Android Games – Let’s start playing on my phone again.

It has been quite some time since I wrote an article with short reviews of Android games, has it not? Lately, I have been focussing on the bigger games and I haven’t given the smaller games some time to shine on my blog. Also, when I was talking about a smaller game, I wrote a longer article on it instead of a short review. But, since I’m currently working on bigger articles and I didn’t want to skip this week, I decided I wanted to bring this series back and start talking about a few smaller games I have been playing on my phone lately. So, let’s start talking about smaller Android games and let’s take a quick look if they are worth your time/money. Also, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and opinions on the games and/or the content of this article.

ProgressBar95

Steam version – Android version

For those who don’t know, I’m 28 years old, and I also have a day job. This day job is being an IT admin in a big art secondary school (high school for some) here in Belgium. My work days are filled with solving problems that teachers and students have, improving our IT infrastructure, developing our website… Apart from that, I’m also a big fan of old tech and I love messing around with old computers and technology.

So, when I came across ProgressBar95 on the app store, I downloaded the game right away. And I fell in love with it right away. The game keeps true to its tagline that this game is a “hypercasual UI game”. The main idea of this game is that you are a progress bar that needs to catch dropping squares to make the progress bar progress. Blue and light blue are good ones, orange are errors but still help you in progress. Pink detracts from your progress bar, so you can get rid of orange squares if you want.

Depending on how well you do, the amount of points you get to unlock various upgrades to your computer. The higher your level, the more difficult this game becomes and the more points you can earn. This game also works with lives, but if you run out of lives, you don’t have to wait a certain amount of time for them to recharge and try the game again.

So, the interface of this game is top-notch. It nails the ascetic of being a computer amazingly. For example, to toggle sound on or off, you can press the sound icon in the bottom right of the computer. If you click the “EN” of the language toolbar, you can switch languages. It also has a colorblind mode, cloud saving, multiple game modes and one of the best ways to handle microtransactions I have seen.

The different gameplay modes I have played so far is a sort infinite runner Wolfenstein game and a “dodge the red numbers and get to the bottom of an Excel spreadsheet”-game. They add so much variety to the game and I love going between them if I’m bored with one game mode.

The biggest recommendation I would give to you is that you buy the extremely cheap “no-ads” package. Overall, the ads aren’t annoying but the game improves so much without forced ads. Now, if you look at the whole shop, you might think that this game is a “pay-to-win” or a money sink. But, no. You can pay to unlock all other levels but 99% of the stuff in the store can be earned easily in-game by winning levels or doing side quests.

It’s clear that this game has a lot of love put into it and I have a hard time finding anything negative about this game. Apart from this game being extremely niche and the game being a little boring for extend playthroughs… But yeah, I honestly would recommend this game to all my other retro gamers or people who are into computer science. It’s an amazing and refreshing experience.

Score: 5/5.

Word Lanes

Android store

So, when I’m in a waiting room or have some time to kill, I love playing small games. Especially when they are puzzle games like word searches or connect the dots to give two examples.

In Word Lanes, you are presented with a grid of letters, and you have to find all the words that fit the clues at the top. Each letter can only be used once and the letters have to connect horizontally or vertically to be used in a word.

This game is rather relaxing, and it’s a great way for me to unwind. I also love how the game is fully translated into my native language. The only complaint I have about that is the fact that as a Belgian person, I always have to struggle when the hint is talking about something from the Netherlands. But, I always report them with a handy report feature after you solved a clue. With this report feature you can report typo’s, wrong clues and things like that.

I’m also on the fence about the microtransactions. You earn coins to use the hint features after beating a level, but I feel I always don’t have enough. Thankfully, you have these daily rewards and saving them up is easy then. Honestly, I just think that the prices of the power-ups are a tad bit too high.

But hey, that’s a minor complaint. Since this game has so much enjoyment to offer and the ads aren’t THAT intrusive and only play between levels. Also, quite frequently, I have an option where the ads are disabled for one day. This is amazing and actually makes me consider buying the “no ads” package since I got a free trial.

Score: 4/5

Reigns

Android store

Way back in 2017, I wrote an article about Questr. A game that has some “Tinder” style gameplay while being a questing game. Now, that game was more about adventuring while you created your party with a sort of Tinder app. In this game, the main feature of Tinder of swiping left to reject or right to approve, is set into a “choose your own adventure” game.

Reigns is published by DeveloperDigital and is so close to be amazing, it’s painful. The gameplay is quite addictive, and I love taking decisions as an immortal king on how my kingdom should progress. The atmosphere, sound effects, music and visual design is amazing. It really pulls you into the game and I love playing the game but…

It’s way too easy to take a decision. It’s too sensitive. I had several moments where I was choosing between two options and just because I hit the edge of one side a bit too much, the game decided for me. And not only that, my phone doesn’t have physical buttons anymore and quite often, I had the game deciding for me just because I swiped down to see the time or see my latest notification.

There is also no “message log”. So, when you put the game down for a moment, you can’t see the history of what happened. And if I want to change the options during gameplay, though luck. The menu only appears when see the progress between kings.

This game has a lot of amazing elements like having to balance your four powers and the various twists and turns certain decisions and pathways can take, but it has various rough edges, I fell so mixed about this game. Maybe the PC version of the game is better, but I feel like this game works best as a mobile game. But, I feel like the mobile version just got a few rough edges. For example, I had to look up a way to reset your progress in the game. It turns out you have to hold two fingers on to have the reset screen to show up.

Yet, I advise people who enjoy adventure games to give this game a go. But be warned, the mobile version has some rough edges. But, for the low asking price of this game and the amount of content in this game, I can say for a fact there is a LOT worse out there. And I’m also so glad that this amazing concept got a few sequels as well… So, I know what to play next on my phone.

Score: 3.5/5

Wrapping up

I’m so glad that I gave this format another go and revived it. It allowed me to talk about three Android games I wanted to showcase on my blog, but I didn’t have the time for or wasn’t able to write a good enough “long” article about. I think I’ll revisit this format more often in the future and maybe also use it when I play small games on Steam, Switch or other platforms.

Then again, with my busy lifestyle and the backlog of games I still want to cover, I can’t promise how frequent I’ll write articles like these. I also challenged myself to be brief and short in this article and I had the urge to keep writing about these three games. So, if you want a more in-depth article about one of these games, let me know in the comments.

So, with that said, I want to 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 a future article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

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First Impression: Persona 5 Strikers (Switch) ~ Let’s Steal Hearts

Wikipedia’s entry – Nintendo.com microsite

I have heard so much about the Persona series, I got so hyped when a new game was coming to the Nintendo Switch. While I know that it’s a spin-off game compared to the mainline series, I honestly found the spin on the gameplay rather interesting. This game is a cross between a Warrior’s game and a Persona game. Now, I have played a little of Persona 3 Golden last year and that made my hype levels for this game even bigger. So, now that I have beaten the first section of the game, I think it’s high time for me to talk about this game and give you my opinions on the game. While I do that, I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and opinions on the game and/or the content of this article. 

