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!

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Android Games #6: I haven’t forgotten.

I haven’t written an article in this series for quite a while. Once, I even thought about cancelling it. But hey, I think that won’t be such a smart idea. This blog is about my experiences with the games I play. And sometimes, I play games on my phone when I’m waiting on the train or when I’m waiting in the doctor’s office. So, let’s take a look at the Android games I’m currently playing. I’m not going to talk about them in depth, since there isn’t that much to write about when you compare it to for example a 3DS game. Enough stalling, let’s get tapping on that phone! And as usual in every one of my articles, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the content and/or games in this article. 

Wedding Escape

This game is what I look for in my match-3 games. Something special, something unique that hasn’t been done over and over again.

In this game, you have to turn over tiles to match 3 or more of the same. When you flip a silver coin, it becomes a gold coin. When you flip a diamond, it becomes a purple one. And this works the other way too.

The game gets pretty challenging after a few levels, but you get four pretty nice power-ups. Thank you FireBird Games to not make these microtransactions power-ups. You earn an use of the power-ups by matching a certain gem. Silver coins give you a bomb, gold coins give you a mine, purple gems give you a magnet and blue gems give you a “flip everything of this gem/coin”.

The characters you can unlock in this game are quite nice. The visuals and music are good as well.

This game is polished and pretty well designed. Apart from the extreme harsh difficulty in the later levels (in my opinion), a better way to select the character you want to play as, the colorbind mode that only changes one gem and the strange way a gem/coin becomes usable to use power-ups on, this game is nearly a perfect casual game!

Score: 4/5

Vlogger Go Viral

Honestly, I brought this Android games series back because I wanted to talk about this game. This game is the perfect game when you are waiting for a few minutes to board your train or when you are waiting on your turn at the doctor’s office.

But this is directly also it’s main issue. This is a clicker game, where you can speed up the waiting by tapping. Apart from that, it’s a bit lacking.

This game has so much unused potential in v1.1 (Released on 21 december 2015), it’s a shame. It would be fun if the audience of your vlog channel gets tired if you make too much videos about one topic or you loose viewers that came to your channel for a certain topic.

The money to earn and spend on upgrades are in my eyes rather useless. Apart from some visual changes to the studio, I don’t see how it influences anything in the game. When I compare it to a similar game I honestly like, Bitcoin Millionaire, it feels less fleshed out.

Also, the animation is something I have some minor issues with. For researching, recording, writing and editing a video … The game uses the same animation.

This game can get boring quick. This game needs to have some more things to do when you are waiting for a video to finish. Or maybe I’m too harsh on this game. Since it’s the game I play when I have nothing to do for a few minutes.

The presentation is rather cute and stylish. And the whole idea behind the game is what got me interested in the first place. I just wished it had some more gameplay elements to make it more fun. Oh, and the microtransaction part seriously needs to less intrusive. Like in Bitcoin Billionaire.

Score: 3,5/5

Brain Dots

This game can be rather cruel at times by some puzzles. But I’m getting ahead of myself. In this game you play the role of a pencil that has to draw a line to connect two balls together.

You win the level as soon as the two circles touch each other. Even when they would fall to their doom a second later, when they touch, you win.

This game has a very interesting social feature. You can share your solution over social networks. When you solve a level, it takes a screenshot of the game that you can share.

The game design in this game is really good for an Android game. It teaches you the mechanic first before the actual puzzles with that mechanic are going to challenge you. Another good system is the hint system. It makes the game really forgiving when you don’t find the solution.

The only negative I have is that your lines don’t always properly draw. If you move your finger a bit too much down or up, the game gets confused. But it’s a minor annoyance, since the recent updates, I’m not getting it as much.

Score: 4/5

Wrapping up

So, that are three games I’m currently playing on my phone while I’m waiting for my train to go to work. Lately, I’m playing less and less on my phone since I … well, burned out on them.

That’s one of the main reasons I didn’t write an Android article for over almost a year. In any case, I hope you enjoyed my look into these games as much as I enjoyed writing this article. Also, feel free to leave your suggestions of Android games I should try out in the comments. I’m looking for games you can play on the side. It needs to be fun and keep you from boredom while waiting on … a train to go to work. The fewer microtransactions, the better.

I’m curious for the suggestion. Anyways, I’m rambling on now. Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your day! Game on, friends! Game on!