Category: Uncategorized

Honkai – Nexus Amina

I spent a decent part of this week playing the beta for Nexus Amina, the newest game from Mihoyo. If you haven’t heard of Mihoyo before, they’re mostly known for making a god-scrillion dollars off Genshin Impact and Zenless Zone Zero.

That’s a real number. Don’t look it up.

Nexus Amina is a monster collector autochess game, with a reasonably sized open world city to explore, quests, and a lot of autochess battles. Since this was a beta, I don’t think there’s much purpose in talking about the game as a whole yet. That’s not to say there wasn’t a lot of content, just that it was in a state that I’d call unpolished for Mihoyo.

I love my clockwork turtle.

Instead I want to talk about the two parts of the game that stood out to me: the quests and the combat.

Quests

If I was smart, I would have taken some screenshots of the quests, but I did not. Anyway, the thing that makes them interesting is that compared to most mobile game quests, they actually have a ridiculous number of branching paths.

I’m not actually sure if this is a good thing, but it’s definitely interesting. It was a bit of a shock to have to pay attention to what was happening at all.

Now, the reason I don’t want to pass judgement on if this was good or bad is mostly because while the branching paths are present, the current quests are in a rough state, and I often found myself more frustrated than anything else. One notable moment was a quest where I had “solved” the mystery, but there was no option to resolve it based on the info I’d discovered.

I’ve seen what Mihoyo’s polish looks like from their other games, and I can’t see them releasing a game that feels the way this currently does.

Combat

Anyway, let’s talk about the combat!

Nexus Amina is an autochess, more in the vein of Dota 2 Autochess/Underlords and Team Fight Tactics than Storybook Brawl or Super Auto Pets.

This means that it’s mostly about placing units on a board, and then having them slug it out. Unlike most other autochess games, however, its primary game mode is not an escalating PvP experience, and I don’t believe there currently is a PvP mode at all.

This turns it into a bit more of a puzzle game than anything else, where you can redeploy and shuffle units around after a loss with no penalty in most modes.

Generally speaking it’s fun enough, but I do have one big “observation” about the nature of the game. I found it very hard to develop an intuition about how unit aggro worked, and this had some interesting effects on how I played.

See, in other Autochess games I’ve played, I’ve been familiar with the units that are being used. This meant I had an intuitive sense of how units would move around the board, and choose targets, and when units would be defeated. But because I didn’t have that in Nexus Amina, I found I couldn’t really do much in terms of positioning based strategies, and instead just focused on synergies, and building up super units.

It’s an interesting little problem.

Anyway, that’s all from me for the moment. More actual games in the next few weeks, and hopefully an announcement of a cool project?

Deltarune – Chapter 3 & 4

Toggle blocks contain spoilers. You have been warned.

I wrote about Deltarune back in 2022, but here we are in 2025 with 2 more chapters that I finished in about 10 hours straight last night.

It’s always hard to know what to say about Deltarune, and by some extension Undertale. As far as games go, I feel like you either enjoy things from a surface level, or go full Pepe Silvia. There is no in-between.

In that sense, then, the points I made three years ago still stand. The music slaps, the writing is great, and the actual mechanics and gameplay have continued to evolve in interesting ways, pushing the mini-game and bullet hell formula even further than before, as has the out of combat traversal.

Absurdity and Sincerity

I’ve been struggling to put my finger on why I feel like other games that imitated Mother and Undertale haven’t quite succeeded. The premier example of this is Knuckle Sandwich, but Athenian Rhapsody runs into some of the same issues.

All of these games trade on absurdity and weirdness as defining aesthetic traits. This can be strange characters, stories, items, or whatever. But at the same time, they’re trying to be heartfelt, sincere, and meaningful. This is a difficult balance to strike. And often the other games fail because in order to do this sort of thing, you need to commit to the bit.

Chapter 3 of Undertale follows the story of a television consumed by fear that it will be thrown away because no one watches it anymore, uses it, or plays games on it. Fear that it’s old and unloved.

Its goal seems to be preventing the player from ever leaving or giving up: from escaping. But it’s a real, human fear given to an inanimate object. Now, in the big picture, it’s complicated why no one is watching the television anymore. But this chapter’s absolutely gonzo section of puzzles, games, and just general weirdness (including fighting a water cooler) is driven by this sincere emotional beat.

And again, we’re talking about a television here.

And I think this is why Deltarune works. Even when its characters aren’t human, their feelings are. The problem with absurdity is that so often it’s used to ignore consequences and responsibility. “LOL random” humor is at some level as disposable as a dream, as transient as a breeze. And that disposability is the opposite of meaning.

For an action to mean something, it must have a consequence. It must have weight. I think this is what Mother and Undertale understand, but that their imitators only grasp for brief moments.