Let’s steal hearts

In this game, you pick up the role of the protagonist of Persona 5 again. The events of this game take place 4 months after the events in Persona 5. The Phantom Thieves are having a reunion together when a campaigning trip is planning. Of course, since this is a video game, it doesn’t take long before the plot reveals itself and trouble arrives. 

Strange things happen around a famous fashion model and pop star Alice and then our lovely Phantom Thieves discover something that is quite close to the “Palaces” they know so well. Yet, this time it’s called a jail. In this jail, the desires are stolen from the people which make them fall a “little more than” head over heels with Alice. But, that’s not the only thing that happens. Our lovely Phantom Thieves also discover this strange girl called Sophia who is an AI who forgot all her memories and wants to be human’s best companion. 

That’s the hook of the first episode of this game. In terms of story, this game doesn’t disappoint at all. Especially, because I haven’t played Persona 5, the writing and pacing of the story explains who is who so easily, it’s a breeze to pick this game up without having to play through Persona 5 first.

I also have to say that the outstanding voice acting does help here too. It really sucks me into the game, the atmosphere and breathes so much life in the characters. To the point that when I come to a part that isn’t voice acted, I actually read it with a poor imitation of the character’s voice in my head. A quick sidenote about the voice acting during gameplay, the various repeating lines add so much to the game. I thought I might get tired of them after a few repeats, but that is far from the case, just like it was for me in a game like Fire Emblem Warriors. 

I can’t pinpoint exactly why but the story really clicks with me. Like, I really like how you explore the trauma of one character, and before they move on, it gets fully resolved. The writing is excellent, the story has a lot of charm and character. It has it’s funny and more serious moments and I totally understand why so many people fell in love with the Persona franchise. After playing this game and Persona 3 Golden, I think I might become a fan of the franchise myself as well. One of the things that makes me want to continue the game is the story. I want to steal and heal hearts to help people overcome trauma’s and explore subjects that don’t always get the right attention. 

RPG or Warriors?

The gameplay of this game is in my opinion the perfect mix between a turn based RPG and a Warrior’s game. 

Since the first city in this game doesn’t have any side quests, I’ll only focus on the gameplay in the jail for this article. So, in the jails you can freely explore the area while enemies roam around. When you ambush an enemy or get spotted, you enter a sort of small Warrior-style battle. Where a lot of enemies spawn, and you have to hack and slash your way through. 

If you ambush them (attack them without being seen), you get the advantage. If you get spotted and the enemies attack you first, you get dizzy at the start of the battle, so the enemies can get some free shots in. So, this game has a type system that you can compare quite roughly to Pokémon in a way. Each type has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s up to you to choose the correct allies in a battle to fight the enemies ahead. 

The game also has hacking sections where the game plays more like a Warrior’s game than an RPG. In these sections you have to defend The Oracle while she is hacking into the system. Meanwhile, a swarm of enemies attack and their only focus is to destroy the Oracle. 

So far, this is the 3rd Warrior’s spin off I have played. Actually, the 4th depending on how you count. I have played Hyrule Warriors (and like I said, depending on how you count: Hyrule Warriors – Age of Calamity), Fire Emblem Warriors and now Persona 5 Strikers. And out of these games, I have to say that I feel that Persona 5 Strikers has the best balance between both game styles. 

This game still feels like a “normal” Persona game but with the big exception that the whole battle system is replaced by Warrior style gameplay.  And it works remarkably well. I found it a blast trying to find the best strategies to dodge enemy attacks while I tried to attack them back. The risk and reward system of using your special powers compared the environment items is amazing. 

Each character has their own unique playstyle where their character and personality shines through. The game might be a bit overwhelming at first since there are a lot of things you have to keep track of. From leveling up your characters and their persona’s, to weapons and armor, to finding enough treasures and things to have enough healing items and even a bond system where you can level up unique perks that’ll make each playthrough somewhat different from each other. 

It didn’t take long before I got used to all the mechanics and found myself extremely hooked on the game. Depending on the difficulty you choose to play this game in, this game provides the right amount of challenge in my opinion. A few times, I got quite frustrated at a battle and when I put the game down and picked it up back later, I was able to beat that section. 

Don’t forget to save

Now, most of my time with the first chapter has been spent inside the jail of Alice. There is some time you can spend in the overworld to buy items, weapons, and armor. With the extremely responsive and smooth controls, I always felt in control and only rarely felt that the game did something unfair. 

If you have read some of my previous articles, you might know that I find good UI design extremely important and this game delivers that in spades. The menus are extremely well crafted and somewhat fun to use since you see small interactions between the Phantom Thieves that flesh them out so much more. 

This brings me to the striking visual presentation of this game. The visuals look amazing. The charm and character that is put into the visuals is outstanding. This game’s style is a combination of a Saturday morning anime and a manga/superhero comic. It’s also quite bold and not afraid to use the style to its full potential. Nothing feels out of place in my opinion. 

When it comes to the animations, these are good as well. Well, maybe this might be on me but I feel that some animations don’t give enough feedback to the player. For example, I found it quite tricky to know where my character was on the battlefield since the combat animations can throw you all over the battlefield. 

Something that might be either a sound effect problem and/or a visual problem is the lack of feedback in combat sometimes. The reaction of an effective and a non-effective attack is so similar to me, it was tricky to separate them in combat. Thankfully, the characters repeat multiple times which type of attack you need to use and when you need to be careful when your HP/SP is running low or when a status is inflicted. This is a nice middle ground to solve an issue to avoid making this game too complex or lose too much of its visual style. 

So, let’s talk about the music and sound effects shall we? Let’s start with the sound effects in this game. In my opinion, this game is walking a fine line between too much and too little sound effects. Overall, the sound effects and the sound mixing is quite good, but sometimes this game has a lot of visual information to process and the sound effects can get a tiny bit distracting. All the while, like I explained in the previous paragraph, they are quite helpful when a character shouts at you to be careful or use a certain attack to defeat an enemy. 

I wish I knew more about music, so I was able to describe the amazing soundtrack to you. Even before I started playing the Persona games, I fell in love with the unique uplifting soundtrack of these games. There are tracks with and without vocals and the Japanese and English versions are so amazing to listen to. So, really great stuff. 

