Creative burnout and changes

I think this has been coming for a long time. But I have to admit something: I’m going to stop focusing on my video game blog for now. The truth is, I don’t get the same enjoyment out of the hobby anymore. In this article, I’ll explain what’s happening and what this means for the blog. I’ve been feeling burned out on writing about games, and at the same time I’ve fallen in love with other creative hobbies. This wasn’t the easiest article to write, but I’d rather set the record straight than leave things hanging. So—thank you for reading, and let’s dive into something a bit more personal for a change. As always, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Creative hobbies and their curse

Ever since I first got internet access, I’ve been creating content online. From old-school websites and goofy YouTube videos, to small amateur games and drag-and-drop music projects—I loved making things. And I loved playing video games.

Fifteen years ago, I decided to start a personal blog. At the time, my family was small, but we had a big circle of family friends, and I was tired of repeating the same stories over and over. Facebook was just starting to take off in my area, so I began posting my life experiences there. Eventually, my gaming articles started to get traction, and when I felt comfortable, I switched over to English. That was back in 2013.

I loved writing the blog. I met a lot of people, discovered unique games, and even got to know developers while learning about the ins and outs of game creation, release, and translation. But around the summer of last year, something shifted in me. At first I thought it was just burnout—but it went deeper than that.

The thing about creative hobbies is that they’re wonderful, but they carry a risk: what once felt like fun can start to feel like an obligation. That’s exactly what happened to me. Instead of enjoying the games I played, I kept thinking, “How can I review this?” That mindset started to dominate everything.

I even felt guilty replaying games I had already reviewed—games I genuinely wanted to return to—because I told myself I “needed a new article.” I planned to write two articles a week this summer to get back into the groove, but since June I’ve struggled to write anything or fully enjoy the games I play.

And then there’s the plagiarism issue. Over the years, I’ve had my content stolen and copy-pasted onto other blogs—sometimes just for ad revenue, other times with no credit at all. I’ve filed over 150 complaints, and now I’m even seeing sites translate my work and claim it as their own. Honestly, it wears on you. I bet this very article will be copy-pasted somewhere too.

I’m not quitting

Here’s the thing: I still love writing about games. And I do want to return to it. But right now, it feels too forced.

So instead, I’ve been slowly rediscovering gaming for myself again—playing just to play. And you know what? I’m enjoying it. I’m finally breaking out of the mindset of “I need to review this game” or “I need to play this for my readers.” That mindset drained the fun out of everything. I was skipping tutorials, fast-forwarding past slower parts, and dropping games too early just because they didn’t seem review-friendly.

Meanwhile, I’ve been juggling a full-time job and other hobbies I really enjoy: translating open-source software into Dutch, streaming with my buddy Klamath, working on a theater group’s website, and most recently—creating AI roleplay chatbots.

That last one, honestly, has been my biggest passion this year. Since February 2025, when I made my first serious bot on Moescape.AI, I’ve been hooked. I’ve always loved writing stories and exploring twists on existing ideas, and bots have given me a whole new outlet for that creativity. It’s taught me a lot about pacing, dialogue, and storytelling from different angles. It’s also made me appreciate the art of writing even more.

But I’ll stop myself here, otherwise I’ll ramble about that forever.

The future

So am I quitting writing gaming articles? Yes… and no.

I’m putting the blog on the back burner. That means there’ll be long gaps between articles. I won’t stick to a schedule or force myself to publish twice a month. If I play a game and feel like writing about it, I will. If not, that’s okay too.

My goal is to rediscover what drew me into this in the first place. Maybe I’ll return to regular writing someday, or maybe I’ll wrap this journey up with a bow. Right now, I’m leaning toward the former—but we’ll see.

In the meantime, I want to give space to all the other things I enjoy—streaming, AI art and chatbots, translation, and creative projects outside of gaming articles. Exploring more has helped me appreciate the process of creating again. And honestly, I feel more fulfilled that way.

