Matt S. is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of DDNet. He's been writing about games for over 20 years, including a book, but is perhaps best-known for being the high priest of the Church of Hatsune Miku.
Hello everyone, and Happy Holidays! What a year it has been, too. An impossible number of great games were released. It has been totally impossible to keep up with the release schedule. We also made significant inroads in our own visual novel project, formally announcing it and getting it so close to being ready to release. It’s going to be…
It’s that time of year again! We’re counting down the days to Christmas with our own little “advent calendar” – one new game to play over the holiday season each and every day. As the year winds down, things get really busy. We’ve got Christmas parties to attend, the end…
It’s that time of year again! We’re counting down the days to…
It’s that time of year again! We’re counting down the days to…
To all the big AAA publishers out there: if you are going to insist on monitoring our play sessions for every second that we play your thing, make sure your servers are rock-solid. Having to re-log into a golf game every two or three holes because a server disconnection throws…
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Norn9: Var Commons is not a new visual novel by any means. It was originally a PSP title, and then localised into English for the first time for the PlayStation Vita version. Now it has landed on Switch to give players that missed it previously to catch up. They should…
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Preview embargo has lifted on the delayed and long-awaited Advance Wars 1+2: Reboot Camp! If you had a GBA, you owned and loved these games for their taut tactical brilliant in a comfortable portable format. The big question is, does the “remake” do enough? That’s what we chat about in…
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Fans – and make no bones about it, there are fans out there – have been waiting for a new Advance Wars game. Even as Nintendo and Intelligent Systems have built Fire Emblem up to be one of their most cherished and beloved properties, Advance Wars, despite being reasonably similar…
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Writing is such a critical tool for storytelling. That goes without saying, but so often with video games it seems like an afterthought. So in this month’s podcast, we talk about what good writing looks like in games and celebrate some (but not all – we didn’t have hours!) of…
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AI has really taken the world by storm over the last year or so, and now developers are actively using it for everything from script writing, to art, and code generation. The problem is… this is not good at all for the creativity and artfulness of games. At all. That’s…
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It cannot be easy to conceptualise a strategy game based on World War 1 (“The Great War”). The reason we have so many more games based on World War 2 isn’t just because the optics behind that war are easier. Yes, World War 2 had a much clearer line between…
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April’s lineup of games looks pretty healthy! We’ve got everything from the glorious return of Advance Wars to EA’s return to golf, though to a new Star Wars Soulslike and Dead Island. Don’t forget to check out the full podcast. Also, don’t forget to let us know what you’re looking…
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Curse of the Sea Rats is a cute concept that needs to compete in a badly over-saturated genre. I’m now at the point where seeing “Metrodvania” in press materials will make me groan. Not only because the term itself has, like with the roguelike, lost almost all meaning from its…
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This month on the Digitally Uploaded podcast, we grapple with the thorniest of issues currently plaguing video games: The role that AI is increasingly playing in the “creative” side of development. In short, it’s a problem. Potentially, a very big problem. Then, to be more positive, we talk about excellent…
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