NekoJonez’s June 2018 Update

It’s almost time, time to start the summer of 2018. But, today I want to talk to you guys and girls. My readers. I want to share some things that are happening behind the screens and what you can expect from my blog for the remainder of 2018. Since this is quite an important update article. So, here we go. As usual, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and such. 

The second half of 2018

I can’t promise that I’ll be able to write 1 or 2 articles/day during this summer. The reason for that I’ll get into later. But, I do have some plans for the second half of 2018. d

First of all, I have finally found all the writers for the Tomb Raider project. If you still want to aid me in an amazing blogging journey about the Tomb Raider franchise, you can still contact me. But, that means you might get a special task.

When is the Tomb Raider project going to release? Well, for the moment I can’t say a date since I have to work out everybody’s schedule and I need to find the time for that myself.

So, besides the Tomb Raider project, what will you see in 2018 from me? Well, the big issue is that I have played a ton of games I have written about in the “First Impression” format. In addition to that, the play sessions I had with some games weren’t long enough yet to have a review. In addition to that, I have something that’s the total opposite of a writer’s block.

There is such a huge list of games I still want to write about but I haven’t gotten around to it. It’s such a huge list, I actually don’t know where to start. Besides that, the garage sale season has started and I have expanded my collection with a lot of games. So, my best guess is that soon you will see articles on those games.

Something you won’t see in the near future is me publishing a press kit. Looking at the numbers those articles pull in, I’m certain that people not really like them. For now, I’m not going to publish press kits for a while.

If you want to have my latest updates, I highly recommend you follow me on my Twitter. If you aren’t following me on there, this might be a reminder to do so. I’m quite humbled to see that I almost 500 followers on there.

Also, I have no idea if I’ll still be able to log in to 2018. Since the new EU copyright laws are going to make things extremely difficult to link articles, use pictures of games… Please, read up about it since content creation for the smaller people is going to become difficult. If I’m misunderstanding things, please tell me in the comment section down below what’s happening. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here are three articles about this issue of Article 11 & 13.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/20/17482554/eu-european-union-copyright-filter-article-11-13-passes-juri-vote

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/20/eu-votes-for-copyright-law-that-would-make-internet-a-tool-for-control

https://www.eff.org/nl/deeplinks/2018/w06/eus-copyright-proposal-extremely-bad-news-everyone-even-especially-wikipedia

That’s all about my blog, now, I do have a few personal things to share in the next section of this article.

Personal life and stuff

So, the World Cup is happening. And I do have to admit, I’m a fan of watching those games. As a matter of fact, while I was writing this article I was also watching a game. Now, I think it’s quite clear for which team I’m mostly rooting for. It’s the Red Devils from Belgium, my home country.

While personally, I don’t see them actually winning the cup, I see them going to the semi-finals. I can’t wait to see their game versus England in a few days since that’s going to be one of the most enjoyable games to watch during this World Cup. For those who don’t know, a lot of the Red Devils actually play in the English Premier League.

That said, something else is going to eat up my time as well. Since I pass the final subject of my degree, I’m going to start my final project this summer. That means I have to make writing a huge paper and do some networking. Starting from November till December, I’ll have to go 3x a week to class while working full time. That’s going to be nuts. Oh, and during that time, I’ll have to write that paper and do all the research.

At the moment, I have put in a proposal for my final project. If it’s accepted, it’s going to be a dream of a project where I’m allowed to do various experiments to upgrade a network and expand it. Also, the mentor of that project is an amazing guy. He taught me a lot of the tricks in computer science I still use to this day. So, here is me hoping that my proposal gets accepted.

If I get a passing grade on that paper in December, I finished my graduate degree. So, apologies in advance if there is a “drought” of articles from now till December. My final project and my personal life are going to eat up most of my time. I might try to write up some backlog of articles where I can just change the date and hit the publish button, but no promises. That’s why I said earlier in the article that I can’t promise a 1-2 article/day period during this summer.

