Around the Network

And so, another week draws to a close, as Death idly sharpens his scythe, sighs (quite an achievement without any lungs) and goes back to watching the sands of time trickle away, one grain at a time.

But don’t you worry yourself about all that. There’s a whole load of things to catch up on first! We’ve got cute girls learning Esperanto, elf boys climbing cliffs and whip-crackin’ demon-slayin’ action, among other things. Plus, a new episode of The MoeGamer Podcast is on the way for you tomorrow!

So let’s dive in and see what you might have missed this week.

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MoeGamer

The Zelda Diaries: Part 3 – I Wonder What’s Over There – My exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild continues with a look at how the game handles the player’s natural sense of curiosity in a distinctly “Nintendo” fashion.

Super Mario Maker 2: In Praise of “Normal” – Some further thoughts on Super Mario Maker 2, and in particular the trend for popular media to focus on the super-difficult or incredibly unfair side of things to the exclusion of more straightforward (but no less noteworthy) creations by the community.

Warriors Wednesday: Do You Know the Wei? – I’m not even a little bit sorry, as we’re finally up to the last campaign of Warriors Orochi: the uncanny adventures of Wei. What could Cao Pi be up to? Surely he doesn’t really want to serve the snake god…?

Waifu Wednesday: Penelope – Things get a little personal with the last of my mascot interviews, this time featuring mysterious catgirl Penelope.

Delving Into Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse #2 – Some musings on how Castlevania III — and the series in general for that matter — takes a markedly different approach to games like Super Mario when it comes to the topic of greed.

Final Fantasy Marathon: Those Blasted Pirates – After their initial challenge to not all be knocked down by Garland, the Warriors of Light begin their adventure proper… by getting a bit lost.

The Expression: Amrilato – Suddenly Voiceless – The latest Cover Game feature continues with a look at how The Expression: Amrilato explores how one might react to suddenly being in a situation where you are unable to communicate with or understand anyone around you.

Atari A to Z

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This week we’ve got a type-in game from Antic Magazine circa Christmas 1986, a cult hit for the UK-based Atari ST community, and a simple but highly enjoyable top-down racer from Atari’s arcade archives.

Cool Stuff By People Who Aren’t Me

I’ve jiggled my Patreon pledges around a little bit as I said I was going to a little while back. At the current time, I’m supporting chaotic “old men attempt to talk about games, usually fail” collective Digitiser 2000, the ever-grumpy (and always hilarious) Cheap Show Podcast, the wonderfully supportive Normal Happenings, independent games writing collective The Well-Red Mage and fountain of retro computer gaming knowledge Rob “Hellfire64” Caporetto, all of whom you can find out a bit more about by clicking through to their profiles.

Here’s a selection of recent YouTube and podcast goodness from several of this lot:

And from around the rest of the WordPress community, here’s another hand-picked selection of bits and bobs I enjoyed this week:

Back to BASICs (Kimimi the Game-Eating She Monster) – Kimimi tries her hand at programming a game. It doesn’t go too well, so then she tries again… in C64 BASIC. Respect.

In Defence of The Castlevania Adventure (Retro Arcadia) – I always have a lot of time for people willing to say “pish” to popular opinion and lay down some words in praise of something that is widely regarded as “bad”. This week, stvnormal takes a look at one of the least well-regarded Castlevania titles out there — and one that we’ll explore ourselves here on MoeGamer at some point in the near future!

Space Combat with Star Raiders (The Late Night Session) – Star Raiders is one of the greatest games of all time, so I was delighted to see The Night Owl pen this love letter to it this week.

Are Otaku The Worst? (100 Word Anime) – Guest posting on Karandi’s blog, Irina ponders whether or not the poor reputation groups like gamers and anime fans have is justified… and if there’s anything we might be able to do about that.

How modern gaming lost its appeal (and how to bring it back) (The Purple Prose Mage) – The Purple Prose Mage ponders the growing sentiment of cynicism and dissatisfaction with modern trends in the gaming industry, and considers how one might be able to recapture the love one once felt for this magnificent medium if you’ve been making it sleep on the couch lately.

Well, that’s your lot for this week. Please do stop by these other creators’ blogs and YouTube channels and take a moment to leave a Like and a comment — it means the world to us when someone actually wants to engage with the things we’ve made beyond just reading or watching.

In the upcoming week, as I say, we’ve got a new episode of The MoeGamer Podcast, more Amrilato, more Zelda and plenty of other funtimes besides. Thank you, as ever, for your ongoing support of independent games writing, and I hope you have a pleasant week. Mwah!


The MoeGamer Compendium, Volume 1 is now available! Grab a copy today for a beautiful physical edition of the Cover Game features originally published in 2016.

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this article. I’ve been writing about games in one form or another since the days of the old Atari computers, with work published in Page 6/New Atari User, PC Zone, the UK Official Nintendo Magazine, GamePro, IGN, USgamer, Glixel and more over the years, and I love what I do.

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