One of the things I really needed to get used to was the fact that there is no “auto save” in this game. If you want to avoid loosing too much progress, keep in mind to save often at save points, or before you enter a dungeon since otherwise you might regret it. You only get a game over when all 4 party members faint. Otherwise, you can continue on playing. But, don’t forget to save since it needs to happen manually. 

And with that said, I have said almost everything I wanted to say about this game. There are a few things I’ll go more in depth about if I ever finish this game and write a review about this game, but the most important things are already said. I think this game is excellent and if you enjoy (Persona) RPG’s, Warrior spin-off games, adventure games and/or action games… You owe it to yourself to check this game out. To be honest, apart from the manual saving, I barely find any flaws with this game or things I really didn’t like. 

So, 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, have a great rest of your day and take care.

The Real Neat Blog Award – 5 YEARS of NekoJonez’s Gaming Blog Special

Well, it hasn’t taken long. Since the Sunshine Award from a few weeks back, I got another community award. Thanks to my buddy from IPlayedTheGame, I got the “The Real Neat Blog Award”. I’m so thankful for all the praise my blog is receiving lately. Also, this is a special article for my 5th year I’m writing this blog. Yes, today marks the day that I’m writing this blog for 5 years now. Anyways, let’s get to answering the questions.

Question 1 – What is your earliest gaming memory?

The earliest games I’m able to remember are Pac-Man on the Gameboy, Freddi Fish, Tetris, Lego Island… But the biggest memory for me is Pokémon Blue of course. I still have my childhood cartridge to this day.

I remember individual moments like where I was standing or who I was visiting when playing certain games but they are too short to actually write a small story about. For example, I remember beating the first level of Pac-Man on the Gameboy while standing in the doorway at my grandparent’s house.

I remember playing a lot of casual games on my early computers as well. Rollercoaster Tycoon, Age of Empires, Midtown Madness 2, Puzzle & Magical Inlay, Feeding Frenzy, Iggle Pop… to name a few.

I played a lot on the computer with my sister. We had limited time on the computer and when one’s time was up, we switched and watched the other play. Ah, great times. I still remember when we got our hands on Rollercoaster Tycoon. In our copy, the game has a glitch on Windows XP where you were unable to load saved games. So, that’s why we always left the computer on in the hopes that nothing drastic happened while we were out. So, we could win the scenario.

Question 2 – When did you start blogging and why?

I talked about this question before. Actually, this question I have answered in a recent interview. Click here to read more about it.

Question 3 – What feature do you wish any of your consoles had that they currently don’t?

Well, I have two things. At first, since I recently bought a Nintendo Switch, I’m loving the easy screenshot and share feature. This is going to help me a lot when I’m going to talk about Nintendo Switch games. Now, I wish all my retro game consoles had that. Now, I need to either use an emulator to create them or use press pictures.

Another feature is something a lot of collectors would love. A backup feature, as in, you are able to back-up your games onto a hard drive of the console. With some restrictions, like you are only able to back it up to one console.

This would be so extremely handy for me since I’m always afraid that some old game discs might get too scratched and become worthless. In addition to that, it would be so handy to not have to switch cartridges around without having to resort to illegal flashcards.

Question 4 – Name a movie that you wish had a video game made after it and what developer would you want to make it and why?

Now, I’m not that big of a movie guy myself. I don’t watch a lot of movies since I’m mostly watching YouTube or anime series. On the odd occasion, I watch an anime movie or a movie related to a game.

One of the last movies I saw in the theater was the Tomb Raider movie. While the reviews are mixed, I have to say that it’s a good enjoyable action movie. But it helps if you are a fan of the series and/or have played the reboot games.

Now, I’m going to cheat a little bit and turn the question on its head. A game I wish they created a movie from. I could cheap out and say “Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine“, but I’m already waiting for the 5th Indiana Jones movie in 2020.

I think my friends from LaterLevels will agree with me on this one, but I would love an animated movie of the Monkey Island series. I wouldn’t be able to name THE game they should make a movie out off since I have only played three titles in the series.

On the other hand, a movie about the Broken Sword games would be mindblowing as well. Or a Bioshock movie. Well, truth to be told, I have quite a long list of games I want to see turned into movies. As long as LucasArts does the movie side of things. I wish they were still around since I really loved their movies and style of production. Yes, they are still around but only to make Star Wars movies it seems.

Question 5 – Do you have a Games Room or Corner? If so let us see it and show your favorite thing in there?

These pictures are from February 2018. My collection has expanded a bit since then, but the way I store them doesn’t look a lot different. My bedroom has been transformed into my gaming room. I also use my bedroom to write, study, practice my lines for the plays I’m in… and yes, to sleep too.

My project for this summer is fixing the cables of my consoles. It’s too big of a mess right now. I want to label them and hide them a bit from sight.

This answer is going to be a bit cheap, but my favorite thing in my game room/office is my collection. When I have time off work or some free time I love picking up a game I haven’t played in a while or want to try out. Most of those games turn into an article anyways.

These pictures aren’t everything in my gaming collection. I haven’t included my figurine cabinet, console games cabinet, better pictures of my handheld cabinet… One day I will organize them all a bit more and create an index for you people to take a look at.

Question 6 – Do you have a Child or a Pet? Which character do you name it after?

I’m currently 25 years old and I think that’s a bit too soon to have children. One day, I wish to have children of my own. In a certain way, you could say that I’m already a proud “father” actually.
A proud father of Sparta.

My pet cat is one of the nicest and most laid-back cats I have ever met. I have loads of personal pictures of her sleeping on family members with her belly exposed. For people who don’t know a lot about cats, if a cat exposes his/her belly, it’s out of trust. Since that’s the most unprotected part of their bodies. She means a lot to me.

If you follow me on Twitter, you will see the odd picture of her. To answer the question for where she has her name, well… Thanks for this song. The Mean Kitty Song by SMP Films. It’s about a cat who is playfully aggressive. And when I first met Sparta, she was playfully aggressive. She wanted to play but after a while, she feels asleep on my lap.
There are a lot of stories I can tell about Sparta, but to avoid that this article becomes too long, I’ll keep those for another article.

Question 7 – What keeps you going when Gaming?

Besides the snack and soda’s, the thing that keeps me going is either the entertainment value of the game or the thought of: “this will make for an interesting article.”I’m always extremely busy with my work, personal life, theater group or my blog. So, having something where I can be in another world is an amazing feeling to me.

In addition to that, the nostalgia rush I get sometimes. In addition to that, games lately are able to hit a personal level. I love it when that happens when a certain message of a game pulls my emotional strings. A Hat In Time, Super Mario Odyssey, Ace Attorney Dual Destinies, The Legend of Zelda – Breath Of The Wild, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series are just a few games that were able to bring me to pull those emotional strings.