All that said, the other comment I do have is that I think a friend of mine who decided to wait until the full game is out might have made the right choice. Apparently 50% of the game is currently available, and while it’s incredible, it’s also deeply unsatisfying to know I’m going to have to wait at least 6-8 months minimum for more story.

I’m also really hoping the chapter based design of the game doesn’t lead to the final project feeling disconnected and incomplete. Chapter 3 is a massive bit of tonal whiplash, at least in the moment. It’s not a bad thing, I just wouldn’t want 5 more chapters just doing that.

Anyway. Deltarune. Incredible game. Love it. Really hope it finishes development before 2030, the death of democracy, and/or the end of the world.

Some quick thoughts on AI in the workplace

Or
This is the sort of thing I would put on LinkedIn if I cared at all about LinkedIn

I got an email this morning informing me that I was only using 3 of the 4 AI tools that have been made available to my company at the expected rate, and I would need to begin using the fourth, and my mind immediately went to XKCD 2899.

The idea of tracking AI usage actually makes sense to me, but as a metric, not a target. Tracking it as a target implies to me a certain level of buy in, belief in the assumption that this stuff makes you more productive at your job. And I’m not actually convinced that’s true for me.

Information Sourcing and CYA

My primary issue with AI in a professional setting (please don’t confuse it with my personal opinion) is that it does very little that’s actually useful for me. I can think of one general use for the stuff that I use willingly, and it’s a internal RAG bot.

Why do I like this RAG bot? Simple, it lists all it’s sources, and it’s hooked up in such a way that it’s better at searching our documentation (internal and client facing) then any other tool. But I don’t automatically trust it’s summaries.

I’m working on an internal cross-team project at the moment with a fair number of my co-workers, and I was a bit surprised to see them treating information from this bot fairly credulously.

I like these people. I trust their judgement in their areas of expertise.

But I will walk barefeet across broken glass before I quote a price to customer in the seven fucking figure range for a feature because an AI told me it was accurate without double checking that shit first.

And I suppose this is why I don’t like workplace AI much. If it screws up, (and as of 2025, this stuff DOES screw up) its ass doesn’t get fired. Mine does.

And I do not trust a bunch of rushed to market, hype driven, LLM’s with my personal job security.

So going back to that opening point: I’ll use our AI tools. But for most of them, I’ll be using them because I’m required to, not because they solve a business problem or need I have.

The Hiatus

Okay, so it’s been two Mondays without a post, and it’s looking like a third is coming rapidly. So I’m just gonna come out and do this now.

I’m putting the blog on a temporary hiatus. Hopefully things will be back to their normal self around mid or end of July. Perhaps I will get friends to come in and do some guest posts. I’m not sure.

I don’t know if I have regular readers, but on the off chance I do, I want to put this out their to explain, and quickly explain why.

For starters, it’s certainly not for lack of games. This has already been an incredible year. I haven’t finished my Blue Prince writeup, I haven’t even started playing Expedition 33, or Deltrarune chapters 3-4. There’s also Monster Train 2, and demos for stuff like Abyssus and Jump Ship. I also could write about High Tide, or any of the other board games I’ve been playing, or the Magic Final Fantasy set, and what it means for the futures of that games.

But….

My workload for my full time job is requiring more focus from me then usual, the sort of off-the-clock energy that I’d usually put into games, rants, and other sorts of things.

I probably could smash out a few weeks of content if I wanted. I can see that I have mostly finished drafts on a few demos, a Age of Darkness write up, and I could technically put a Blue Prince write up out.

But I don’t really want to write things purely for the sake of tossing out words onto a web page.

So until future notice, consider this site on a temporary hiatus. Hopefully it won’t become a permanent one.

Gametrodon’s 4 Year Anniversary

It’s been four years since the first post on Gametrodon, and I have to say: Wow, how time flies when you’re distracting yourself from reality with digital and cardboard amusements.

Five years seems like as good a time as any for some retrospection. So let’s start at the very beginning.

The First Post

In our very first post, I talked about some games I saw at PAX that seemed cool. These included Lucifer Within Us, Knuckle Sandwich, and Genshin Impact.

I’d end up interviewing the Creative Director of Lucifer Within us, Jongwoo Kim, about the game. It was a really fun interview, and also demonstrated how much work interviews are.

2020

That first year of 2020 had the most total interviews I’ve ever managed to actually put up. I chatted with Max Seidman of Resonym about running Kickstarters and Surrealist Dinner Party. I talked with Jeremy Choo, the CEO of a Malaysian development studio about how their publisher stole their game, and how they tried to get it back.

Interviews, like RPG Module reviews, have not really become a regular feature of this blog. They’re a huge amount of work to do properly, and while I love talking to people, I don’t love transcribing and editing. The Secret of Shirakawa Castle has remained one of my favorite “tester” adventures in D&D though.

