NekoJonez’s December 2020 Update

We are in the final days of 2020 and my lord, what a year it has been. I think it’s high time to talk about my plans for 2021 and the future in the form of an update article. What has been going on in my personal life and what will the future bring? Well, let’s dive right into the updates!

Personal updates

Let’s start off with the personal updates. First of all, I have to bring the news that my car broke down after 10+ years of service. I bought myself a Citroen C3 in red. I’ll post pictures on my Twitter when it arrives next month. While I could get it serviced and fixed, the cost of the repair would be way higher than the value of the car if I would sell it today. So, that’s why I decided to purchase my very own car. The car I was driving was my mother’s old car which my sister and I used to learn how to drive.

Now, this car became my car when I moved to my apartment. Yes, I’m now living on my own. Honestly, I don’t live alone since Troy moved in with me. Currently, he is sleeping in one of my spare relax chairs while I’m writing this article. He keeps me company while I’m playing games, researching, writing articles and doing stuff in my apartment.

In earlier update articles, I talked about me starting my dream job last year. A year ago, I started working as an IT-admin at an art school. This is a dream that came true since I always wanted to combine my passion for technology and education and the fact that it’s in art secondary school is just an amazing bonus since I see so much great art that’s being produced by our students.

Currently, I’m doing this job full time. One of my bigger projects is revamping the website of the school, being a first line support for tech issues, automating and optimizing processes and many other things. Now, this means that a lot of my time and energy goes to my job that I love doing. I’ll talk a bit more on what this means for my schedule later in this update article.

The final personal update I can give is that I’m doing a tech clean-up. What I mean with that is that I’m upgrading everything from a better monitor and equipment to play (retro) games to throwing away things that don’t work anymore or don’t have any purpose being stored in my drawers.

For example, I tried to install Windows 98SE recently on an IBM PC I had laying around. Sadly enough, during the installation I discovered that the sound chip was broken. I don’t have the expertise nor do I have the knowledge to fix motherboards. On top of that, due to some malfunction in the case, one of the IDE cables decided to melt to the power brick and part of the motherboard. Yeah, that computer is dead now.

I’m also throwing out old spare laptops that I kept for spare parts. I did recover some laptops to give to students who don’t have the money nor the budget to get their computer. That way they could follow the classes during the COVID lockdowns. But some devices were too old for that, so they go to our local tech recycle center.

Now, in terms of upgrades I got myself a new computer monitor for example.  Currently, I’m using the ASUS TUF Gaming VG27VQ and as a second monitor I’m using an Iiyama Prolite GE2488HS. I’m considering upgrading my Iiyama monitor but on the other hand, I use this monitor since it has a VGA port I can use for my retro computers to play older games on. But I love the curved nature of my new Asus monitor and the high refresh rate give the games I play on it such a nicer experience.

Currently, I upgraded my router to an Asus ROG one and the additional security features it gives me in my next work are just amazing. And for obvious reasons I won’t be talking about how I set-up my network. Something I’m going to talk about is that I upgraded my Asus Zenfone 3 to an Asus Zenfone 7. And let me tell you, what a difference it makes. The Zenfone 7 is one of the best phones I ever used, it helps me to do work on the go and the battery lasts me such a long time it’s crazy. I also upgraded my TV and printer. Living alone is such a great experience. Now, I have total control over my network and devices to the extend I want.

With that said, I think it’s high time to shift the focus over to the updates in terms of my blog and what the future will bring in 2021. Since it won’t be a surprise that the remaining articles of this year will be my top 10 games of 2020 and the games I’m looking forward to play in 2021. Of course, it’s possible that I finish an article on a game and/or a developer request in the meantime and publish it.

Blog news

I turned 27 years old/young this year. That means, I have been blogging for 10 years this year. Yes, I started my Dutch blog that preceded this blog in late 2010. I rebranded myself in 2013 to this English blog and I haven’t stopped since. I haven’t done anything special since I really didn’t have the time nor a good idea to celebrate my 10 years in the community.

Maybe I’ll write something unique and special next year or when I hit 10 years of blogging on this blog but only time will tell. Since I can’t promise I’ll be able to write weekly anymore.

Due to my focus on my job and me living on my own, that means that the time I have to play games, research them, write and edit my articles is rather limited. I honestly thought that I wrote way less articles this year compared the to previous years but color me surprised that I wrote almost 52 articles this year when everything will be said and done. Granted, I wrote close to 90 articles last year but I publishing various press kits this year so I think that number is a bit inflated. Also, I put a lot more work and effort into the articles I write compared to last year.

So, I won’t promise that I’ll be able to write an article every week in 2021. I won’t be able to promise that I might be able to write more than one article during my vacation times. From a personal experiment I found that not forcing myself to write weekly and trying to push out an article in a weekend create a not-so-good article in the end.

Does this mean I have a more loose schedule? Well, I haven’t fully decided on that yet. Honestly, I don’t really think that will be case at this moment in time. I think you might see less articles when my personal life gets quite busy like when my acting group can restart after the COVID lockdowns and when things get quite hectic at work (like when we have an open school day).

I also want to do more community events in 2021. I felt that I missed a lot of amazing collabs and events in 2020 due to my busy personal schedule. So, if you are organizing a blogging community event, feel free to tag me on Twitter, DM or mail me. When I can fit it in my schedule I’ll.

The last thing I want to give you guys and girls an update about is the Pokémon Retrospective Collab. At this moment, we have 12 writers (including myself). We also have found a name for the collab. The name that we currently have agreed upon is “Creator’s Catch” and the current publishing date will be the 27th of February. That would be the 25th anniversary of Pokémon Red & Green in Japan.

