the older generation. The fact that they didn’t grow up with games but saw children and teenagers grow up with them. In their eyes, games would be a toy for children and for teenagers, so their interest fades away. “Why would something that’s meant for children is any use to me?” is a thought that summarizes this theory. A generation gap if you will.

A 3rd theory is because they don’t see the appeal to games. They don’t understand what can be so engaging in playing games. Also, they don’t understand what additional value games can bring to people since most games are entertainment games. There aren’t a lot of gamers who play educational games just for fun. And I mean, that their favorite genre is educational games.

A 4th theory is the loud toxic minority that gives us gamers a bit reputation. People who do violent things and then blame it on violent video games. I think that media outlets especially can be a problem in this case. Since they give non-gamers the impression that every game is so violent and that it taints people their brain. Maybe we just need to get past the phase that certain styles of music and movies went through.

But, I’m getting off track. What I mean with the loud toxic minority are the people who actually go out their way to make the gaming community look like a bunch of unwelcome jerks. People who won’t help others to play games. Thankfully, there are a lot of forums, websites, and networks that are meant to welcome new gamers with open arms. But sadly enough, it’s the loud toxic minority that sometimes gives communities a bad reputation. And people tend to generalize… So yeah, I think I made my point clear here.

So, that are a few theories I have. I wonder how you guys think about them. Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on my theories. But please, keep it civil. I’m open to discussion, but I’m not open to flame wars.

Wrapping up

So, should we force people to play games? Well, no. We should ask them why they don’t like games and invite them to give games a chance. I accepted that members of my family don’t enjoy playing games. I don’t enjoy reading that much while my mom loves to read a lot of books.

Before I forget, this whole article has been inspired by the quote of my mother I used in the introduction of my article. So, thank you, mom, for this great idea! I hope you had a great mothers day today!

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this article. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Game Quicky: The Legend of the Dark Witch (3DS) ~ Also on PS Vita!

Official website

A little while ago, I posted about this game coming to the PS Vita. Now, I played this game on the 3DS. So, now that the game is released on both the 3DS and the PS Vita, it’s time to take a look at the game. Is it worth a purchase or is it should you avoid this game? Let me give you my opinion. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the article and/or the game. 

The good

The soundtrack of this game is quite good. There isn’t any music track that I didn’t like in this game. If the developers would sell a CD with the soundtrack on it, I’m quite sure I’ll buy it.

Visually, this game has quite a lot of charm. Every world you visit has a certain theme and is decorated quite nice. The game is in my eyes, eye-candy.

This game has a lot of replay value. This is because you can choose the order to tackle the stages. There are 8 stages which you have to beat twice to beat a certain stage. Also, each stage has two hidden power-ups. So, you have a reason to go through each stage more then once.

Each stage is themed. And like I said earlier, the visuals are pretty nice in this game.

The controls of this game are tight and responsive. I rarely had any problems that I could blame on bad controls. The game isn’t the easiest of games, but all my deaths were my fault.

You can power up your character with points (called Tres) you earn during the stages. Something I really love is that you don’t loose your points when you die in the stages. This gives the impression of character growth.

You can downgrade the difficulty once. You can’t go back to the normal difficulty when you are on the easy difficulty. So, if the game is too hard, you can go from the normal difficulty to the easy one.

This game is extremely cheap. It was 3€ when I bought it, and you get your monies worth!

There is a challenge mode in the game. In this challenge mode you get a challenge like “Defeat boss X without taking damage.” So, more replay value for you!

You have infinite continues in this game. So, when you get a game over, the worst that happens is that you need to restart that stage. You don’t loose any Tes nor any overall progress. That’s a big plus in my book.

The in-between (not good but not bad)

It’s quite clear that this game is inspired by games like Megaman on the NES. And the difficulty shows that. On the hardest difficulty, I died so many times to very cheap enemy placement. Yet, when I started to memorize the level, I was able to avoid the enemies.

Something they also implemented in this game from the Megaman games are the knock backs when you get hit. Believe me, when you die on the same spot several times because you get knocked back into a bottomless pit, it’s annoying beyond believe.