Writing this article feels bittersweet. I had big plans for celebrating 15 years of blogging, but the enjoyment wasn’t there anymore. Instead, I’ll focus on what excites me now. Maybe new gaming articles will pop up here and there—but they won’t be the main focus anymore.

If you’d like to keep up with me, you can find me on Bluesky or Twitter, catch me on live streams with Klamath, or check out my Moescape page.

Thank you all so much for the support over the years. This journey has been unforgettable, and I’m grateful to everyone who’s read, commented, and encouraged me along the way. I hope to find a better balance moving forward, and I’ll keep you posted.

And with that, I’m going to wrap up this article and thank you for reading it. I hope you understand where I’m coming from, and I hope you enjoyed reading it, too. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

My favorite gaming music #30 ~ Favorite background tunes for work and writing

Previous entry in the series

Sometimes, I like to talk about other aspects in the life of a gamer. One of those things is game music. While I am not an expert in music theory, I find music a very important part of the experience. Also, music helps me focus during my day job and other hobbies as well. Recently, I found out that I often listen to certain tracks in certain contexts. I had an idea. Let’s write about that as the special for my 30th article. This article will be about my favorite video game tracks. So, this article will be very different from other articles in the series. But, I think it’s a fitting way to celebrate reaching 30 articles in this series. I hope to share some interesting music with you all. If you have interesting soundtracks you listen to at certain points, please share them in the comments. I am curious to hear them. Of course, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts and opinions on the article and/or the chosen tracks.

Persona 5 Royal – During work

Information of the Megami Tensei wiki

I often listen to one soundtrack ever since I started playing the game. It has to be Persona 5 Royal. Before I played any Persona game, I heard quite a lot about it and how much the praises were sung. And when I was able to play the game, it didn’t disappoint at all.

The writing, pacing and gameplay. It all clicked with me. It’s an energetic jazz soundtrack. Likewise, it gets you hyped in at the right moments. It also puts some swung in the game. The soundtrack hits all the right moments and adds so much to the atmosphere of the game.

I place the soundtrack of this game on repeat more often than I care to admit, actually. Some days, I only listen to Persona 5 Royal soundtracks. I also enjoy the spin-offs like Persona 5 Strikers and Persona Q.

Cult of the Lamb – Writing

Info on the Cult of the Lamb wiki

When I’m writing more general articles, I often play the game’s soundtrack. This helps me get in the mood of that game again. It makes me remember the game even more. Since, I have a very associative memory when it comes to writing game reviews.

Not every game has a long soundtrack. Writing sometimes takes a few hours to finish an article. I find myself going to the soundtrack of Cult of the Lamb by Riverboy. It has the perfect mixture of more calm, chill, and relaxing tracks. It also has the more intense tracks for when you are in a dungeon or fighting a boss.

For some reason, and I can’t explain why, while I’m listing to this soundtrack outside the game… I find myself in the perfect trance to write. So, I think, that this soundtrack is an indoctrination tool to join the cult of that lamb. Or maybe not, maybe I’m just making a silly joke here. Right?

Story creation

I started to mess around with AI chatbots and AI art. Since then, I found an amazing outlet for all the stories I want to write. This also allows me to try to create them. While I still have a lot to learn to create the great bots, I’m learning by trail and error. I also have some fellow creators and players who give me advice and support. It’s a very welcoming community, and I’m loving every part of it.

My favorite platform is MoeScape. If you want to see what I created, feel free to take a look on my profile. But outside of bot creation, I also interact with a ton of bots. I try out certain scenarios to challenge my writing skills. It also serves as an outlet for my love of writing stories.

Of course, I listen a lot of music while I’m writing certain types of scenes. When I’m writing a scene of loss, grief, or sadness, I nearly always listen to the farewell themes. They are from the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series.