Now, if you are still interested in joining this collab, there are still some spin-offs open. At the moment of writing, the Rumble series, Trozei, Puzzle, PokePark amongst one time spin off games are still open. Feel free to hit me up if you are interested in joining and join our lovely collab.

Oh, I’m forgetting about one thing. And that are the updates to the old articles. Currently, I’m updating these old articles whenever I have the time and feeling like updating them. As stated before, I don’t want to update these articles with new content, I only want to fix up grammar and spelling mistakes, broken links and images. But, they will be less of a focus of mine. It’s like keeping my overview pages up to date. I still have to work on those…

Phew, that has been everything to update you guys and girls about. I hope you enjoyed reading this article 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.

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Personal: What’s on my phone

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About a year ago, I wanted a new phone. My first smartphone was a Samsung, which was my 2nd and 3rd smartphone as well. I always wanted to try a different brand and since I bought an Asus Zenpad 8S in 2016 for my birthday, I wanted to give the Asus Zenfone a try. I’m quite content with my Asus Zenfone 3 MAX. I have the 5.5-inch version, so it’s quite a big phone in my opinion. So, a while ago, there was a tag challenge in the tech community to tell your audience what you have on your phone. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I still want to do it. So, here we go. Also, I invite other bloggers to do the same thing. What is on your phone? If you write an article about it, feel free to tag me on Twitter or link to this article. Or feel free to leave a comment here as well. 

Mini review

So, before we go to the main event, I first want to give a mini-review on the Asus Zenfone 3 MAX. What are the things that I love and dislike about the phone? I have been using this phone for a year now. If you want to read up on the specs of my phone, you can read it here on gsmarena.com.

There are a few things I dislike about this phone. If you use the screen at max brightness and either WiFi or 4G, the phone’s battery drains quite fast. Lowering the brightness helps quite a lot to save battery. Another thing has to do with the call quality. Sometimes the microphone doesn’t pick up my voice too well and the other end doesn’t hear me, but if I reposition the phone a bit, that fixes the issue. Another thing I dislike is that buttons like home or back aren’t backlit. But, that’s all I really dislike about this phone. While other reviewers would find other things wrong with it, I really like this phone and it fits my needs perfectly.

So, what are the things I really like about this phone? It’s my first phone with a fingerprint reader. This makes life so much easier. More on that later. Another thing I really like is how this phone seems to get frequent updates to the latest version of Android and all the latest security patches. I prefer the ZenUI over TouchWiz any day of the week. The camera on the phone is really good for family pictures in my opinion. But, the biggest factor for this phone is that it’s priced at 250-280€ and you get an amazing phone for that price.

What’s on my phone?

Now, what’s on my phone? Quite a lot actually. I nearly always carry my phone with me since it’s a handy tool when I need to look up something quickly or snap a quick picture of something I need to remind myself of.

Since I’m rarely at my desk at work, I always have my phone with me. So, they can call me whenever there is a problem. Also, I love listing to music while walking and I use my phone as an old school music player. So, my music app is one of my most frequently used apps.

First of all, I won’t talk about every single app that’s on my phone. There are quite a few games I have installed on my phone for when I’m in a waiting room or have some time on the train and the batteries of my 3DS or Switch are out. I’ll only talk about the apps I placed on my home screen since those are the apps I use the most.

Whenever there is an app I use often, I place it on my home screen. If I stop using it frequently, I remove it from my home screen and replace it with something else I use frequently.

This is my first home screen. This screen greets me when I unlock my phone. For obvious reasons, I won’t show how I unlock my phone. On the left of my main home screen is the Google Assistant/Google Now. This way I can catch up with the latest news of the subjects I’m interested in. On the right, there is a 2nd home screen with additional apps. More on that later.

At the bottom, I use the classic vanilla apps. From left to right, you have the dialer, my text messages, a button to see all apps, Chrome, and my camera. On top of my home screen is a big clock with the date displayed. Besides that clock, I have the messenger app. I talk quite often to friends over messenger and if I want to share a link, Messenger is the easiest way. Underneath that, you have the Play Store. Each morning, I update all my apps and check the store if there isn’t anything interesting that I could review on my blog.

Then, you have three rows of 4 apps each. The first row is my calendar, my finder app, Discord, and Dropbox. The calendar app is Google Calendar. I use this app often to remind myself of things I need to do. I put more than just my appointments or birthdays in my calendar. Things like: “Article day”, “Write the time for the final project”, “Write a piece for collab” or “Release of thing X” are things that appear in my calendar as well. Appointments have a red color and things I need to do have either blue or yellow. Blue if it’s something I could delay and yellow if it’s urgent or if it can’t be delayed.

The file explorer is the one that comes with Asus’ ZenUI and I love it. It gives me Windows-vibes and it’s really great to use. Whenever I download a file, I can quickly find it with this app. When you open it, you can select to view all images, videos, music, documents… on your phone or just explore the phone. An amazing feature here is that I can set up a wireless method of accessing the files on my phone. When my phone and the device I want to access from being connected to the same network, I can wirelessly access the files on my phone. It creates a link I can visit and I see the same thing as the file explorer app. This app saved me various times.

I use Discord to talk to other bloggers and friends from over the whole world. I’m also part of some servers where game developers look for bloggers to promote their games. If you want to add me on Discord, just shoot me a message over Twitter. But, an app I use really frequently as well. I actually have Dropbox Pro, since I use this as a backup method. I have close to 500GB stored in my Dropbox. Everything from files I need for work to my final project is in there. So, I never worry too much about dying hard drives or losing my files. I also use the Photo Sync feature of Dropbox. This feature saves all the pictures I make with my phone in my Dropbox so I can use them directly on my computer or all the other devices I connected to Dropbox.