Besides that, the people I meet because of gaming. I love to adore this community, with flaws included. I have met a lot of people and learned a lot. We gamers are able to play games with complete strangers and trust them completely to work together towards one goal. Which is having fun. Of course, there are those rotten apples giving us a bad reputation.
What also keeps me going is the interesting and new approaches games take at entertaining us. When I think I’m able to say, this game is like this game… I find a load of games doing something completely new and unique. And when everything comes together in one game paying homage to previous titles, I get overly nostalgic again.

And that was all my answers. So, it’s my time to nominate five blogs I really like, huh? Well:

LaterLevels

OverthinkerY

Hundstrasse

Sheikah Plate

AmbiGamingCorner

Feel free to answer the same questions or talk about something blog/game related. I’m really curious about what you guys and girls are going to say about this.

In any case, let me finish this article by saying a few words of gratitude. In the 5 years, I have been writing for this blog, I have reviewed over 200 games. I have gotten over 55k visitors, over 400 followers on Twitter and 180 other bloggers following me.

Besides that, I have been called a great gaming blog by two external sources. Both FeedSpot and MarketInspector placed me on great lists with the best of the best. Besides that, I got various community awards and on other blogs, I get praised. I even got quoted on Steam Store pages!

Thank you so much for everything. Everybody who visits my blog and leaves a comment, you put a smile on my face. Thanks to you, I’m proud of what I’m able to achieve here. At the start of this journey, I had no idea that I would be able to meet so many people and have so much fun with my favorite hobby of them all, writing.

I also got a lot of opportunities from various developers to review their games and I learned a lot about game design and how the gaming industry works. Besides that, I got a lot of games for my collection as well, which I don’t mind since I love expanding that.

So, thank you, dear readers, for making for giving me this experience. I can’t wait to provide you with more articles about the games I have been playing or the random thoughts I have about the gaming industry. I hope you enjoyed the ride so far since I’m going to keep going.

This year, I got the greatest form of flattery. Imitation. Well, to be more exact, the copying of my articles on other blogs and websites. Thankfully, those 5 (yes, there are 5 now) sites are down and hopefully, I don’t have to spend a lot more time with that. But, to finish this article; I want to leave you with a quote that the giver of this award said to me on Twitter when all of this copying went down:

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.

Publishing: Return of Warrior opens two EXCLUSIVE 2018 Events!

Start 2018 with a bang! Return of Warrior is up for another set of engaging events. Catch two EXCLUSIVE Events that will pump up and boosts your warriors! Rise up and tag along with community events entitled, Drawing Game Costume and Gem and Gift of Mecarita! Join the following event for more awesome rewards at stake!

Drawing Game Costume and Gem has set awesome surprises for the low and mid-level users. Experience the great reward offer and tons of superb features. Great gifts are waiting for below 45 levels and 56 levels and up. Additional Boss will be seen in Map 3, beware! Event period for Drawing Game Costume and Gem will end until Feb. 2, 2018!

Also, great discounts are waiting for all the warriors! Don’t miss out on this!

One more thing, grab the opportunity for the Gift of Mecarita! She will be bestowing everyone with great power as you can easily advance your level from 40 to 75 at Pirate Village starting this Jan. 15 ~ Feb. 9, 2018. Seize the day warriors!

Come along and take the great journey to Almighty Land! Wanna know what is installed for you, our warriors? Install the game and catch the in-game announcements. Like, share and spread the NEWS about Return of Warrior. For more updates, visit their Facebook Fan Page. Who knows, you might win all the prizes at stake!

For more details, please visit us to the following link below:

Official Links:

ROW Official Website: http://rowplayon.com/

ROW Official Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/rowplayon/

ROW Official Forum: http://rowplayon.com/Page/en/forum/forum.jsp?p=1&bbs=0

ROW Official YouTube Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=122eJaZmklg

About Return of Warrior

Return of Warrior is a 3D fantasy MMORPG with a unique combat system, based off of the original Risk Your Life (RYL) game. You choose between two factions; Humans or Ak’Kan and fight in duels or giant battles. Protect your faction in order to salvage an overpopulated world. Take part in quests or missions, fight other players and trade virtual goods. All elements aim to secure your faction to win against the enemy! The 14 different classes are Warriors, Defenders, Assassins, Archers, Sorcerers, Enchanters, Clerics, Priests, Attackers, Templars, Gunners, Rune Officiators, Life Officiators, Shadow, and Officiators.

Game Features:

• Action-packed PvP! Tons of Quests and Mission to Complete!
• Customizable and Innovative Character Creation
• Compelling and Intuitive Skills and Combat System.
• Upgradeable and Limitless Weapons, Armor, and Accessories System
• Great, Treacherous and Exotic Terrain New Maps!

ABOUT YOUXILAND DIGITAL

Established in 1994. With its years of experience in R & D, agency and sales of game software, it is composed of a research and development team from the world’s most professional Internet Contents software, Road games, and further develop software services such as e-commerce, entrance websites, telemedicine, distance learning, industrial product testing and health and beauty services to enhance the quality of human life and bring joy to the world.

Published on NekoJonez’s Gaming Blog. This text is a copy protection test.

Gamer’s Thoughts: General tips to start collecting

Ah, game collecting. It’s one of my biggest hobbies and I love doing it. Thanks to my video game collection, I’m able to talk about so many games on my blog and have so many different experiences. While I’m not the most hardcore of collectors, I do want to share some stories and advice if you want to start collecting retro and modern games. If you have any questions or you have advice yourself, feel free to leave a comment down below, I’ll do my best to help and love to hear the advice of other collectors as well. Also, know that this is some general advice. If you want to start to get really into collecting, then this article can serve as a nice base but videos like this one from MetalRockJesus are a great help as well. 

You will need space!

Do realize that you will need some shelving space when you want to start collecting. Personally, I wish I had more room in my room to build more cabinets and shelves to store my collection.

There are various interesting cabinets that game collectors use. If you look at various pictures of people showing off their collection, you get a great general idea of what sort of space you can use for your cabinets.

Something I personally do is, storing my cartridges in plastic containers. This is to avoid dust and other damage to them. I also sort my games per system. So, I have a PSP shelf, a GBA/GBC shelf, Wii (U) shelf… This makes it easier to find a game when I’m looking for them.

I can speak out of the experience of collecting games all my life, you will need a lot of storage space. Better workout a good storage system before you start collecting. Otherwise, you will regret it extremely fast.

My budget & thrifting.

If you are worried about the cost of collecting, well, know that thrift stores and garage sales exist.

Here are some tips at garage sales. I personally trained myself in the ability to spot games by just scanning the stalls. It can really help if you are able to recognize the shape and color of the system you are collecting for. For example, I know that most PS2 boxes have are blue and/or have the name “Playstation 2” on top.

