Reconnect Recap - w/e 14th September

A weekly recap of some of the best video game articles to feature on Reconnect.

Kia Ora folks

As I near my 300th hour in No Mans Sky, I have to stop and ask myself, do I enjoy this game, or do I just like how good it is as a chill check box simulator? Im pretty sure i’m enjoying it, especially the new update.

Whilst I shot space pirates the gaming sphere was a buzz with conversations about Silksong and the Nintendo direct. With the exception of one Silksong article, I’ve tried to make this edition of the Recap not about those two big topics, plenty of awesome articles came out last week and I wanted to highlight them more than the current hotness.

As always, this is the Reconnect Recap, the companion newsletter to Reconnect, the games writing discovery platform.

This week we’ve got a lot of interviews, learning lessons from games, learning lessons from numbers, playing games on the idevice, and making sure you're not being taken advantage of.

Let’s dig in!

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Great Write Ups

• No Tetromino no problem: Voletic has some life lessons they learned from playing Tetris 99.

• A something shared is a something halved: Playing or sharing a game with a friend or family member is the best right? I love finding out a friend has played a game on my recommendation or sitting down to some coop with my partners. ROP gives us their anecdotes as well as a game giveaway?

• Silksong did more than punish players: Silksong release date was "a little callous," says Hell Is Us lead, an interview by TWIV.

• It’s all about the vibes: SuperJump Magazine interviews the man behind the Wholesome Direct and asks the hardest question of them all…. “How does Cozy differ from Wholesome?”

• Who is a gamer?: Stolen straight out of my brain, Push to Talk publishes an article I’ve been meaning to write for ages. What actually categorises a gamer?

• Gaming on IOS: I love the idea of having less devices. Adore my steam deck, but my iPad mini sit next to it with a bigger and brighter screen, then their’s my iPhone, the power of a thousand suns and I use to watch cat videos. With cloud gaming becoming more of a thing, i’m getting increasingly curious about Back-bone like devices and I was very happy to hear Press Any Button give it such a positive review.

• Its expensive to be safe: The Game Business talks to developers about the process it takes to make sure your game is safe online, amongst these new online safety laws. As a results it means some developers are ignoring certain features to avoid the headache.

• The future of games writing: For those who don’t know, Reconnect was born out of the frustration of Waypoint being shut down. At that point we had lost a lot of websites, and would continue to loose more, and I wanted to find a way to highlight the next wave. This is the exact topic Multiplier covers in their recent interview with James O’Connor.

• More Jammin: I remember my first game jam and im so excited Cat has shared their experience. Love seeing people do Jams, you learn so much and you never bad mouth another game ever again.

• It’s not natural: Trip Harrison uses his poor wife as a test subject to figure out how intuitive games are. I’ve often wondered this myself, given so many game concepts are built out of repetition in other games, not obviousness.

• Being taken advantage of: I’ve only ever heard of one other person discuss this topic, Laura Kate Dale, but those on the neurodivergent spectrum can really struggle with the predatory nature of games. In the latest piece by Crossplay, guest writer Matt explains how games helped him in his youth, but the predatory games of today give him concern for his kids.

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Fun Tidbits

• One Of The Virtual Boy Games Coming To Switch Is "Worth $10,000"

• A tribute to classic 90s games and comic books, the RPG adventure Heroes of the Seven Islands is out now

• The Complete Range Of iPod Clickwheel Games Has Finally Been Preserved

• Who Is Chris Houlihan? One Of The Greatest Zelda Mysteries May Have Been Solved

• 52,000 Retro Gamers Voted And Chose The Best Retro Console Of All Time

• Fan-Made Genesis Port Of Final Fight Might Get Support For Three Players

• BatteryNote Is A Stunning Sci-fi Visual Novel, With Game Boy Color-Style Graphics & A "Shocking" Premise

• Turn everything into a weapon in Rogue Labyrinth a new action-narrative roguelite

• Limited Run Games CEO Obtains Rights To Several FMV Games By Night Trap Dev Digital Pictures

• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Adventure prototype recovered for the Commodore 64

• "My Favourite Was 'Animal Acres'" - Ex-Nintendo Localization Director Recalls The Difficulty Of Naming Animal Crossing

• Decades After Being Canned, These NES And SNES Games Could Be Getting A Release

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Housekeeping

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