In the second row, we find Instagram, WordPress, YouTube, and WhatsApp. I do have an Instagram profile, but don’t frequently use it. I enjoy browsing Instagram to see what my friends are up to. If you can’t guess why I use the WordPress app, well, I use it for checking and fixing things on my blog on the go. So, I’m quite a big fan of YouTube. I love watching tech channels, retro gaming channels, game development channels and various other channels relating to creating things. The final app on that row is Whatsapp. I mostly use that app to keep in contact with my family or my theater group. That’s all I use Whatsapp for.

The final row on my main home screen is the row with the most used apps on my phone. Twitter, since I’m quite active on Twitter. Outlook to check my mails and “Nationaal” is the app I use to check the train schedule to get from and to work. I know that I skipped an app. That’s “Pulsar+“. In one of the firmware updates of my phone, Asus removed the quite excellent ZenUI music app. So, I searched high and low for a great music app on the Play Store. First I used Pi MP3 Player, but I started to run into issues. For some reason, no apps wanted to update on my phone after I installed that app.

Not too long after, I found Pulsar. I liked the app so much, I actually bought the premium version. It includes additional themes and some neat additional features. I can’t recommend this app enough if you enjoy listing to music on your phone. It’s one of the best apps I have used in a while.

So, on my 2nd home screen are the apps I use less frequently but I want quick access too. Let’s start with the first row. This has the Facebook app, the UEFA soccer app, a weather app, and the Nintendo Switch Online app. The weather app, AccuWeather, is an amazing weather app. It’s quite accurate in my area and I use it to check if I need to take an umbrella on my walks or not. I use the UEFA soccer app since the soccer app of my local sports channel doesn’t have the UEFA Nations League tables built-in. I use the Facebook app since I dislike the website on mobile and I find that it was quicker and easier access to certain features. And finally the Switch online app, I use that app for if I want to voice chat during online Switch play.

The next row has the Steam app, for when I want to check the Steam Store and to have an additional layer of security for my Steam account. Besides that, the Easy Banking app is the app I use to check my finances. Then, you have the Sporza Soccer app. I use this app to follow my local soccer league and to see what the Red Devils, our national soccer team is up to. And Bancontact is used for quick payments, once you set up this app, paying for the doctor goes so quickly.

Oh, before I continue, quick side note. If you are American, I mean football when I say soccer. That said, let’s continue.

The next row has my gallery. When I need to show a picture of somebody. I find the way that the gallery app sorts pictures better than how my finder app sorts them. Besides that, you have the calculator app. Strangely, this is one of the only apps that doesn’t have its name translated in the ZenUI to Dutch. It such say “rekenmachine”. Oh well. It doesn’t bother me that much. Then, you have the Maps app, I use it as a GPS. And finally on that row, you have Imgur, for quickly uploading pictures and since I love this website.

The final row has the Telenet Mobile app. This app is from my ISP and I use this app to check on how much mobile data I have left. Besides that, you got Reddit. I have periods when I get very addicted to Reddit and go on the site a lot and there are moments I rarely visit the site. The final two icons on that row are the Patreon app and the Grumpy Cat game.

I use the Patreon app to check on posts the creators made that I support on Patreon and the Grumpy Cat game is just one of my favorite games on my phone at the moment.

You might notice that I leave one row empty. This row is my temp row. On this row I place apps I just installed and I want to test or if a developer asks me to review them. So yes, that screenshot might be a teaser for an upcoming article. Whenever I tested them or wrote the article, I usually remove them from my home screen.

A few apps that I want to mention that aren’t on my home screen are:

Ringtone Maker – MP3 Cutter – One feature I miss from Samsung is that when you select a song as a ringtone, it searches the best part of the track to start the ringtone. This app solves that and I can even choose from where start my ringtone.

Datasize Explorer Pro – Whenever I’m running low on space on my phone, I use this app to check which apps take up a lot of space and I should remove or clean the cache of.

WiFi Analyzer – If you are a techie or a networking person, this app is a must on Android devices. It helps you to visualize WiFi to help you troubleshoot issues with WiFi.

And all the other apps, outside of games, are apps from local stores here in Belgium or the Netherlands I use to shop or to buy my retro games from. Or your typical apps that almost everybody has like Shazam. And a few apps I don’t think are worth mentioning.

So, that was quite a lot. I’m quite curious to see which phones you guys have and for what you use it and what apps are on your phones. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. It was something different from what I usually do, but next time I’ll get back into gaming stuff. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Publishing: Fincon’s Mobile RPG, Hello Hero Sequel Opens for Pre-registration!

With over 8 million registered users and 2.1 million Facebook Fans, Fincon’s top social RPG, Hello Hero is offering its sequel, Hello Hero: Epic Battle. This hit and immersive Mobile RPG opens for Pre-registration! Join now and get a chance to take home awesome gifts and surprises!

Calling all RPG enthusiasts to come and be part of the growing community of Hello Hero: Epic Battle! Start pre-registering now! Currently, open to Southeast Asia and opening it more to other regions, really soon! Here is the link:

Start pre-registering NOW! https://goo.gl/jcLUuj

Hello Hero is an immersive Mobile RPG offering over 100 customizable bizarre heroes, impressive 3D graphics, and myriad monster-collecting chores. It switches from usual landscape gaming into portrait-style! And now, the game is making a big leap of conquering one of Southeast Asia’s top gaming countries, the Philippines for its soft launch, very soon!

