For my first blog review assignment, I decided to go local with my blog of choice, so let’s dive into DigiFish Game Reviews!
Run by fellow Texas State student Cole Nguyen, DigiFish is a blog idea that caught my eye under the class #FDOM20 hashtag on twitter. DigiFish prides itself on being the best blog around for video games reviews, but they are certainly not your typical pieces of criticism. They solely focus on one simple concept: fishing mechanics in different types of game! From Stardew Valley to NieR: Automata (which I didn’t even know had a fishing mechanic), this blog analyzes the intricate fishing mechanics on a set of criteria set by Nguyen himself, and then is given an overall score out of 10. However, now it’s time for the reviewer to be the reviewed.
DigiFish’s overall aesthetic is adorably and rather appropriately fish-themed, and while there are not many blog posts at the moment to read, they’re still super engaging and wholesome as far as reviews go. They’ve already done one over one of my personal favorite games, Stardew Valley, and even gave it a pretty sizable score! I admire how much effort he seems to have put in with the graphics in his articles, and in the Stardew one in particular. There are small gifs showing the fishing process in the game from start to finish, and it’s very well put together. Now granted I’ve already played Stardew Valley for many, many hours, but I’m sure if someone hadn’t played this before and came across this article, the mechanics would still be easy to understand in Nguyen’s writing.
In his intro blog post, Nguyen explains his choice to make a blog solely about video game fishing mechanics:
“I decided to start a blog about these two things because I personally have not seen anything like this. These two hobbies seem vastly different and some people may say that any fishing mini-game is boring, but for some reason I love them!”
Cole Nguyen of DigiFish Game Reviews
Overall, the only criticism I would have of this blog is the lack of content! Although I do understand how this quarantine has thrown everyone (including myself) for an odd and horrifying loop as we all try to find normalcy in our current circumstances. However, I do know he has a copy of the latest Animal Crossing game, so I can only hope he does a review on its fishing mechanics soon.
For now you can keep up with his blog and himself on twitter @ColeDNguyen below, and keep an eye out for a possible blog review from him of yours truly. Feel free to send him game recommendations with fishing mechanics to review as well!
Digi-Dive! 