Now, there is something else I wanted to talk about. While all of this is happening, my own mental health is taking a nosedive. Due to, what I hope are obvious, privacy reasons I’m not going in-depth about it on this blog but I’m not doing well lately. There are days that I feel like an emotional wreck and there are days that I get easily pissed off. I’m working on it, but it’s heavy.

2018 has been an extremely rough year for me. There is a bit too much happening to keep up with. While you could argue that I could take a break from writing but it’s actually helping to keep me sane. The issue is the motivation, on certain days I don’t feel motivated to anything productive. So, please, don’t hate me if I delay some articles because of that reason.

If you have questions about my mental health, feel free to ask them to me in private chats. But, you don’t have to worry about me too much. I’m around me befriended bloggers who are there to aid me when things get rough and I’m also in a great network of (professional) people who are helping me to get better.

And that’s all I want to say publically for now about my mental health. I hope you understand I won’t go into details.

All in all, this year is going to be nuts for me. I’m thankful for all the support I got throughout the years and I can’t wait to talk about the games I have played recently. With the Tomb Raider project and my final project for college, I have quite a busy end of the year. But, 2019 will be a more relaxed year for me. At least, I hope.

In any case, thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. 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.

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First Impression: Dungeon Kingdom – Sign of the Moon (PC) ~ Moon Time

Steam store page

Official site

A few weeks ago, I got a press key for a game sent to me. I’m so glad that the developer reached out to me since this game looks amazing. This game is being created by a small team based in France. It’s still in early access so a lot of things can change between what you read here and what is in the final game. I have played the June 2017 build in order to write this review.  While I got this game for free, the developer wanted that this article is 100% my opinion. I hope you are ready to dive into a new fantasy world since we have the sign of the moon and have to save the land. As usual in my articles, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the article and/or the game. 

The sign of the Moon

So far, I haven’t gotten too far into the game. I have only been through the first few areas of the game and been exploring and testing out different set-ups and just learning the ins and outs of this game. I could write a whole paragraph to talk about the story, but the press kit sums it up quite nicely.

At the dawn of the Fourth Age… You, a poor young man struggling to make ends meet, have been summoned by a strange man claiming to be a member of the prestigious Mages’ Guild, to join him on a great quest. In the hope for a better future, you accept his request, for who could refuse to follow such a seemingly eminent member of the Mages’ Guild?

A feeling in the back of your mind tells you that this is related to the strange symbol of a moon on you hand… Your quest will require you to explore the Dungeon Kingdom world, to uncover hidden treasures, solve puzzles and battle dangerous creatures in many areas, from dark dungeons to snowy mountains.

The story sounds quite interesting, so I can’t wait to see where the developer takes it. So far, I haven’t experienced the story too much. The writing is good. There isn’t a lot of world building at the start. You are thrown into a fantasy world and you expect to understand everything. While this could be seen as annoying to some people, I like it. Since you learn about the world in various scrolls and books scattered around in the world. I highly recommend that you read them since they might be useful to solve some puzzles.

The good exploring

Let’s talk about the things I think were really good in this game. The visual presentation of this game is really well done. The game looks amazing.

I loved to walk around in the dungeon and towns since they just look amazing. I really love the fact that you can hold the left mouse button down to look around at the position you are standing. The only minor complaint I have is that there is no button to quickly snap the camera back into place. Apart from taking one step. This snaps the camera back in the right place.

The music and sound effects are really quite well done. While there isn’t a lot of music in the game, the sound effects and sound design more than make up for it. You really feel that you are in a dungeon or palace and it helps to add to the atmosphere. There is one sound effect I didn’t like, and that is the sleeping sound effect. It didn’t click with me. I think something that would add to it is a sort of “waking up” sound where you hear a tent zipper go open or something along those lines.

Something that adds to the immersion is as well the voice acting. It’s really well done. The dialogue also changed depending on your course of action.