Hello Hero takes place in an original battle for Armon. A new group of Heroes as what they called as Guardians are here to join forces with the heroes of old and battle the dark forces of the Keronic! Withstand the monsters and diminish them in no time! Recruit over 100 customizable heroes for your team! Raise your heroes through tough game modes: Adventure, Expedition, and Conquest. Bring the victory every quest giving you gold, useful and effective items to increase heroes’ skills and power. Portrait game mode for one-hand playing!

Check out happenings and updates for social RPG, Hello Hero: Epic Battle through our plug Community and Official Facebook Fan Page:

Hello Hero: Epic Battle Official Website: https://www.fincongames.com/

Hello Hero: Epic Battle plug Community Link: https://www.plug.game/helloheroEB

Hello Hero: Epic Battle Official Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/HelloHeroEpicBattle

Hello Hero: Epic Battle Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/fincongames

Game Features:

• Over 100 Customizable Heroes!
• Stunning 3D Graphics and Gameplay
• Various Modes to Fight in (Adventure Mode, Expedition, Conquest, World Boss, Battlefield, and more!)
• Immersive storyline filled with eccentric environments and characters
• Unlock Ultimate skills and unleash the Hero’s full potential
• Smart Toy figures with exclusive boosts and rewards 

About Fincon

Fincon was created in 2012 with the intention of bringing the best games to the masses. The name stems from the abbreviation of the words ‘finger’ and ‘control’, with the mindset of allowing our gamers to experience interactive gaming through the control of their fingers. Headquartered in Seongnam-si, Korea.

 

NekoJonez’s December 2017 Update

It’s almost the end of the year, so it’s almost time to wrap up 2017 here in my blog. Quite an eventful year it has been, from getting a price for best gaming blog of 2017 to the Zelda project. Those are just two of the big things that happened to my blog. But, in today’s article, I want to let you know what’s going to happen for the rest of December and what I’m planning for 2018. So, it’s update time! 

Quick reflection on 2017

This past year was an eventful year for me. 2016 was an amazing year for me personally, a year that won’t be easily topped. But 2017 brought only more interesting things to my life and my blog, I can say that this was quite a successful year.

Thanks to the retrospective Zelda project and winning the prize for best gaming blog of 2017, according to MarketInspector; I can even prove the claim I made in my latest sentence.

Besides those two things, I wonder, what do you guys think were my best moments in 2017? I loved the collaborations I did with other bloggers and the games that the devs asked me to play. I’m not going to write a reflection post on 2017, apart from one article I’ll talk about later. Since I think that the picks for “my best moments of 2017” aren’t always what the people think what “my best moments of 2017” are. So, I’m asking you guys. What did you like the most about me and my blog in 2017? I’m curious about the answers already.

I got, even more, traffic to my blog this year when I compare it to 2016. But, I’m inching closer to beating my biggest traffic record so far. I got 13,000 views in 2015. This year, so far, I got 12,000 views. So, what am I planning to get the previous record broken; well, here are my plans for the remainder of 2017.

What can you expect from me?

If you aren’t following me on Twitter, @NekoJonez, then this is going to be news for you. If you are following me, some of these things might be familiar to you.

First of all, I’m going to write an article about my favorite 10 games I played in 2017. Remember, these are the games I played in 2017 and not perse the games that were released in 2017. The only big rule I have on my list is that I have to start playing the game in 2017. If I started to play the game in 2016, the game isn’t going to get on my list.

Unlike the previous times, I wrote this article, I’m currently thinking about making them one article instead of a two-parter. Believe me, I had a difficult time putting this list together. Since I played so many great games, I honestly lost count.

Apart from that, I have 6 requests planned for December 2017. What do I mean by this? Well, as some of you know, I do take requests from developers to test out their game and write an article about it.

There are also a few games I wanted to talk about before the year ends. Those are another 6 on my list.

In addition to the usual two articles at the end of the year, I think I can say that if everything goes right, I might be able to publish an article each and every day. Apart from when there are delays.

But wait, there is more! I’m doing a collaboration with LaterLevels for Christmas. In this collab, I will also publish an article daily starting from the 19th of December.

Yes, this means that you will get a double article each and every day of December apart from the 25th and the 26th where it will be only one article. Thank the lord that I have two weeks off from work otherwise I might not be able to pull this off.

If anything changes or when I get too busy in my personal life, I’ll post a tweet for sure. So, if you don’t see the articles appear on a day, check my twitter, I’ll say why I wasn’t able too.

That said, December will be quite busy and get a lot of content on my blog. But, what will have 2018 in store? Let me tell you.

Looking forward to 2018

In 2018, I’ll start a project where I “clean up my blog”. And what I do mean with this? First of all, from time to time, I’ll clean up broken images & links from my articles. In addition to that, I’ll take out typo’s in older articles too.

Secondly, I’m planning to merge a few of my categories and archiving categories I’m not going to use anymore. Like articles, I don’t enjoy writing anymore. This means that my overview pages will get an overhaul as well.

This will happen during my usual weekly article schedule. Speaking about that, it’s possible that I publish more press kits in 2018. Articles that I haven’t written myself have the word publishing in the title. I’ll try and do my best that these articles will never replace the article I write at the end of every week.

Besides that, I’m planning to do more collabs in 2018. I’ll always tweet out when a collab on another blog happens, so that will be another reason why you should follow me on Twitter. In addition to that, I’ll be working on an overview page where all content is displayed I wrote on other blogs.

