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.
To start this review with something very personal: My father passed away last week. It’s been difficult, to put it mildly. The reason I bring it up is that Dad absolutely loved Ten-Pin Bowling. Had his own ball, ball bag (I had no idea they made bowling ball bags), shoes, the works. He competed in social leagues all over the…
Having not played the original Code Vein, I have no idea whether Code Vein II is effective in building on it, or whether the two games are related at all. What I do know is that Code Vein II is an excellent soulslike. One that starts quite slowly, but has…
It’s incredible that Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergarde plays so well on…
Lached Up Games serves a very specific niche with its quirky and…
Yeo, the one-man-band indie developer from Russia, is going to be remembered as a far better artist than the relatively muted popularity of his games deserves. Fading Afternoon is his new one, and while it’s a retread of a lot of what makes his first, The Friends Of Ringo Ishikawa,…
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Now that I have a ROG Ally, my need for the kind of little emulator consoles that Anbernic, Powkiddy, and others put out is minimal. The ROG Ally is a more powerful device than any of these (effortlessly handles most PS2 games and everything), and manufactured to the standard that…
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I am genuinely surprised by the launch of the two Quintessential Quintuplets games in this “double pack” (Memories of a Quintessential Summer and Five Memories Spent With You). They’ve been published by MAGES, one of the legends of visual novel development. They’ve also been published by Spike Chunsoft, one of…
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Infinity Nikki looks like the kind of open-world game that I actually want to play. It’s setting itself to be an adorable, whimsical game about playing dress-ups rather than murder, and it has every chance to dominate its space (mostly because it’s the only game in it, as far as…
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It feels like a long time since Koei Tecmo announced its last Dynasty Warriors game. They’re usually so prolific, but the last one (Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires) was an early 2022 release. So it’s actually quite big news that the next Dynasty Warriors has finally been announced, and it is…
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Welcome to the latest episode of the Digitally Uploaded Podcast! This month we talk about the sorry state of game development, in light of everything that has been going on with Microsoft shuttering studios (and then immediately looking for more acquisitions) Then we discuss the controversy surrounding Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s…
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Here’s a note for all developers out there: If you’re going to locate your game in a period of history or legend, and especially if it’s one where there isn’t an abundance of choices, then make sure that you actually do something about that period of history or legend. Earlier…
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Aksys has a habit of finding the most wonderful visual novels to localise… and Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch looks like it continues that form. This is a coming-of-age story mixed in with a “mystery stretching back hundreds of years.” It also looks like it has some light…
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I have a particularly strong attachment to the original Cupid Parasite… indeed I think that it is that game, above and beyond any of the others that I’ve played, that convinced me that “hey, I have to make my own one of these visual novel things.” The result may not…
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Maurice Leblanc’s Arsene Lupin is often considered to be the literary foil to Sherlock Holmes. Where the great detective solved crimes, Lupin, the great “gentlemen thief,” commits them. Despite his enduring popularity as a literary character, Studio Ghibli film, and references across any number of games (including Persona 5), though,…
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