The title screen isn’t a mixed bag in my eyes. The title card is very pretty but the bottom touch screen only shows “version 2.0” and it totally black. That’s a shame, since that’s a lot of unused space.

The bad

There is voice acting in the game, and it’s done pretty good. Yet, it’s all in Japanese and there is no translation. I wish there was either a dub or English subs.

Due to the lack of an intro cutscene explaining the basic story, I find myself skipping the dialogue when a boss battle starts. It’s a shame, since what I have read so far, the story looks interesting.

In normal difficulty, health pick ups are so rare to non existent, it’s a shame. I played this game on the easy difficulty, and the health pickups do exist.

If you pick this game up, I advise you to read the in game manual before you start playing.

Conclusion

This game is a very good game. If you have a bit of money to spare on the 3DS eShop or on the PS Vita, go and buy this game.

When you enjoy old-school Megaman games and want a new challenge, this game is one for you. While the game is quite a lot of fun, it can be very irritating sometimes. This game lacks some polish in the enemy placement but overall, you get more then your monies worth.

The negatives of this game can be game breaking for some people. But, for each negative, there is a positive.

I haven’t finished this game yet, but I’m enjoying myself so far. This game is perfect to play while waiting for the doctor or while I’m on the train to work. If I have to give the game a score now, I would give the game a 3/5.

In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing this one. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day!

Ukiyo-E Heroes – Documentary Premiere

Let’s talk about something very different this week. Tomorrow, on the 2nd of May, a documentary called Ukiyo-E Heroes goes in premiere at the Hot Docs movie festival in Toronto (buy tickets). Wow, wait NekoJonez, why are we talking about this on a gaming blog? Well, the reason for that is simple. The documentary is about somebody who crafts traditional Japanese woodcuts with a lot of Mario/Pokémon and various other pop-culture references.

What’s the documentary about?

A journey of discovery into how a Canadian craftsman and an American designer with a father and son generation gap who collaborate to revive the ancient Japanese woodcut (Ukiyo-e) using pop-culture icons: Super Mario and Pokémon. 

Here is the team that made the documentary.

A Rivertime Entertainment Production

Director:	Toru Tokikawa
Writers:	Min Hye Kim, Toru Tokikawa
Producers:	Toru Tokikawa, Yu-Fai Suen
Composer:	Alan Braxe
Music Supervisor:	Alexandre Escolier
Sound Mixer:	Danielle Adams
Advisor:	Ben Elliott

Follow this documentary

You can find a trailer on their Facebook page and you can follow them on Twitter and even more information can be found on their website. Well, the website of the production company that made the documentary called Rivertime Inc.

This is worth it!

I have watched every teaser and trailer they have put out on their Facebook page, and believe me, this documentary is going on my “to watch” list. I’m very interested in Japanese culture myself. My life long dream is actually going on a trip to Japan.

Since childhood, I have been fan of various Japanese game studios like Sony, Square, Capcom and various others. My favorite is Nintendo.

But, I’m getting off track here. From what I have seen, the documentary is filmed very good. There is a lot of imagery to see how everything came to be. Also, the documentary is filmed at various locations. I love when documentaries do this. That way we get a better view into the subject that the documentary is presenting. If you want to judge for yourself, go and take a look at the social media and the website I linked earlier.

Currently, the studio is working to get this documentary distributed in Europe. So, if you are a distributor in Europe and you are interested in this movie, feel free to get into contact with Rivertime Inc, since if you help to get this documentary into Europe and/or Belgium, I’ll be a customer!

So, if you are in Toronto this week, go to the Hot Docs festival and give this documentary a watch. They are also in the running for an audience award! And they deserve it, in my opinion.

That’s everything I wanted to say about this documentary, I want to thank Rivertime Entertainment for mail me about this. Otherwise I would have slipped under my radar and it would be a shame, since I’m quite interested in seeing the documentary myself.

Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, take care and have a great rest of your day.