I have a few special things planned for my blog and my personal life in 2018; so I can’t wait to talk about them. Buuuuut; I don’t want to reveal too much, so stay tuned for my update articles and my Twitter for that.

It’s possible that I take a week or two off from writing in the first week(s) of January since December is going to be so hectic.

Wrapping up

Thank you so much for visiting my blog in 2017. I hope you had a great time here and I can’t thank you and my other blogger friends enough for the support and experiences you all gave me in 2017.

I know it’s quite cliché to talk about this, but the recent growth I got and all the interaction with you guys is the reason why I keep doing this and I enjoy it an awful lot. If you ever have an idea/suggestion for my blog, just talk to me. I open to suggestions.

This article is going on for long enough. Thank you so much for reading and I hope to be able to welcome you in another article on my blog. Have a great rest of your day and until then, take care!

(Oh, and before I forget; HAPPY HOLIDAYS!)

NekoJonez – July 2017 Update

July is almost over, and I have a lot of updates to share with you. I decided to combine them in one article, so without any further ado, here we go. 

Rebranding

You might have noticed it already, but a month ago, I decided to rebrand my blog. I didn’t make the new artwork and icon myself since I’m honestly not good with programs like Photoshop and other art programs. I can do some really basic editing, but that’s about it.

Thankfully a friend of mine helped me out. Thanks to Zoef, we got a new amazing looking banner and icon. I can’t thank him enough since it looks amazing. It shows perfectly what my blog is about and that was exactly what I was going for.

In the past month, I have tried to look for every place that had my old artwork and changed it. I think I changed everything, but when I noticed that something has my old icon, I’ll change it as soon as I can.

NekoJonez got an award!

So, something special happened. Last week, I got an email from Market Inspector that I was nominated for “Best Technology Blog of 2017”. I was really happy when I received it. So, I answered their questions to get my nomination in for real.

A week later, I was working on another article while I heard the notification sound on my phone. It was an email from Market Inspector, saying that I actually won in the gaming category. Here is a link to their article announcing the winners.

I’m honored to receive this award. I feel recognized for all the time I have put into this blog. So, thank you Market Inspector for this award!

Big projects and collabs

First of all, one of my biggest projects yet I have teased on Twitter is finally here. I finished “My favorite gaming music #20“. While the writing was done for a while, I wanted each game to have a separate article with a sort of review for each game. Then I noticed that 5-6 games didn’t have its own article. So, that’s why it took so long, I had to write a couple of other articles before I was able to finish the gaming music article.

Another big project that is currently in the works is a big Zelda project. It’s going to be a project that I’m not doing alone. Currently, we are aiming to finish the article at the end of August. If anything changes, I’ll announce it on Twitter of course.

In other news, I decided to not list all articles I get quoted in, in an update article on my blog. So, if you want to know when I helped writing in an article on another blog, you should really follow me on Twitter. Otherwise, you might miss one of the vacation spots I would take in gaming.

By now, you might be wondering what the image is I added a bit above this paragraph. Well, I’m a part of the Blogger Blitz event that Adventure Rules created. This is a “battle” between bloggers to try in convince you why a chosen game character is better than another character. But here is the catch, each blogger had to choose his or her own character. I picked Indiana Jones. More information about the event can be read on the Adventure Rules blog. On the 31st July, I’ll try to convince you why Indiana Jones is the better in mass producing and selling a certain iconic item than Lightning Farron. The blogger I’m up against is Lightning Ellen. Good luck and may the best writer win!

Schedule for the 2nd part of 2017

Believe it or not, I created a sort of schedule for the 2nd part of 2017. Currently, it’s just a rough planning of the articles I want to write in 2017. Notice that I said, rough planning. That means I can still move around my schedule and/or change it completely.

As usual, I won’t share the schedule. I want to keep it a surprise to everyone and I also change so frequently in my schedule, I would go crazy writing an update article or change it every time I make a change. The only thing I’m going to reveal is that my schedule is filled with game-related articles. I mean with that, first impressions and reviews.

Also, I decided to keep my 1 article/week schedule. Yet, when I’m able to write more than one article a week and I’m in the writing mood, I won’t stop myself. But, starting from September, that might be impossible to write more than once a week. Since then evening classes start up again and I have a few things going on with my acting group.

For this week, I’m still planning a few articles. If I have the time, I might even publish more than 2 articles this week. But, that all depends if I have the time. So, no promises.

NekoJonez is on Steam

Remember that I wrote an article about a game called “The Last Tree“? Well, it’s released on Steam now. The developer emailed me to tell me, that a quote from my article was featured on the Steam Store page! Here is a screenshot:

So, that’s why I decided to write a review about the game. So, I’m going to try to finish that article before the end of August! So, keep your eyes out for that. Thank you to the developer of this game for quoting me on Steam. This means a lot to me.

End of updates

So, that are all the updates I wanted to share for this month. The past few months were quite eventful for my blog and my personal life and I’m enjoying all of it. I hope you enjoyed reading this update article as much as I enjoyed writing this.

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

 

NekoJonez’s February 2017 update

So, this week I have some updates to share. At the time of writing, I have a serious cold. So, that means that this update article will be a bit shorter as usual. In any case, I have a few updates and thoughts to share with you guys. Oh, and I want to thank Sparta for being such a great companion during me being sick. Ah, the joy of pets. But, I’m rambling. So, let’s talk about the updates for this first update article of 2017. Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion in the comment section down below!