I have played through all those games. I have to tell you, the moments where these themes play hit HARD. This brings my head space back to the memories I had while playing the games. And those memories help me improve my writing. Maybe it’s an illusion I tell myself. I tend to remember the sadness heavy arcs I write better when I’m listening to these tracks. Another strong track I listen to while writing more emotional breaking scenes is from the Nonary games. The track Blue Bird Lamentation kicks you in the emotional balls when you are not ready for it. I especially love the remake they did in the final game of the trilogy, Zero Time Dilemma. It has a bit more umph as they said to the still strong original.

Speaking of the Nonary games, the soundtrack of all three of those games is a chef’s kiss. I use it when I’m writing more tense and/or horror scenes. Shinji Hosoe knocked it out of the park with the soundtracks of all three games. It adds a more creepy vibe for when I’m writing the more tense moments. While soundtracks like the ones in Silent Hill could also work, those games fit a very specific style of horror. I feel that the Zero Escape trilogy gives you a bit more range with its soundtracks.

This is not to say that Silent Hill has a bad soundtrack, heavens no. For my writing style, the soundtrack of the Zero Escape series hits harder. It gives me more flexibility. And maybe I’m biased since I played more of the Zero Escape games than Silent Hill games. Highly possible. In case you want to listen to the soundtracks, here is a link to a playlist. It features Zero Time Dilemma’s soundtrack. There is also 999: 9 Hours, 9 People, 9 Doors soundtrack. And of course, Virtue’s Last Reward soundtrack.

There is also a more general soundtrack I listen to during writing. I use it while interacting with AI-chatbots. That’s the one from Monster Tale. This old classic DS game, was a unique metroidvania.

In Monster Tale, you had to not only get stronger yourself. But you also had to raise your monster to help you fight. You had to decide your monster companion’s role. Your companion could help you fight and solve puzzles on the top screen. They could also eliminate treats and enemies on the bottom touch screen.

The soundtrack of this game is excellent. It is a great choice if you are traveling through an unfamiliar world in the story you are crafting. And maybe, I’m being a silly hopeful fan that the remake is coming. But after almost 10 years of radio silence, I don’t think it will see the light of day.

Now, let’s not pretend that everybody who has played more than one Ace Attorney… doesn’t listen to the court themes like the Pursuit themes. And then, they imagine how it would feel to break down a criminal or liar. This happens while that glorious music is playing.

And yes, when I’m playing more human characters with some bots, it often goes into a confrontation. You bet your sweet behind I’m playing part of the Ace Attorney soundtrack. I love using themes like the suspense themes or the Tell The Truth themes. Ever since we got the “The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles”, we’ve enjoyed amazing investigation themes. We also enjoyed deduction themes with the Joint Reasoning / Dance of Deduction.

The type of story I’m writing affects the adventure. The bot I’m using also influences it. I sometimes go on adventures like you would have in Etrian Odyssey. An amazing game series that started on the Nintendo DS.

It’s a dungeon crawler RPG where you have to draw your own map on the touch screen. I’m glad that Etrian Odyssey got a port to modern consoles and even PC. These are amazingly charming games. The music is addictive and really fits the atmosphere. It works for me while I’m writing exploration scenes and cosy camping nighttime scenes. The battle themes are also quite nice for the fighting scenes.

Now, sometimes I also play a more modern western bot. And western, as in the good old American western with the cowboys. And then the amazing soundtrack by Clint Bajakian of the western shooter Outlaws is perfect.

It’s also an amazing excuse to talk about the amazing game Outlaws. An amazing and addictive shooter was released in 1997. It brought amazing titles like Loom, The Secret of Monkey Island, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

It’s an amazing shooter where you have to reload each bullet yourself and know when to reload. Since, the higher the difficult, the more unforgiving this game becomes. I linked my review higher, so if you want to know more about this game, give it a read.

Conclusion

I could write for a long while about the soundtracks I listen to at work. I enjoy them during hobbies and while coding. They accompany me while interacting with or creating bots, as well as preparing for a live stream… Like the soundtracks of the Castlevania games on Nintendo DS. Also, don’t get me started on the use of some tracks of the Legend of Zelda series, like Gerudo’s Valley. Oh, when I’m chatting with a bot about the past, the theme song of Time Hollow inevitably comes up. When the line “wish we can change the past” appears, I somehow try to weave it into the story.