Another helpful thing to know is that resellers are a plague at garage sales. Here in Belgium, they arrive at the crack of dawn to buy every game they can get their hands on, while meanwhile, another person is setting up their stall.

The best way to do deals is to buy from people who sell from their garage or don’t have a lot of gaming items. Those people really want to get rid of the games and will let them go for a really cheap price. I have bought a ton of games for a really cheap price. For example, I was able to buy GTA 1 (PS1) for 1€ or Outlaws (PC) for 2€.

While you can haggle, don’t overdo it. For example, if they sell PSP games for 3€ a piece, I usually say, what if I buy 5 of them and pay you 12€. Try to check if they are willing to go below their asking price before you continue to haggle.

I ran the risk of looking around for a cheaper version of various times at garage sales. Sometimes I get lucky, other times, I got unlucky and saw some nice games get sold before my eyes.

Since I personally collect Gameboy games, I always have a Gameboy Advance in my pocket with me. Do test your games, if possible, before you buy them. To avoid regretting buying a game.

If you are buying PC games and such, check if all discs are there and if they don’t have a lot of scratches. I always check the games for any damage or missing parts before I buy them. I haven’t done this in the past and had missing discs and discs that weren’t able to be read.

Also, keep an eye out on people trying to sell their physical copies of Steam games. Or any other online distribution platform for that matter. Since you need that key to be able to activate the game, but if you buy it in a thrift store or in a garage sale; you have high risks that the game is already activated and the disc will be worthless. Unless you bought it digitally and you want a physical copy to add to your collection.

What do I do when I go thrifting and/or to a garage sale? Well, I take a bag or two with my handhelds (charged of course) to be able to test the games, I bottle of water, my wallet with the budget I want to spend, something to eat and my smartphone. I also try to not wear many game-related items on me. To avoid giving away that I know what I’m buying. I have seen too many items that people raise their prices because a gamer needs to pay a more fair price for their games…

I like to leave in the morning to do one round and I do another round around midday or in the afternoon. Why in the morning? The earlier you leave, the more chance you have to be before the resellers. Also, you will have the biggest selection of them all. Yet, you do miss a big advantage of something you have in the afternoon.

In the afternoon, some people are getting tired and sick of standing with their stall at the garage sale and start lowering their prices. Most of them are happy if they are able to leave the garage sale with less stuff then they started. So, take that into consideration.

Index your collection & how to collect?

While I have quite a good memory in which games I have in my collection already, it’s always a great idea to have an index. This way you can easily look up if you already have the game or not.

Do put this index file in an easily editable file somewhere in online storage. Personally, I have the games I really want to find in a text document stored in my Dropbox. This way I can easily check while I’m walking at the garage sale which games I’m looking for.

Something I still have to do is make a huge list of all the games that are in my collection. Since I actually want to know how many games I own and how many games I own for each platform. It’s something that is on my bucket list for 2018. This will take quite a lot of time since I have big plans in mind.

Besides physical games, I do collect the merchandise. mostly figurines, clothing and various other pieces of merch. I have one big glass cabinet for all my figurines. I actually enjoy from time to time figuring out how to display them.

So, how can you start collecting? Besides going to garage sales and thrift stores, you can look at 2nd hand websites for people selling their games. Sometimes I buy “a lot”. This means that I buy a bundle of games that somebody doesn’t need anymore. In various cases, I buy games that I already own but I use these games to sell again or to trade.

Trading can be a great way to get rid of your duplicates and get new games into your collection. This is why networking is so important to collectors. I’m in a group of retro game collectors on Facebook and I follow various retro game reviewers on Twitter and YouTube. This way I learn from their experience and stories.

Do network! For real, almost all my coworkers know that I collect games and I have gotten so many games from coworkers who cleaned up their attic or their kids didn’t want their games anymore. One time, I actually was called up by a store that somebody brought in a lot of big boxed PC games and this way I was able to buy a game I always wanted to have.

Anyways, that’s all the general advice I want to give for now. I hope that you learned something about the art of collecting games. While I can tell and teach you a lot more, I’m going to close off the article right here. Maybe I write a follow-up article to this one with more advice and some stories of garage sales.

In any case, thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed 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!

Gamer’s Thoughts: Giving out Blogging Advice

So, a few days ago, I got asked on Twitter how I was able to write an article each and every week. In that same tweet, I got asked how I found the time and energy to even write two articles a day for two weeks. That kept me thinking, maybe I should write an article where I talk about some blogging advice I would give to people who want to start blogging and want some pointers or some stories from experienced bloggers. If you look in previous articles of my “gamer’s thoughts” series, you will find various other articles where I talk about the life of a game blogger. I even talked about my whole process how I work an idea for an article. Yet, here are some more pieces of advice I can give you as somebody who has been blogging for 7, 5 years about games and isn’t sick of it in the slightest. Also, don’t take this advice as gospel. These are the things I would say to new bloggers, but take these more as things that could help you blogging instead of things you have to do to have a good or great blog. In addition to that, any questions or other suggestions, that’s where the comments are for!

Side note: Since I have been a gaming blogger all my life, I will mostly talk as a game blogger.

Work out a theme

A great thing to start with is a theme for your articles. The theme of my blog is my journey as a gamer through life. I write articles about the games I played or subjects I want to talk about. In addition to that, I’m a retro game collector and I enjoy playing games that not too many other gamers play. If you are worried that your personality might not be interesting enough for people to start reading your blog, don’t worry. Think first about what you want to write about and then start blogging.

Also, make the theme on your blog clear enough. Blogs without a general theme don’t have any selling points for other people to start reading your blog. For example, I enjoy it when people say to me that they discovered a new game because I talked about it.

A great example of a theme is blog run by the Well Red Mage. He has a whole blog setup where everything is themed where each writer is a mage in a sort of fantasy RPG called the life of a gamer. It’s really enjoyable to read in the right mindset and I think it’s a great example for a theme.

 

If you are thinking of a theme, and this will sound quite logical, but take a theme that fits you and isn’t something you will regret about later. I enjoy talking about the games I add to my collection and I can still do some little tweaks here and there to my theme, but I feel comfortable with the theme I have on my blog.

While I’m talking about a theme, branding is everything. Look for a name and something that can stick. Make a logo and banner for your blog and social media where people can easily recognize you and what you are about. For real, branding and a right theme can help you quite a lot to write.

Do NOT overdo social media

So, do you need a Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, DevaintArt, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat…. for your blog? Well, while it can be quite useful to have some presence in the social space; it can also hurt your blog in the long run. If you have too many dead social media accounts or accounts only used to spread your articles, people won’t be interested in it. There is a reason why I only have a Twitter & Tumblr for my blog.