2021

There isn’t too much to say about 2021. The pandemic continued to ravage the earth, and it had some knock-on effects the world of gaming. Some standouts I want to draw attention to include Beglitched, Shovel Knight, Atomicrops, Disgaea 6, Luck be a Landlord.

Storybook Brawl was pretty good, but then they got bought by a crypto company. Then the CEO of the company committed an $11,000,000,000 fraud. So you can’t play that anymore.

Oh, and there was that whole Blizzard being a shitshow thing.

2022

2022 started with a bang: mostly me banging my head against a wall as “Gamers” continued to fail to understand how to read a shareholder letter.

But it’s okay, because I played Inscryption, and it was great. It would also see the continuation of Rants as a category of my posts. Even though none of my rants are particularly accurate or thoughtful except maybe this one about MetaZoo. That one I think I kinda nailed.

Nobody Saves the World was great. Pokemon Legends: Arceus ran like shit. Stacklands and Mad Rat Dead were good. CRIMESIGHT was unlike any other game ever made, and Konami killed it because they’re fuckers. Perfect Heist 2 was also great, but I’m not sure it still has a playerbase. I played a dating sim as a joke.

Oh! And Neon White came out! And Hazelnut Hex!

Finally, we had a Pour One Out, a semi-regular feature for all the games that died that year. Some years I do one of these, and some years I’m just not feeling it.

Honestly, 2022 was an incredible year for games.

Shame about the five year relationship I was in that ended near the end of 2022, and as a result would chipper-shred my productivity for uh…

Pretty much everything since then.

2023

I did manage to get out a review on Pokemon Scarlet. It has some fun drawings, something I haven’t really returned to since then. Pedigree Tactics also feels like it deserves a shout out for being a rare situation when I was able to give criticism that actually helped improve a game. I guess I did a Ludum Dare?

A lot of this year was just a fucking haze, if I’m being honest.

Deceive Inc was cool. I ranted a bit about Diablo 4. Lorcana was a thing. Clank! Legacy was good enough that I bought the sequel.

Oh! And Tiger and Dragon, a fantastic tile trick taker sort thing was probably the most played board game of my friend group in the last few years.

The year ended with a backlog cleanout of things I didn’t have the energy for a full writeup on, even though Pizza Tower and Inkbound absolutely deserved them.

2024

2024 was truly one of the years of all time. There were bangers, like Slay the Princess, Palworld, and Baldur’s Gate 3. And Tactical Breach Wizards,

There were non-bangers like Knuckle Sandwich and Legend of Mushroom.

There was X-Angels (NSFW!).

And there was Athenian Rhapsody. God, Athenian Rhapsody.

I think the Athenian Rhapsody writeup was rewritten more times than any single thing I’ve ever put on this blog, and involved perhaps the most… soul searching? Internal dissection and critique? Thinking? I dunno. Just… it was a huge amount of effort for a very minimal outcome.

Athenian Rhapsody is really difficult to discuss.

Oh, I also saw the eclipse. And there was a complex bit of board game inside baseball that I accidentally had front-row seats for. Finally, I covered the Indie Games Night Market.

The Present

And so we enter the fifth year of Gametrodon. I’m not famous, or even internet famous. I’ve created some great opportunities for myself to talk to folks in the industry. I still don’t have a press badge, the one thing I wanted when I started writing this site. My quantity of work is definitely down from the first two years, even if the quality is up. (Thanks in no small part to my nameless editor!)

Which does raise a question: Is it worth it to continue writing this blog?

I’m not sure.

There have been several projects over the last few years I’ve picked up, and then dropped or failed to finish. Fluffy rants and personal opinion pieces are easy enough to crank out. Taking a stab at something resembling journalism, or full interviews, is much harder, and often those don’t even result in usable drafts.

Running and writing Gametrodon is a hobby that sits on top of my other hobbies, and like most side things I do, how long it lasts is mostly dependent on vibes and habit. There was that point in time where I was streaming 3 times a week, and that other point in time where I was making TikToks.

Honestly, though, I kind of hate playing the meta when it comes to this stuff. I may switch back to making comics, because at least they amuse me. I may just keep doing weekly writeups.

I have no idea where I am going in life, and this blog is just a part of that.

Oh, one more thing.

A Small Favor

No, it’s not money.

Look, if you enjoy reading Gametrodon, do me a favor and retweet and like my stuff on Bluesky. Or whatever it’s called now since Twitter died in a fire.

Not for every article or writeup, but for the stuff you find interesting, or useful, or informed you about a game you wouldn’t have heard of before.

Retweet that stuff.

I still have my small hopes of reaching the point of being a micro-influencer at some point, but beyond that, I like people reading my stuff. I like talking about games.

But it does feel nice to not just feel like I’m flinging words into the void every now and then.