But, I’m going to stop myself here and keep other soundtracks for later. Otherwise, this article becomes a bit too long. I might keep this subject for the next celebration article in this series. To be honest, it was a fun way. It allowed me to look back at the games I have reviewed. I’ve also talked about them over the past 15 years of writing this blog.

Fifteen years of writing a blog. I deleted and rebranded my old Dutch lifestyle blog from 2010 till 2013. However, I have been writing about games since the very start. This blog is an amazing timeline and look back to all my adventures in my life. And the music associated with those games bring back so many memories. And thankfulness to everybody reading and interacting with my blog. I hope you enjoyed today’s article and also the sneaky look back to past articles. I can’t help myself. One final amazing OST I listen to while I’m coding is the one of Stella Glow.

With that said, I want to thank you so much for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you in a future article. Until then, have a great rest of your day. Take care.

Gamer’s Thoughts: Let’s Roleplay With AI

AI is everywhere lately. I think it’s something that won’t blow over or will go away in our lives. In the past few months, I had a craving to write stories again. So, I downloaded one of those AI chatbot apps on my phone and at first, I was afraid that it would be something very niche or something that was a fad. Yet, I found value in these apps and I wanted to talk about them in this article. This article isn’t meant as a review of these apps, but more to open a general discussion of these apps. Since, I think these apps have their place in our lives and can help if they are used correctly. Yes, they also have their pitfalls and dangers. And that’s what I wanted to explore in this article. So, let’s dive right into the world of roleplay and story creation with AI.

What are these apps?

There are a lot of these apps. You have examples like Talkie, Character.AI and Moescape. The idea of these apps is that you create a character that replies to you. In a lot of cases, these characters fantasy characters to play out a story.

Some of the advertisements don’t do these apps any favors. By advertising them as apps where “you can create your own girlfriend” or “combat being lonely”. And it’s a darn shame, since the creativity that you can find on these platforms is amazing.

I personally feel that these apps are the strongest when you look at them what they really are. Apps to let you roleplay a story like old school text adventures. The biggest difference is that you can totally craft the world and have full control of the story line.

This does create a big risk that you fall in an echo chamber. I call it the “main character syndrome”. Where your character in these stories barely get any problem in their way, without it being solved in a few dialogues later. Then again, power fantasies are something that’s quite attractive to people. It’s fun to play a character that can overcome anything and is the best version of yourself. Or where you can say anything you want in an argument.

Some of these apps add additional features for you to play with. Things like a character speaking their dialogue, creating various AI generated images or even love songs. After trying various apps, I personally landed on Moescape. At the moment of writing, this app keeps things quite simple in the character department. Giving great replies and amazing in playing multiple characters.

Essentially, these apps are apps where you can write a story, but AI plays another character and tries to challenge you from time to time to be creative. This is really something where you have to create your own fun.

Limitations of AI

While ChatGPT turned two years old this week, AI isn’t still fully there yet. It still needs quite a lot of processing power and other things to run properly. It’s quite clear that the AI is also quite dependent on your reply.

I notice that the AI in the apps I tried is rarely to never negative towards the player. Which is a tricky thing, especially when you want to create character depth.

I tested this with playing a couple going through a rough patch. And I noticed that the AI always tried to get back together with you. Even when you give it the worst backstory, your mind can come up with. But that’s not the only problem. The AI story memory is quite limited. Sometimes you need to repeat certain parts, like where you are, or what your name is.

Thankfully, almost every app has a regenerate button. This regenerates the message in case you disliked the reply or if it didn’t fit the storyline you are making at all. Some apps even allow you to give feedback to the AI on the generated messages, so the AI knows how to craft more engaging messages for you.