I use Twitter to quickly post updates on my blog for when I’m unable to write an article or when I want to share a quick thought. I use Tumblr to share things that are too long to put into a tweet, like when I want to share a list of games I’m thinking about reviewing or some blog updates I did. But, every post I do on Tumblr is shared on Twitter. So, there is one account people have to follow and can get all their information from. Otherwise you might create the illusion that information can be spread over various accounts that are mostly inactive.

So setup only the social media accounts you are planning to manage. Don’t set up social media accounts just to spread your articles or your online presence. You will divide your audience even more and it has the potential to cause an even bigger headache.

Something that is extremely handy for a blog is a contact page. Make your contact page inviting but also state rules of contact. For example, take a look at mine, I clearly state that if game studios want me to review their game, I have to be interested in it. I don’t promote things that I don’t feel comfortable with. Why should I promote things I don’t even believe in myself?

Worrying about numbers

In my honest opinion, I don’t worry about the numbers of my articles too much. The main reason why I blog is to have fun and have the ability to write about my thoughts and opinions. I think that you only should worry about the numbers if you are making money from your blog. If you are doing it as a hobby and you don’t want to make it a job, do not worry too much about the numbers.

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pay any attention to the numbers of your blog. I find it very flattering when people enjoy my content and write comments, like and share my articles. Personally, I aim to have at least one like on my article. Even when I don’t get any likes on my article on WordPress, if somebody favorited the tweet of the article, I’m happy. That way I know that the article was good enough to be enjoyed by somebody. And that is my main goal, entertaining people.

Use the analytics to draw conclusions. Look at the articles that pull in a lot of views and analyses them why they work. What did people like about it? For example, I wrote an article in the past about one of my favorite Dutch edutainment games, but it didn’t pull in too many views. This means that if I want to talk about other games like that, I could write about those games when I have some other big articles in the works people are excited for. As a “filler article” you know?

In my experience, I find that thinking about if an article will bring enough readers limits my creative freedom. Since I love talking about games that I play and in most cases, they aren’t the mainstream games.

All I’m saying here is, as long as your blog is a hobby, don’t lose sleep over the fact that sometimes your numbers will be low.

Write how you want

There are literally millions of tutorials out there on how you can start creative writing. While they are interesting to read, I highly advise you to not follow them to the T. Just like drawing, writing is an art form you learn by practicing. While I realize that some people have the natural talent to write stories and articles like it’s nothing. Take it from me, a guy who has written stories all his life since childhood, natural talent can take you only so far as you allow it to go.

I taught a lot of my writing skills by analyzing other writers their work and not only written works. I looked at the story in games, movies, comics amongst other things. Why did they first reveal this before they revealed the other thing? Learn from other creators and use this as a base for the way how you want to write. It took me quite a few attempts to find out how I want to write. I usually first lay out how I want the article to be, then I look for good screenshots and then I start to write the actual article. I always listen to music while I’m writing.

Something I can’t stand while writing is a podcast or watching a video. For some reason, that distracts me too much from what I’m writing and I tend to write about what I’m hearing instead of what I wanted to write about. Also, I tend to try out different programs to write in. Some articles are written directly in the editor of WordPress, some articles are written in WordPad on one of my retro gaming computers and others are written in Notepad++. I enjoy changing things up once in a while, to have a different mindset while writing.

Personally, something I find dangerous to look at is the word count. I know so many articles that could have been so much better if I didn’t limit myself to my usual 1000-1500 words limit. Sometimes you need more or fewer words to get your point across. If you want to write walls upon walls of text, go ahead. But beware, the longer you make an article, the smaller the chance is that it will be fully read.

Also, whenever you are writing and you feel that something doesn’t work, rewrite it until you feel happy with it. Know that the first version of most articles will most likely be the worst version of it. Even I had to always make edits after I finished the first version to make the article flow a bit better.

Avoid burning out

Don’t ever force yourself into writing an article. It’s a golden rule that you can take from me. When you don’t feel like writing, just don’t write. I can personally read an article when I forced myself to write about something. Rarely do they come out good and I rather delete it then continue to write it. There are so many articles that I started to write but halfway deleted.

But how am I able to write an article each week and sometimes even two articles a day? Well, ever heard about writing articles in advance and storing them for later? Or, in one of the past weekends, I had a writing session where I wrote around 10 articles in two days. Know that the actual writing process takes around an hour and a half for me. Yeah, I had a writing marathon. I enjoy writing so much that I write to relax.

If you want to start a gaming blog like myself, start writing the article in your head while you are still playing the game or doing research. Have a notebook or a tablet nearby where you can put quick thoughts and notes in. Even start writing paragraphs in it.

Also, look to your day and how much time you lose by doing literally nothing. If you have the downtime, use it to think about your writing. Not all the time of course, since that will possibly cause a burnout. If there is anything you should avoid that is burning out in writing. Like I said earlier if you have to force yourself into writing, don’t write. I have been there. It’s better to take a break from writing and try again later.

Conclusion

So, that is all the advice I have to give for now. My biggest advice is, write how you want and about what you want. If you keep enjoying writing, you will put soul into your work and you will automatically attract readers. Together with a theme and an active social media presence, you will get far. Also, remember that is an extremely fun but time-consuming hobby. While most of this advice is catered towards the people who wanted to start blogging for fun, I think this article has also some advice for more professional people.

If I explained anything unclear or you have some questions for me or other bloggers, go down to the comments and start a conversation. I’ll do my best to helping you where I can.

In any case, I thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you had as much fun as I had 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.

The Blogger Recognition Award

Three years ago, I got an award from Allaweh. In 2014, I got an award as well. Last year, I was put onto a list of the top 100 bloggers according to FeedSpot. And now I have been selected for a new award! I have been selected by GamersUnitedGG for the Blogger Recognition Award. So, thank you! Go check GamersUnitedGG out. So, give them some love! 

A word of thanks

It might sound like a cliché, something that every blogger or content creator will say. Thank you for the recognition. Thank you for all of this. I seriously mean it. Remember, I write this blog as a hobby of mine. I spend a lot of time researching and playing games so I can write about them on my blog.

You get a special kind of amazing feeling when you get selected for an award from a fellow content creator. Since, in my opinion, those are one of the pickiest audiences out there. They always have things you could improve amongst other things.

But that’s beside the point, now it’s my time to shine a bit. So, yeah.

Here are the award rules:

• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
• Write a post to show your award.
• Give a brief story of how your blog started.
• Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
• Select 15 other bloggers you want to give this award to.
• Comment on each blog and let them know you have nominated them and provide the link to the post you created.

How did my blog start?

I’m quite sure I explained this story several times before. But hey, it doesn’t hurt to tell it again.

