Constantin "The Gaming Copywriter" Dumitru’s Post

It's already a tradition for me to defeat the tutorial bosses in every souls game I play - no matter how many times it takes. Last night I beat the Grafted Scion after a few restarts 😂 Whenever my mental was down in my life, these games have been there for me more than people were. They're a good reminder that I might not be the greatest, but I damn sure am the most resilient mofo out there. And I'll go through all the BS life throws at me until I come on top.

I'm never skipping credits these days - you never know who you'll find in there. For example, this cool game designer dude called Tyler Rotheram 😂 Heard he's pretty good at designing angry chickens and final boss fights. Also heard he's got many other cool colleagues and some of them are on a market for a job. If you see someone from Surgent Studios with the green banner up, I'd say you move quick and snatch them before anyone else does. Anyway, that's a wrap for Tales of Kenzera: ZAU. Awesome art (Jordan Smee & Joe Phillpot, you don't get away without a mention 😂), music, and sound design throughout the entire game. Obviously great voice acting from Abu and the team. Overall fun gameplay and tight combat, but I won't hide there are hiccups here and there. I also felt like I needed more emotion in the storytelling for what ZAU wanted to be - we only get that at the end of the game. But hey. Maybe we get another game in the Tales of Kenzera universe and all these get adjusted 👀

I actually picked up Zau as my recreational game while I'm working on a few reviews (kudos to the one and only Tyler 💪). Gotta support the lovely people at Surgent who worked on it (some not on the team anymore). Recreational means no review. No review means I get to enjoy it without questioning everything the game does 24/7 😂 But I might chime in with a few impressions here and there. I reached the first boss fairly easily and beat it on my third attempt. My fingers went numb after that fight though 😂 Anyway, I love the vibrant environments, the art direction, and the sound design. I'm waiting on the combat to see how it evolves by the end.

I don't win many things. But when I do, it's gotta be big. Glad to say I'll properly own Elden Ring on Steam thanks to a giveaway from my buddies at PM Studios. They have this cool app called FUZE and I've been on it for a while now. I've been reluctant to post about FUZE since I feared some bad apples might get on the platform and ruin the friendly gamer mood. But hey, if it has to happen, it'll happen. If you join, please don't be a prick or try to sell stuff (or yourself) around there.

It's disheartening to see another indie studio lay off people shortly after releasing a great game. I've been chatting with a few of the folks at Surgent Studios and they're amazing and down-to-earth human beings. Yes, they're obviously great professionals. But they have that humanity and friendliness in them that you barely see nowadays. Get them on your teams! They're amazing.

Most times I chat with professionals from the games industry about my work, they're like: "Hey, you'd be really good for marketing" (obviously) "Hey, your approach to reviewing games would make you great for QA" "Sounds like you're pretty good at localization since you translate your work for internal and international audiences" I'd probably be good with any. Not even a humble brag - I'm versatile and flexible by design. I once had to research all the reviews for a certain type of app and learned how to build a review scraper in Python, just so I didn't have to work my buttcheeks off by doing it manually. But how do you tell people: "Hey, I can adapt and do whatever the heck you want" without them trying to shove more work down your throat just because you have the capacity to?

You see, I'm not a fan of the "I played 2-3 hours and this is my review". Does it take more time to 100% games and inform players and devs about every single detail in their game? Obviously. But whatever I do, my commitment is to see it through till the end. That being said, expect a review for Stray Blade from me and Revista GRIND. It was a blast to play through and witness the story & character development. Getting all the collectibles was a bit of a grind. And combat... well, you'll have to read the actual review for details and explanations on all these.

It's always a pleasure to highlight the efforts of upcoming indie studios. And the folks from Disaster Games definitely deserve your attention. Here's a short clip about how they manage to break the 4th wall in their first game, Morkull Ragast's Rage. You can check the full interview over here: https://lnkd.in/dnADw5mi

🚨 REVIEW OUT 🚨 If you're looking for a short weekend game, Moonlight Pulse might or might not be it 👀 I got the chance to chat with its creator. Listened to what they wanted to achieve with the game. And then compared it to what the game delivers. They wanted to create a compact Metroidvania experience and they nailed it. Mostly. You can check out the full review to see what it manages to do right and where it could use some polishing. Here is the English version: https://lnkd.in/d35wRwnx

30 minutes to go ⏰ Amazing human being as a guest. And a lot of wisdom about audio design in games. Who's joining us live on Twitch at twitch.tv/GamingCopywriter ?