What I personally love about Moescape AI is that you can tweak the settings of the AI quite a lot. You have various different models to play around with to get the best experience. I even tried to play the same 3 scenarios with one of my characters with different models and got very different and interesting results.

Now, how do you make apps like this profitable? I have seen apps that limit the amount of regeneration you can do or have other limitations. Some apps even offer a call feature where you can call your AI bot. Personally, I haven’t tried that yet, since I love playing stories where there are multiple characters involved. And since the calls only answer in one voice, it’s a difficult.

But most apps have ads or limit the more advanced features. I have tried some apps, but as soon as the “BUY PRO NOW” features became too aggressive, I stopped using them. I’m not here to buy the PRO version right away. Let me first try out the quality of your AI and if I like it, I’ll buy a PRO subscription.

There was one app where I almost bought the PRO membership, but it has one major issue that I notice in a lot of apps. The issue of multiple characters.

The perfect app

For me, the perfect AI chatbot app should be able to handle to play multiple characters. I dislike app where the AI only plays one character. It’s not the stories I like to write.

I like to write stories where you can play multiple characters and interact with multiple characters. Yet, with AI, this brings its own can of worms. Sometimes the AI ends their message with a question to a character they are playing. Why don’t they reply on it themselves?

Or better yet, I have a story where you are part of a friendgroup where almost, without fail… One character gets forgotten and barely gets any interactions. So, you are not only playing the story out to its conclusion, but you are also playing a moderator on how the AI is reacting.

At the moment of writing, the app that best fits my needs is Moescape AI. The reason why is quite simple. It has the best models that fit my writing style and the way how I want to go through the story. It allows quite fine control on the settings of the app and the bot. You can see earlier generations when you regenerate replies. You can create a wiki with trigger phrases for your bots to reply too. Like if you set up certain lore, you can use a trigger phrase you set up and the AI will keep it in mind.

But, I’ll keep a review on that platform for a later article. Since, I mainly wanted to focus on how these apps can be used for good. I personally use them to write out various stories I always wanted to write and see if certain arcs would work or if they would fall flat on their face. I find them a great outlet of my creativity.

Sometimes the strange replies, forgotten characters and other weird generation things can pull you out of the story… But, a good writer knows how to solve these things. Sadly, some of these apps can be money traps. So, before you spend any money on these apps, look into it. Test it out and see if it’s for you. Since, I have to admit, I’m somewhat addicted to my stories. I’m so glad I have these apps a chance and I found the app that best clicked with me. If you want to see the characters and stories I came up with, you can find my Moescape profile here: https://moescape.ai/@jonez

I’m curious what you all think about these apps. I totally understand that they seem “weird” but, I urge you to give them a chance and look at them with an open mind. Since, they hold value. Yet, I have talked about some traps in this article. So, keep those in mind as well.

With that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about these apps for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another one, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

The Sunshine Blogger Award – Q and A

sunshine-blogger-award I think that I write a similar introduction to every community award I receive. The introduction talks about how the blogging community is one big family that supports each other and to support each other we have these community awards. You can compare them to YouTubers doing shoutouts or collaborations to promote each other and help each other grow. One of these awards is the Sunshine Blogger Award. All of these awards work in a very similar way while thanking the blogger who gave you the award, you have to answer his or her questions, write up the same amount of questions that the bloggers have to reply to that you select to receive the award.

Thank you!

The blogger who gave me the 3rd Sunshine Blogger Award is AK from Sonatano1. It really makes my day when another blogger gives me an award like this, I feel recognized and it really makes my day. Now, AK writes articles on various game related subjects. From old to new games. If you enjoy my content, I’m quite sure you will enjoy his content. One of my favorite articles is one of the Windows Entertainment Packs. It just tickles the collector and retro gamer in me.

Now, I think it’s time that we get to answering the questions that were asked by AK. Let’s dive right into some interesting things and facts about myself.

The Questions

1) What’s your favorite or most-used medium for entertainment?