Out-Of-Town

So, if you follow me on Twitter… you might know I have a schedule planned for this blog until April – May. So far, I haven’t changed a thing. Until this week, because some things will change my whole schedule.

This is because I have been sick the past few days and I want to talk about a game that wasn’t on my schedule.

I have said this on my Twitter, I will be out-of-town next weekend. So, I might not be able to write an article next weekend. But I’m considering two things. First thing is that I try to finish an article in the week before I go out-of-town or I write an article on my day off, the 6th of March. Oh, and if I write an article on the 6th… Don’t worry, I’ll still write an article on the 11th or 12th of March. For those who wonder, I’ll be on a trip with my acting group. I’m actually looking forward to it!

Also, in March, I’ll write another preview article about a game that hasn’t come out yet. I took a look at the trailer and the press kit and I’m really happy that the developer contacted me! But, you will have to wait until March to find out what it’s about.

The Nintendo Switch

I might be a pretty big Nintendo-fan, but I haven’t pre-ordered the Nintendo Switch. And that’s because one reason. That’s the price. Honestly, I can’t fit it in my budget currently.

And a second reason is that no game I’m interested in is currently coming out exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.

Does this mean that I will never buy a Nintendo Switch, heck no! I’m really interested in the console. I think I’m mostly waiting until they release something interesting or how the release goes. I just hope for Nintendo that this release goes well. Since the project has so much potential in my eyes.

What will 2017 bring?

So, what will 2017 also bring? Well, I promised that I’ll write an article about various games I want to talk about but I haven’t talked about yet for some reason. So, here is a list of games that are in my mind and I think about writing about in 2017.

Mini Metro (Android), Fairune 1 & 2 (3DS – eShop), The Legend Of Zelda – A Link To The Past (SNES), Bioshock 2 (PC), Ace Attorney (DS – The ones I haven’t reviewed), Lufia (SNES), God Of Thunder (PC), Lego City Undercover (Wii U), Tomb Raider II (PC) and various others I won’t reveal yet.

I have also a few “gamer’s thoughts” articles in the works that are done with the research phase. I’m not going to reveal the subjects, but I have toyed with them in my mind for some time now.

Misc. updates

So, what is keeping me busy outside my full-time job and my blog? Well, let me tell you. First of all, I still have to do 5 classes before I have my degree in computer science. If all goes well, I’ll finish 2 of them this semester!

In late April, I’ll be on stage again. It’s quite possible that I take a break in the 2nd half of April. But, I’ll update you guys and girls on Twitter if I won’t be able to write an article. Otherwise, I’ll write an article in those weeks.

I’ll be playing one of the lead roles in a play. I’m quite excited for that. It’s my 4th time in a play and I can’t wait honestly. The rehearsals are so much fun.

So, I said this on Twitter… but I want to say it here as well. Because various articles of mine get shared so often, I think it’s only fair that I share more often what I read. So, when I come across an interesting article, you’ll see it on my Twitter feed! Another reason to follow me on Twitter.

In any case, that’s everything I wanted to say this week. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this. I’m sorry if this is at the short side. I’m still a bit sick, so I can’t focus long enough to write a full length article. 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!

NekoJonez: Quick Update

Hi there

It has been quite some time since I talked to you guys and girls directly. Because I don’t have a lot of time this weekend, I thought this is a perfect time to give you guys and girls some updates about the future of my blog.

First of all, I plan to kind of return to YouTube. Kind of. I plan to use my YouTube channel to post glitches and oddities in games.

Secondly, I’m truly sorry for the lack of articles this month. I have been really busy with my personal life and my job. I work in education and in June, it’s always crazy busy. It’s the end of a school year so yeah. Also, I had to study for my exam in the evening school, which I passed!

Also, I did a play together with my acting club and it was so good, some schools asked if we did school plays.

Besides that, I have been distracted by some new games and the EK in France. Tonight I’m going to support my national team… The Red Devils!

This weekend also had a party of my acting group and big garage sale. I will post a loot picture on my Twitter account really soon.

Also, I’m working on a review of a Wii game named Kirby Epic Yarn. But I’m replaying the game a bit. That’s because I haven’t played the game in a while and that wouldn’t make for a fair review.

The 2nd article I’m working on is the first impression of a PC game I bought at the start of this month. It will be out in July. That one is for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst.

So, I hope you can forgive me for not writing but I have been playing a lot of games to have future reviews. Games like Kirby Planet Robobot, Evoland II, Fire Emblem Awakening and others.

Besides that, I have been pretty hyped for a few releases in the near future. Like the new Zero Escape game releasing next week!

Oh, and I have a little announcement to make. Since this month was really low on articles. I’ll try to get more articles out next month. I have a two-week vacation there. (Last week of July and the first week of August) and I’m planning something really special there.

In any case, my schedule should be freeing up next week. So, I’ll be back then. If you have any requests for games and/or topics you want to hear me about… Feel free to leave a comment on this article.

If you want to hear the latest updates on my blog and me, follow me on Twitter at @NekoJonez.

Thanks for reading this article and I hope to be able to welcome you next week with a new article. Have a great rest of your day and game on~!

 

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.

Let’s look at: The Stanley’s Parable

Official website

This is a story about a Neko. This Neko’s name is Jonez. He works at a website and all he did was writing articles, by pushing buttons. He was employee number 427. In his office he had a screen where a game was displayed so he could push buttons to write an article. The screen also gave hints in how long he had to press the buttons and how many times. But one day, no order came on the screen for more then a hour. He was confused, asking for comments to what people thought of this game or this article, but because he found nobody, he had to wait for comments…

Un-reviewable

Did the introduction interest you? Confuse you? Good. Since this game isn’t one I can review. Since this game is an experiment. And a great one. It’s one of those experiences you have to have. And if you play the different versions, you’ll get a different experience every time. The original source mod and the HD remake differ a lot.

