Count_ @CountUnderscore

I'm really only a fan of remakes and remasters when they help expand the audience who has access to the product. But I'm also noticing a lot of trade offs that happen when you redesign a game for a larger audience. Here's my ramblings: loneside.net/nocturne-games…

Been MIA for a while. I've been taking a detour to focus on myself and figure out some things in my life. This article is just a small glimpse into what's been going on. loneside.net/burnout-and-gr…

I've been working on a lot of creative writing stuff recently. Trying to publish more things this year, and hoping to turn up the output of my creative work on Medium over the next few months. loneside.net/the-ships-that…

I'm usually pretty late to the punch when playing new games. But, because of the nature of playing and researching games, I often find that they're best experienced on my terms. Until Then is no different, and has made a splash on my life in recent times. loneside.net/until-then-gri…

My New Year's resolution for 2024 was to begin writing my own creative work. There's not enough of myself that goes into games analysis. While I wrote a ton over of creative stuff over 2024, this is the first thing I'm publishing in 2025: loneside.net/the-crows-a-pe…

I've only played Tetrachroma for a few hours and I can say that this is a must buy game. It feels like @sparsevector solved a very particular design challenge in trying to make Tetris a more difficult game.

This year flew by. There were ups and downs, but the world it spun round and round. Just like last year I'm keeping my New Year's resolutions small but attainable. I feel optimistic for 2025. loneside.net/2024-retrospec…

I've been thinking about fishing games recently and how they largely share the same formula: You cast your rod, sit and wait, and then play a little game to reel them in. Perhaps we could set our sights on something more than that. loneside.net/fishing-in-gam…

On that note, my New Year's Resolution is to try and not get caught up in how bad social media has become. Therefore I now have a Bluesky account: bsky.app/profile/countu…

I played Echo Point Nova a while back because it advertised itself as a movement shooter. In reality what I got was an open world game blanketed by movement shooter mechanics. loneside.net/echo-point-nov…

It's a shame that Hopoo Games has essentially dissolved. Months after the acquisition of the Risk of Rain franchise by Gearbox, Risk of Rain 2 is still left in a pitiful state. Here's to hoping an update will come sooner than later. loneside.net/risk-of-rain-2…

Super House of Dead Ninjas been delisted for a while now ... luckily @BitmapBureau is working on getting this back online for us. In the interim, you currently can't buy one of the greatest roguelikes ever. loneside.net/super-house-of…

It's been a busy past couple of months. One of those reasons is that I put way tooooo much time into The First Descendant. After 80 hours, here's my thoughts. loneside.net/the-first-desc…

Late to the party but I really can't get over how tone deaf and shortsighted Microsoft has been in the past few years. medium.com/@Count_/games-…

Sky: Children of the Light was a really interesting game, but I think there's a lot of things holding it back. It's both enlightening but also mundane, social but desolate. Though, because it's free, I think you should play it. medium.com/@Count_/sky-ch…

I loved Gigantic when it first released in 2017. To date, it's the only MOBA game that I've enjoyed and wanted to play more of. If only this re-release had more love and care put into it. medium.com/@Count_/gigant…

Only a couple hundred hours of work went into this one. Words cannot describe how glad I am to be done with this: youtu.be/u0BA_SDWNOc

So it's taken me a while. Months of planning and research, hundreds of hours to develop, but it's finally coming to a close. The due date on this one got pushed back from December all the way to here. The plan is to have this video out next weekend.

Playing HELLDIVERS 2, and being subsequently disappointed with how buggy the experience has been, made me feel conflicted about publishing my real opinions. It's a good game, but this review aims to strike a balance between praises and complaints. medium.com/@Count_/fantas…

For as much as I liked the original P3FES, for what it was, it's hard to overlook the flaws this remake has: medium.com/@Count_/person…