As a kid, I always dreamt of making something to entertain people. Around summer 2010, I was surfing on the internet. That evening, I had a party to attend to. There were a lot of people, I hadn’t seen in years. And I had to tell the same story over and over again. When I got home, I got so tired of it and I decided to create a blog so I can share stories from my life without having to write essays on Facebook.

But, blogging got it hooks placed its hooks into me pretty fast. It didn’t take long before I decided to write game reviews amongst other things about games. I even got into an argument of some sorts with a TV-station. But that story, I have already told in an interview I did some time ago.  I have already told in an interview I did some time ago.

Due to some personal things, I had to remove my blog. According to my archives, I started that blog in July 2010 and I deleted May 2012. But I was never really able to let it go. So, after a break of a year, where I mostly created YouTube videos (that got deleted as well because they were too bad), I restarted writing. All thanks to the reboot of the Tomb Raider series!

My advice to (new) bloggers

Because I felt like it, I will give a bit more advice to new bloggers. This is what I think could help new bloggers out!

1. Stay true to yourself. Seriously. Don’t force yourself to write or to create content. People will start to notice when the soul of your content leaves your content. Also, don’t always write about something because it’s a hot topic and other people are talking about it. Unless you want to do it professionally. Because you only get some temporary attention. For example, I’m a big Legend Of Zelda fan. It would be very easy for me to write about every new detail about the upcoming Zelda game. But, I would pull in a lot of Zelda fans that are only interested in the Zelda content… And I would betray myself since I avoid news about the content of upcoming games as much as I can since, spoilers man! And yes, when you don’t make it fun for yourself, I can guarantee you that you will burn out on blogging.
2. Buy a notebook or a tablet. I have explained this before, but take notes and organize them well. I honestly choose a tablet since I can write notes on it pretty easily and I can take quick reference screenshots or make small reference videos. Those are synced to my Dropbox so I can use them for research or for writing the article.
3. Develop a writing ritual. I always write an article in one go if I can. I always listen to the game soundtrack while reviewing or writing about a certain game. It helps me to stay in the atmosphere of the subject I want to write about. But, if you want to know more about my process for writing reviews and first impressions, you can read more here.
4. Lay-out is so important! Seriously, I have given up on reading so many articles when it looks like one wall of text. Use images, a nice to read font and test if everything is enjoyable to read before you publish it.

Who deserves this award as well?

So, here we go, these bloggers deserve this award as well.

1. Shinju Forest – I got to know you on Twitter, and I read your blog several times. Great stuff! Keep it up!
2. the Well Red Mage – After I got interviewed by them, I kept coming back to their blog.
3. PewPewCat – Okay, a gamer who loves cats as well? I’m sold! She started blogging on her own last year, so show her some support!
4. LaterLevels – Just check them out, I think they are awesome!
5. United We Game – There is a lot of great stuff on their blog! Check ’em out.
6. Drakulus – I enjoy interacting with him. We both read each other’s articles and I think that’s amazing.
7. The Otaku Judge – Thank you for reading my blog mate! Your blog is a nice read as well!
8. Hundstrasse – An interesting blog that takes a look at new and retro games.
9. Killer Robotics – As a student in applied computer science, I get very interested in people building robots. I’m quite jealous since I wish I could build them, but I’m too clumsy to make one. But, I love his tech and game content the most.
10. I love Old Games! – I do love reading about oldschool retro games! So, this blog is awesome in my book.
11. Takuto’s Anime Cafe – As you guys know, to relax, I watch anime. And this blog is one of the best anime blogs out there. I love the layout of his articles.
12. ButtonSmashers – Hi mates! How are you guys doing?

While I know that the rules say that I need to nominate 15 bloggers, but at the moment of writing, I’m not following many other blogs. In any case, I’ll notify everybody of their award. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you in another article on my blog, but until then… have a great rest of your day and take care!

Review: Time Hollow (DS) ~ DAT Themesong.

Wikipedia entry

Alright, in order to celebrate some milestones, it’s time to review a game that’s very special to me. I begged Konami to make a sequel of this game. But why? Is this game really so good that it deserves a sequel or am I just being hopeful because I love this game? Before writing this review I replayed the whole game. Just to be sure I wasn’t going to forget anything when I would review this game. I have beaten this game 3 times. I might have beaten it more than 3 times, I honestly don’t remember. This game is extremely memorable to me because I can relate with the main character. Not only that, the soundtrack just helps me write. And the main theme, yes, the main theme. I selected that once in an article about my favorite music tracks in games. So, I don’t have to explain myself there. So, before we continue, this game is a visual novel and adventure game. Like Ace Attorney or Professor Layton. So, because of that, this game falls into my favorite game genre ever. Because this game’s strongest point is the story, I decided to not have any spoilers here! YAY! Anyways, let’s get to reviewing this game. As always, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this article and or your opinion on the game. 

I open my eyes, to another day.

In this game, you play as Ethan. His birthday is the next day. After you meet his family and the basic characters are set, the story flips the tables on you and takes you on quite a ride. Yes, his parents go missing. They aren’t kidnapped. Since Ethan had a nightmare. In that nightmare, he saw his parents fleeing a burning building through a portal.

That’s all I’ll tell you about the story. Apart from my views about it, of course. So, the story is amazingly written. The build up to the final part is thrilling. The story has several chapters. As the title suggests, you will have to mess with the time and past events. I’m just blown away by how the problems you have to solve can build up to the actual villain of the game.

But here we hit one of the biggest weak points of the game. The game is short. Not as short as Lili’s: Child Of Geos, but I was able to beat this game in a week. Maybe my experience with adventure games helped me, but still, comparing it to other adventure games on the Nintendo DS, this one is too short.

At the other hand, this isn’t such a bad point. The story doesn’t get messy with too many events which makes the story really memorable. The writers truly focused on the personality of the characters. You see them grow and change with each change you make. In the end, you will start to hate certain characters and get attached to others. Mostly due to the brilliant writing. The story never feels; how to say this? Made longer on purpose, so you have a longer game to play. It truly benefits the game since you get to know the location better!

Taking back what was mine.

Also, CAPCOM, take notes please. In this game they nailed the voice acting perfectly. They didn’t use voice acting outside the cutscenes. While using it outside the cutscenes was rather interesting, you can create awkward breaks in it. While there aren’t many cutscenes in this game, they did place them nicely. After solving a big problem, being rewarded with a cutscene is such a sweet feeling.

Sound design wise, they did an amazing job. The sound effects make the game feel truly alive. While I would have used a bit more sound effects if I made the game, I have nothing bad to say about them. Even the voice acting is way better compared to another Konami title I really love as well, Suikoden Tierkreis.