This game started as a “simple” mod. Yet, since PewDiePie played this game, it’s popularity sky-rocketed of course. And it’s worth it. This game has a great story. A special one, one I really like. One where your chooses make you have a different ending. Virtue’s Last Reward and various other games come to mind then.

Yet, the demo of this game doesn’t even give the correct impression. While it indeed gives the right impression for the newly updated graphics and the style of the game, it’s nothing really like the full game.

Difficult to review

When I release this article, a friend of mine over at ButtonSmashersBlog has his birthday. And his nickname surely explains what this game is. TheThinker (linking to his Twitter), I wish thou a happy birthday man. And if you really want a game that challenges your thinking abilities, play this one.

So, why is this difficult to review? Truth being told, this game can be beaten in under 5 minutes. Yet, there are different endings. To achieve all endings, you have to think outside of the box.

But the game is an experience. It’s different for everybody. And with the lack of many music tracks and only good graphics, great controls and an amazing story, you can’t really write a review without spoiling it too much. The only controls are moving and clicking on buttons. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

I do wish that this game got a more lengthy sequel. The game is short. The achievements on Steam do help it having some replay value but you’ll be done with it after a week or so. Yet, don’t worry, it’s a game you will never forget.

Mod to HD.

This game actually started out as a mod for Source. Then this game got a HD remix. With there first of all a demo and secondly the full game. I have beaten all three multiple times. And I enjoyed them a lot.

While the mod and the HD remake are very similar, there are things you can only find in the Source mod and things you can only find in the HD remake. If you ask me which one is the best, I prefer the HD remake better. Since it’s a bit more funny and it has more references to itself. In addition, the menu is amazingly designed.

Yet, the HD remake has a major issue. When you alt+tab out of the game, going back into the game is a major issue. It crashed on me then several times. Also, I’m disappointed that the game doesn’t have an overview of all endings you already got. Like the ending room at one ending, I would have loved to have seen it in all the endings.

The demo is a different beast all together. It’s a special thing. It’s self-aware and it makes fun of itself. The game is extremely funny and worth playing through. If you want to have the real experience, I truly advice that you watch the trailers as well. Those make fun of Let’s Players and the usual angry “YOUR GAME SUCKS” letters.

Yet, the mod version of this game has it’s charm playing for it. It’s free and you really get the great taste of the Stanley Parable. The artwork isn’t made for the game though, so it’s more with the assests of the engine. But hey, it’s used extremely well. No complaints there. And even a reference to the engine itself was extremely clever.

Final thoughts

I have done my utter best in this article to not spoil things to much. Yet, I have told hopefully enough to raise your awareness to give this game a shot. Really, try spending your pocket money on this game instead of the latest Pokémon or Call of Duty we are all waiting for so much.

You won’t regret it, go in it with a fresh mind. And let the game guide you pushing buttons. Don’t go all “WTF AM I PLAYING?!”, yet let it sink in. Relax and enjoy the ride. And honestly, the first time I played the full game, I played on for more then a hour. But keep in mind that the game was able to be beaten in 5 minutes. Yup, that happened.

To conclude this article, I can’t write a full review of this game. While the inner workings like the alt+tabbing needs some improvement in the game, it gets from me the full 100/100. Agreed, it’s not a perfect game at all, considering it’s length. Yet, this is a game you must play. One you must experience to truly understand that this game is a gem. One of a kind, something you won’t see in a while. Play all three of the games. The demo, full game and the mod. Two of them are even free so you don’t have an excuse there! And the full game is 10 euro’s here in Europe, so if you come to truly dislike it, you haven’t lost so much money. But thanks for reading, a happy birthday to theThinker, and I hope to see you another time here!

Views on the future: an update blog.

Hello there Neko’s. Today, I’ll do something different. Normally I make Neko Vlogs for this, but hey, I like to change things around once in a while. So, that’s why I’ll write the updates here in this post. What am I going to do in the future? You will read it all here. Keep in mind that I’m going to be extremely busy. This weekend I have to go acting for a theater tour here in my home town. And next week my college for elementary teacher restarts. But hey, I’ll try to do some stuff in my free time for everything. 

Personal life.

Before I actually talk about my idea’s for the future, what I’m busy with and what will be going on that might keep me from creating content. Like I said in the introduction, I’m going to have a busy weekend. Next week, I’ll be out on Monday for college, on Tuesday I have some preparation work to do and from Wednesday my college restarts.

Since I have to focus on this new challenge, my releasing of content will slow down. I’m extremely excited to meet new people and face all the new challenges that this will bring me. I’m also planning to play a part in next year’s play of my theater group.  If any of you guys read this article, know that I love you guys extremely much.

Also, I have a lot of things to do in my personal life. Like cleaning things up, organizing things and such. Some parts of my library’s and stock effects (for example) are all a big mess. So, I have to clean that up. In addition to that, I have to make sure that everything runs as smooth as it can get.

But some sad news needs to be told as well. Because I do a lot of repetitive movements due to play a lot of games and writing a lot, my right shoulder hurts from time to time. With resting and such it goes away but it sometimes stops me from working on content. So, that’s a reason why sometimes content doesn’t come daily.

I’m glad that I linked Twitter with everything. For my latest updates go to my Twitter. I announce on there when I’m sick, too tired to work on things, too busy or any other things like that.

