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.
Omen of Sorrow is something that 18-year-old me would have found so totally cool. Drenched in gothic grim darkness, it’s an effort to bring together vampires, werewolves, dark angels, succubi, mummies and… well, Elizabeth Bathory, into a game that looks and feels like an emo kid’s “black-as-their-soul” poetry. While I’d like to think that my sense of aesthetics is a…
Transport Fever 2 is a celebration of the value that transport networks bring populations. It is a “builder” simulator, but similar to the likes of the classic Transport Tycoon and A-Train, you don’t build the building directly. You build the road, train, ship and air transport networks that the cities…
I haven’t played an Anno game since Anno: Create A New World…
I worry that the wonderful folk at the developer, Gust, have lost…
Rhythm games are amazing. We love them. There’s a new one that’s doing the rounds right now that has the serious potential to hit fad-like levels, and it’s one where you play the trombone, of all instruments. Of course not every music game is great – those of us that…
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The recent GTA VI hack, and the subsequent fallout from people criticising how “bad” it looks, inspired this segment in this month’s podcast, as it really caught us all by surprise a little. We’re used to gamers having a generally poor understanding of how games are made, but what we…
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It’s really disappointing that Square Enix would dump the third Voice of Cards release in the middle of such a jam-packed schedule. Even from Square itself. The company has released DioField Chronicle, NieR Automata on Switch, and Valkyrie Elysium in the span of just a few weeks and it has…
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October is getting to the pointy end of the year for game releases, and October has a lot of them to look forward to! JRPG fans in particular are in for yet another big month, in one of the biggest years for the genre ever. What are you looking forward…
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White Day: A Labyrinth Named School has proven to be quite the enduring horror property. Remakes and remasters of this thing have been appearing on consoles, phones and PCs since its original release way back in 2001. And now it’s on Nintendo Switch. Perhaps the best platform for it of…
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I’m a big fan of itch.io for the freedom and open platform that it allows for developers to be creative, experimental, and directly canvas the audience for feedback for games that are not yet ready for primetime on Steam and its ilk. In addition, itch.io allows you to be transgressive,…
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We’ve got another big, 2-hour episode of the podcast for your listening pleasure this month! In addition to our usual wrap of all the games coming out this month, we chat about a lack of understanding about how games get made and published. This is of course in response to…
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… Wait, hang on. The September issue was published just last week, right (if you missed that check out the issue here)? Yep! But because we’re sponsors for the Oceania DanceSport Championship, we wanted to do something nice for the competitors and audience at the event, so we produced this…
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Penko Park is simultaneously one of the most original games you’ll ever play, and also something so shamelessly derivative that it’s hard not to wish it could have been more ambitious. Thankfully, the creative bits are the ones that matter to the overall quality of the game. Related reading: We…
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A deluge of Harvest Moon/Rune Factory/Stardew Valley-likes have come out of nowhere, but there really has been a lot of them in recent months. Perhaps it is something cultural. Perhaps developers are observing an increasingly tired and agitated community around them as the ongoing terrors of climate change, pandemics and…
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