My favorite form of entertainment is gaming, followed by YouTube and anime. I also love theater and stand up comedy quite a lot. Here and there, I go to the movies.

Now, if you follow my blog you might know that I play games on a ton of systems. From my phone to my gaming desktop. From my Nintendo 3DS to my Sony PSP. I even play games on rip-off consoles. So, my favorite medium for entertainment are devices that can play games. My most-used platform is Switch and my computer at the moment of writing. But, because I got some new 3DS games, I think that might change in the future.

2) What character in a work of fiction would you inhabit and why? (Assuming you’re experiencing the entire storyline of the game/novel/film/whatever as this character.)

Oh dear lord, to answer this question I had to stop myself from cheating and counting one of the stories I wrote in the past. My biggest hobby, besides gaming and acting, is writing. Before I started writing this blog, I used to write a lot of fantasy stories on paper. I have a couple of binders full of story ideas and pitches for quite interesting stories.

Now, because I full control over those worlds, I think it would be too easy to pick one of those stories. On top of that, none of those stories are finished and aren’t even released to the public.

256px-Indiana_Jones_and_the_Infernal_Machine So, in which universe would I want to live? In that case, give me Indiana Jones in one of the Indiana Jones movies or games. The reason for that is quite simple. I’m in love with the Indiana Jones universe. My favorite game is Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, which is released on Steam and GOG now. My favorite movie is the first movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. While I know that the 4th movie wasn’t one of the best Indiana Jones movies and was filled with various plot holes and things of that nature; truth to be told, I still enjoyed the movie quite a lot. But, I do agree that it’s one of the worst movies in the series. My love for the series is so big that I went dressed up as Indiana Jones three times to carnival as a child. I even own a replica of the hat Indiana wears in the movies and games. It felt so amazing when I was able to use it in a play last year. So, yeah. Indiana Jones would be my character, the adventures, and the mysteries… Do I even have to explain?

3) What work would you wipe all memories of from your brain if you could so that you could experience it all over again?

To be honest, I have a huge list of games and experiences that I would love to be able to re-experience without any memories. To name just a few: the Tomb Raider games, A Hat in Time, Time Hollow, all the Ace Attorney games, Fantasy Life, Stella Glow, Dream Chronicles and a ton more. I could be adding entries to this list all day.

Now, to be honest, I don’t think I’m open to the idea that my memories would be wiped from my brain from one or more experiences. Quite simply because all of these experiences shaped me into the person and gamer that I’m today. On top of that, this would always change since the older I get, the more works could go on this list.

So, I’m sorry, I don’t think I have one answer for this. Maybe I should play these two Gameboy Color games that I haven’t played yet from the Zelda series. One is called Oracle of Seasons and the other one is called Oracle of Ages. Maybe that might be a great answer to this question…

The_Legend_of_Zelda_Oracle_of_Seasons_and_Oracle_of_Ages_Game_Cover

And for those who totally missed the punchline in the paragraph above, the Oracle games in the Zelda series are the games that introduced me to adventures you can take with you where ever you go. They taught me so many things in life and they were one of the reasons why I wanted to become a game collector. Since I got Oracle of Ages from a garage sale and after I finished the game and so the “To be continued” screen… I wanted to see the story continue so bad. But at the time, the Gameboy Advance SP was released, so it got quite tricky to find Gameboy Color games in garage sales. After a long time (2 years) I found myself a copy of the game and I played completely through it. Since then, I got quite hooked at collecting games.

4) What’s the most annoying trend occurring in your favorite medium today?

I know for a fact that my answer to this question is going to have some people disagreeing with me but still, I find it very annoying. The decline of physical media is somewhat worrying to me. I talked about this before multiple times on my blog but the reasons I find it annoying are multiple.

SotTR_HERO-1-hero First of all, as a game collector, I love having a physical copy on my shelf to look at and have nostalgic memories flood back. I don’t have that with digital releases too easily. Now, let me be clear, I’m not against digital releases but I find it worrying that even big titles don’t get a physical release. Take Shadow of the Tomb Raider for example. That game didn’t get a physical release on PC but it did get one on consoles.