The final thing before we move on is that I want to mention that I won’t try to put out things every day anymore. I don’t think it will be possible for me anymore. Also, I think I won’t enjoy my “work” (/hobby) as much then anymore. I’ll try to put something on my blog or YouTube channel at least once a week but daily is no goal anymore of mine.

Personal thanks

Before I continue, I want to thank you all for the support I’m getting lately. 12,500+ views and nearly 110 subscribers is really amazing for me. And that’s for my YouTube.

On my blog, I also get likes and comments on nearly every article. And it puts a smile to me face. I’m so glad that people enjoy my content and start following me. While this is actually a hobby and stress reliever of mine, I actually feel rewarded in the process. And that feeling is something unique.

For people who play sports as a hobby it feels like winning a match while the audience is cheering you on. It feels so good. I have to thank everybody from Arpegi and ButtonSmashers for the amazing feedback I get. BloodCat for example is such an amazing guy and really points out the things that didn’t go well.

Thanks to this small success, I actually got in touch with some better YouTubers and such then me. And I have ways to grow even more. Yet, this is extremely overwhelming to me. Seeing that I got some trophies from WordPress for my work and that another blog selected ButtonSmashers (and that means Arpegi also, a bit at least) for a family award… Well, I’m going to be extremely honest here. My goal is to entertain the family and make it grow. And getting a WordPress Family Award for it, it gave me teary eyes.

Like this article guys: http://afterdarkgaming.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/wordpress-family-award/ It’s really something I’m going to print out and stick on my magnet board near my desk.

I can’t wait what the future is going to bring for me. Maybe new people want me to write for them. New collaborations or solo projects. Who knows?

Future content.

Blog

I’ll be working on a lot for my blog. First of all, I’m thinking of starting a new page for Steam accounts and such. Or I might add it on the Arpegi network page.

Also, I’ll link to the ButtonSmashers networks by a new partner page I’m creating. I’m talking to the guys of ButtonSmashers to ask who wants to be on that page.

Plus, I now finishing up a lot of games at the same time. That’s why there hasn’t been so many articles lately. I’m working on finishing games to get review ready and in stock to avoid “death moments” on my blog.

And a new creepypasta is being read. This one will be exclusive for an Arpegian’s CreepyPasta Tumblr. Maybe after some time I might link it on my DevaintArt or my own blog/Tumblr.

I have some rants in preparation too. Since it has been such a long time that I wrote one. Game Diary’s will also continue. So, keep an eye on my blog for updates.

Before I forget, soon I’ll be on the “About Us” page on ButtonSmashers. I’m truly excited for that. I don’t want to push the guys there but they said it will happen soon.

Something I should have done a long time ago is the favicon of my blog. If you bookmark my blog, it will show the default WordPress logo. I have to change that! I might put my normal avatar as a temp replacement until somebody of ButtonSmashers or Arpegi makes me something. But yeah, until then I might change it to something temp.

There might change something on my blog. I might not review all games I did a first impression on. Simply because of time limits. Yeah, I don’t have loads and loads of time. And I start new games all the time. Either I have to change that habit or just make the full review a later day.

YouTube

After some stalling, today I finally started working on the final episode of Project Central. I’m 25% done with it. After that, I’ll start playing Dream Chronicles again to record a new episode of that.

As you neko’s probably have seen already, I uploaded the other episodes of Herobrine’s Return. Simply to get that series over with. I was so unhappy that my microphone bugged out and you could barely hear me. Thankfully I have a better headset now so that’s fixed.

The Corpse Party series is in a delay. Because of Hetty not having a proper mic. Yet, we are going to try to record a new episode with the internal mic of her laptop but I can’t give any promises. I might ask other Arpegians to work on new episodes with me.

I have been playing a lot of Minecraft with the Arpegians. New people joined in the crew too. Maybe they might appear in video’s. So, I played a lot on a 1.7 snapshot server and I’m talking to MiseryLC for maybe a new survival series. But we aren’t going to reset our map so, the boring grindy stuff is already done. Sadly enough, we have so ugly chuncks. Some might like it, but I’m still not sure what to do with them. I might just delete the bad things with MCEdit or something or just deal with it.

I also need to upgrade my editing software soon. Version 12 of PowerDirector was released. And I’m still rocking with version 11. The new features really caught my eye. Like an improved rendering and zoom really put a smile on my face.

The other updates are slowly getting done. Like the updating of all playlists is done. Now the description of everything and I finally did all the behind the scenes work on my channel.

Other projects

I’m saving up for a lot of new things. Like a better mouse, better speakers. And maybe even a great microphone.

But I’m mainly working on the Arpegi forums as well. I have a lot of things to fix and improve on the forums. I made an update to the YouTube support of the forum the other day actually. But it needs some tweaking.

I also need to update my other social networks to link to all the places I publish my content on. Sadly enough, I can’t link my Tumblr to my YouTube… But one day I’ll make it happen.

I’m also thinking about expanding my social networks to Facebook. But I’m not so sure about that. It might be just too much for me to keep up to date.

Final words

Anyways, thanks for reading. Now I told you all my latest updates which would be normally in a vlog. Thanks again for all the support and I’ll do my best to continue publishing my content. Thanks to all the feedback I feel that I’m improving and creating even better content for you neko’s.

Sadly enough, real life is going to eat a lot of my time soon. I’ll focus primarily on that so that I don’t get myself into trouble with that. That makes a less stressy Jonez and that results in a more creative me. And a more creative me… Yeah, I think you get the idea.

Feel free to drop me a comment. But for now, NekoJonez out!