The only nitpick I have when it comes to the presentation is that the game doesn’t use its own custom cursor. It would be amazing if the game uses some sort of custom glove/hand icon instead of the white arrow that Windows uses. It would fit a bit more into the visual presentation of the game.

Something I found really impressive is the dynamic light system. You can pick up candles to light up your way. And they do, in a very pleasing visual manner. Something I didn’t like here is that when a candle runs out, it looks like you can still light it. I didn’t find a way to do that. Also, it would be amazing if you can light candles in the environment that have gone out.

The tutorial does an excellent job of teaching you the basic mechanics of the game. I highly recommend that you play through this at least once. The tutorial is really short and sweet. Also, it doesn’t hold your hand too much, it lets you explore at your own pace. And if you want to read the last explanation again, you click a button and it’s explained again.

The dungeons themselves aren’t randomly generated. They are all handcrafted and all the loot is placed everywhere. If you look around enough, you can equip yourself with all the weapons and armor you will need. The game also allows you to tweak the stats to each character in your party to your liking. When you have enough stat points to do so that is.

The gameplay itself is amazing. You explore and fighting through various locations. There are also various secrets to discover in each area. Those secrets will be really beneficial to you on your journey. It’s also wise to keep some items that at first serve no purpose since you can use them to leave them on pressure switches. You can throw items to anywhere you want.

While this game has permadeath, you can save and load anytime you want. There is also an autosave.

Something personal and minor I really like in this game is the fact that there is a feature to change the controls to an AZERTY layout. 🙂

The automap system is amazing. The only thing I miss is to be able to put notes on the map. Maybe I’m too much spoiled by games like the Zelda DS games and Etrain Odyssey.

The RPG elements in this game are great. There is realism in this game thanks to the hunger and stamina system. You need to give your characters a rest and a meal or otherwise they won’t be able to survive.

Things that need improving

Something that I didn’t like was how slow you were able to attack and how quick your enemies were. I died various times when I discovered the first secret to some enemies. There is a cool down time before you can attack again.

At first, I hated the controls of the combat. I had to use the right mouse click on the hand to attack. I thought this was the only way to attack. But then, I looked at the “Help & Shortcuts” menu and learned that there are buttons to attack. I think this would be really handy to mention in the tutorial.

I also think that the early game enemies are too strong. It just takes too long for you to be able to either counter-attack or use a spell against enemies. I lost two characters before I was able to slay one enemy. The combat system needs some polishing up in my opinion.

Speaking of shortcuts and controls, I think it would be lovely if you can rebind them. While the current control scheme does work for some people, some controls don’t work for me.

This game could use some polish here and there. This game could benefit from a lot of tweaks that seem minor but would go a long way. Like a bit more sound effects, like when you open a door. The game is good, but with these minor improvements, it would be great. But, I think that this is something they are working on since it’s still in early access.

While it’s challenging that you need to find your weapons in the wild, I find it very odd that when you hire an adventurer, he or she doesn’t have a weapon at their disposal. I think it would be an improvement if they have a basic knife or a basic weapon at the start.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, this game is amazing. I fell in love with the amazing visuals and the gameplay that this game has. I’ll follow the development of this game for sure. I also think that this game is worth your money. The asking price is perfect in my opinion.

The game is still in early access and the developer listens to the feedback that it gets. If you have ideas and suggestions on how to improve the game, open a topic on the Steam forums or write them an email.

I can’t wait to see where this game goes. I can’t say it enough, but I have to say that this game is worth your time if you enjoy dungeon crawlers. I do have to warn you that it’s still in early access, but report each bug or oddity since I think this game will become better because of it.

When this game leaves early access, I’ll surely take another look at the game and write a full review here on my blog. But for now, I enjoyed my time in the early access and will continue to play it. Before I repeat what I said too many times, it’s time to wrap up this article. Thank you so much 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.