The second reason I’m not that fond of going fully digital is the possibility of digital shops getting deleted or shut down. For example, the Wii Shop channel. There is no legal way anymore to buy WiiWare in 2019, which is disappointing. So, if you were saving up as a retro game collector to buy some Virtual Console games on your Wii, cross your fingers it’s on the Wii U. I watched a YouTube series by Scott the Woz that talks about my feelings quite well.

And a 3rd reason is game shops. I find it mind-boggling that the biggest entertainment industry is reduced to a few shelves in retail stores. In one of my local tech and multimedia shops, I see the amount of shelf space that is reserved for gaming and gaming merch decreasing by the year. Now, there are a lot of online stores but I feel that it’s less and less present in our day to day lives. I also love to go to game stores and chat with the people about games, tech and various other things. Of course, you can do that on the internet, sure. But, I enjoyed the non-virtual contact more.

A 4th reason is that it’s a nightmare for game collectors. Apart from having nothing physical for our gaming shelves, the whole move to the digital market space is killing the second-hand market. I need to keep a careful eye on the packaging when buying a game on garage sales or during flea markets. Some game cases come with a game code you can only activate once. Even when it has a disc inside, the game can’t be installed without the code.

There are a few other reasons, but I won’t get into those in this article. I’ll leave those for when I talk more in-depth on this topic.

5) What’s the most promising trend occurring in your favorite medium today?

2017-12-29 19.22.57 The acceptance of the gaming hobby by today’s community. When I was a teenager walking around with my Nintendo DS, I get strange looks by adults. “Aren’t you too old to still be playing video games?” is a question I got asked.

But, nowadays, when I talk to people and say that one of my favorite hobbies is playing video games, I usually get one of these answers:

“Oh cool, it doesn’t interest me, to be honest, but my [child, family member, friend, coworker…] also plays games.”

“On which platform do you play?”

I’m also under the impression that there is a growing part of non-gamers who understand why gaming is so appealing and that a lot of cliché things like: “violent video games make youngster violent.” is less easily believed.

The gaming community is also growing each and every day. Which I find amazing. But, like my answer to the previous question, I think I’ll go more in-depth on this topic in a later article.

6) How much or how little romance do you like in your games/films/novels/etc.?

It’s quite tricky to give this a proper answer. On one hand, it depends on the story and such. It also depends on what you understand under romance.

But what I find very important is consistency and proper use. What I mean by proper use is that romance isn’t used just because “all other games in the genre do that.”. If romance fits in the story, then I don’t mind. If I’m still making sense.

7) If you had to be the ruler of one country in any work of fiction, which one would you pick?

pokemon-alpha-sapphire-limited-edition-steelbook I have rewritten my answer to this question several times simply because I always wanted to choose one of the stories I wrote myself as a kid. But that wouldn’t be too much fun since I have full control over that world.

For the sake of this article, I think it’s more fun if I choose a world that already exists and people know the rules of. So, after a lot of thinking.. and trying to avoid me getting distracted by the stories I wrote in the past, I decided to choose the Hoenn region from Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald. Just because those games are my favorite Pokémon games and the nostalgic memories with those games are so big.

Also, who wouldn’t want to live in a real Pokémon world? There are so many possibilities in those worlds, it would be amazing.

8) Do you think virtual reality will improve anytime in the near future to the extent that it’s actually worth using? Or are we already at that point?

One of the biggest problems with virtual reality is the price. I know that there are a lot of cheap VR possibilities with smartphones. But for that, you need a pretty powerful phone and that doesn’t come cheap either. Also, the more popular VR-glasses like the Rift and the HTC Vive just got three years old.

While there are a lot of practical uses for VR, I’m not interested enough to invest in the technology yet. To be honest, I haven’t tried VR for myself for several reasons. From not having the equipment and budget and just because there isn’t a game out yet that I would love to play that’s exclusive to VR.