So, the gameplay of this game. Well, it’s pretty fascinating. You are presented with an issue. It’s up to you to solve it using Ethan’s special powers. It has something to do with time. Yet, you still want to find out what happened to your parents. The game requires you going to certain places and talking to people.

It doesn’t sound like much, yet it’s strangely addicting. Mostly because the story is really well-made, I wanted to continue to play!

In the end

The difficulty in this game lies into if you are familiar with the style of gameplay or not. Like I said earlier, this game is rather at the short side for veteran adventure gamers. At the other hand, I do expect new players to the genre getting stuck at certain parts. To avoid that you get frustrated, there is a character that’s “training her psychic abilities”. She is basically giving you a clue what to do next or where to go next.

Visually, this game really shines. On this front, I honestly do disagree with the other reviewers. I have seen review where they give this game only a 5 or 6 on the visual aspect. And I don’t think that’s enough. Because most of this game is told through its presentation. This game is more like an interactive book. There isn’t a lot of animation to talk about, apart from the flashbacks and cutscenes. I honestly loved revisiting certain places just because of the visual polish this game got.

So, before we go to my conclusion, I do think I have to speak my mind about the replay value. This game has a small bit of replay value. Because there are two different endings. You can only unlock the 2nd ending once you finished the game. Also, the 2nd ending is more for… Whoops, I nearly spoiled a part of the game.

Yeah, because of the genre of this game, there isn’t any replay value besides the second ending. The only time you might replay it, is when you want to review it or just feel like replaying this game.

So, time to move on to the conclusion!

Conclusion

The bad:

– Way too short.

– Failed to bring innovation to the genre, where there was potential.

The good:

+ Amazing story.

+ Unique gameplay.

+ Amazing soundtrack

+ …

Final thoughts:

The biggest setback of this game is that it is short. Way to short. Because of that, I see how a lot of people won’t really get into this game. Honestly, playing through the game for a couple of times, I wasn’t able to find any other negative besides just the length of the game.

I honestly get the feeling that this game is polished to perfection instead of made longer. I might just be blinded a bit because of my love for this game. Who knows? I invite you to play this game and tell me what you think. If you liked games like Ace Attorney or Trace Memory on the DS, it would be a shame if you missed out on this one!

Score: 75/100

Gamer’s Thoughts: The curse of being a critic?

I’m NekoJonez, 21 years old. I live in Belgium and I have been writing gaming related articles for over 5 years now. It has been quite a ride to be honest. But nothing prepared me for the curse that you get even without you wanting it. Yes, there are downsides in being a gaming critic. And not only the obvious ones. Believe me. In this article I will introduce my new series. In Gamer’s thoughts I will talk about a subject in detail that isn’t exactly 1 game. Look at it as expanded game quickies as well. So, that is a sub-series of this series of articles. Anyways, that blog update aside, let’s dive right into my thoughts on the matter of being a critic. Feel free to leave a comment on this article about the subject or what I have written. Thanks in advance.

The road to success?

What exactly do you need to do as a critic to be a successful one? Review the latest of the latest? Then you might have just finished an article about Watch_Dogs. Or should you go looking all over the internet for that one flash game that is so bad, it’s good and everybody should play it?

It’s a tough balancing act. This is a part of the curse of a critic. What style are you going to choose to write your articles, make your video’s … From experience, I have one thing to say on this matter. You have one of two different possibilities here.

One, you stick with one specific area in the gaming world. For example: Nintendo, EA, puzzle games… etc. You follow that company like it’s your life savings. Each new pixel revealed of their next game is like a bit out of your favorite food. These guys are sometimes, if not all of the time, the hypers. They create the hype for the next big triple A game.

And the other possibility is like myself. I honestly don’t care about staying true to one style of games. I play (too) much games.  While I admit that I enjoy Nintendo games the most, I think I have proven on my blog that I can enjoy a PC game or a PSP game as well.

I have proof as well. This picture here are my latest catch at the garage sale I went to before writing this article. While there is a ton of Gameboy games and Pokémon merchandise. I also got a few big boxed PC games and some Playstation games.

So, it’s always a challenge. What do you do on your channel, blog or site? The video’s of big names on YouTube always say: “Do what you want to do.” or “Do something you want to do.” While that’s important, there are people easily getting views of playing those games that are extremely hyped.

Ever noticed that the Let’s Plays of those series have a weird drop in their views? The first view episodes have a big number of views. The following episodes have a drop in viewers. Why is this? Well, that’s because some people look up footage before they buy. Be sure of that.

Social media pains

A real struggle for me is how time consuming the social media is. You need to update your Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr… It piles up to a huge amount. Honestly, I can’t keep up with it.

In the past, I followed back all my followers. Now, one hot tip for the starting entertainers out there. Don’t do that. It’s just insanity waiting for you.

When I started unfollowing people on Twitter that either flood my feed with tweets, where in a language I didn’t understand or where inactive for years, I saw my follower number drop.

Now, you can argue that you should support your other small entertainers. But, is this really what you should do? Don’t get me wrong here, but we aren’t a publishing house. We are content creators. I write a gaming blog where I talk about the games I play or the gaming industry.

Only follow the people you find interesting. Don’t go following the big names to try and get attention. It won’t work in the long run. I wonder how many “dead subscribers” the big channels, sites and such have.

Do I care about the number of followers I have. Yes, in a way I do. But the most important to me is that I can interact with my followers. I hate people that just follow you to promote themselves. I don’t follow them anymore to avoid a messy Twitter feed. Now, I have a cleaner Twitter feed and I can keep myself up-to-date with the news I want. And this way I can be more efficient for my blog.

So you want to start blogging?

I haven’t fully finished talking about this subject yet. So, be sure that I continue this article with a follow-up. But before I sign off, I want to share some tips that I think are important when you want to start blogging. Since I have been blogging for 5 years. Maybe some of these things can help.

1) Don’t care about the numbers too much. Every start is rough. You will see highs and lows in the numbers. But don’t let it influence your writing. If one article didn’t do as well in numbers, it doesn’t mean it was a bad article.

2) Invite people to comment and don’t force it. Out of experience I have seen that the articles where I invite my readers to comment on my article, I see comments appearing. But don’t expect a comment on each article. Since the comment section should mean more to you, as the writer, then a place where people can “dump” their praise for the article. The comment section is meant to talk back and forth with the people who read your article. Try to use the comment section in that way instead of asking how they liked the article. You get better feedback this way.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed reading this first bit of my thoughts on things. This article replaces a creepypasta I was planning. It didn’t quite work out, so I had to scrap it. But don’t worry, one of these days you will see a new one from me. Like I said before, I will most likely come back on this subject. But for now, this is all. See you in another article.