Personally, I think that VR will be one of the possible platforms we will be able to play games in the future. In the future, we will have consoles, handhelds, PC and VR. I don’t think that will go away.

To call VR a gimmick or a fad like the Wii would be wrong in my opinion. There are many practical applications for VR. I think it just needs to grow and evolve. At the moment, you need to be quite tech-savvy to set it up, just take a look at the sensors and the specs you need to run VR at a decent frame rate.

Actually, answering this question gave me an idea for a future article. So, I’ll go more in-depth about my opinions and thoughts on VR in the future.

9) I’ve heard people say that a novel is a dying form of art and that changes in attention span length and the constant multitasking our generation is involved in will make them obsolete. If you have an opinion on that matter, do you agree or disagree?

If the novel would be dying, please explain to me why companies like Audible and Scribd are so popular? Besides that, if novels would be a dying art form, why do people still write and read blogs? Now, this discussion is so popular that it has it’s own Wikipedia page about it.

As a kid, I read a lot of books. I enjoyed reading quite a lot. Nowadays, I barely read one book in a year. I don’t feel the need to actually read books. But, I still read blogs and my favorite gaming genre is visual novels like Death Mark or Trace Memory. I still “read” novels but in a totally different experience. Besides that, my sister enjoys reading books quite a lot. Granted, she has to read a lot of novels and books for her studies.

My two cents on the subject go as follows. I honestly think that the novels just lost some popularity. Because other hobbies like video gaming and watching content online grew, other art forms are losing terrain.

Yet, I still see a lot of people of all ages during my commute to and from work who are reading books. There is still a market for novels. Otherwise, products like the Amazon Kindle wouldn’t be created. Also, if big companies like Google still provide a service to read books like Google Play Books, I honestly think that novels aren’t dying, they are evolving with time.

10) Are you optimistic about the future of the human race?

My answer to this question depends on the mood you catch me in. There are things I’m quite optimistic about like the improved awareness about climate change and the willingness to do something about it but there are things that worry me quite a lot. Something like article 13 that might ruin the internet as we know it.

I think it’s something where we just have to wait and see. There is always going to be something that makes me optimistic and something that worries me. As long as we don’t plunge the world into chaos, I think we will be just fine.

11) Cake or pie? (There’s only one right answer.)

The fact I had to look up the difference between cake and pie explains quite a lot. Now, did you know that in my native language we have one word for cake and pie? In Dutch we use “taart” for both words.

To be honest, I like both. So, I don’t discriminate. 🙂 And if you want it, the pie cake is a lie, thanks Glad0s.

My questions and nominations

Now, for my eleven questions. Let’s go.

Do you think that nowadays there are too many reboots and sequels to old games instead of new IPs?
Can the big studio’s like Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft… make indie games?
If one of the games you played in the past gets an HD remake, do you get excited? Would you play the remake?
What do you do during a grinding session? Do you do something else while grinding for resources or characters or do you focus on the game?
How do you take notes for your articles? Do you write them down on a piece of paper while playing the game? Do you record your gameplay and write down timestamps?
What are your least favorite sections in gaming?
What is something unique/fun/interesting about your hometown and/or community?
What’s your advice to new bloggers or even, experienced bloggers looking for advice?
Can you answer this question with the wrong answer?
Do you sometimes look back at your old(er) articles and think, if I write another article about that today, it would be totally different?

So, here are the people I tag. And yes, these are all worth your time and you should seriously take a visit to their blog. For your convenience, I have linked to their latest article. I invite all these people to answer one or all the questions and share the love with the community.

Pix1001 – Shoot the Rookie

The Shameful Narcissist

And that will do it. While there are a ton of other bloggers around, I don’t want the end of this article to end up as a long extensive list of amazing people. Now, I think I’ll end off this article here. Thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’m looking forward to the possible replies to this post. I also hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

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