About

POSTED APRIL 23, 2023

Hello ladies, gentlemen, and they/them folks.

I've made my last post for this review blog, you can find it here. This site now works as an archive of where I started when I resumed my love for writing and found my love for romance. In the coming months, I will be moving most of my articles to the new blog I am a part of, Sweet & Spicy Reviews. I don't intend to update Doki Doki Digest any longer, and if you care to know why, check out the last post I linked above.

I'll still be available to follow on Twitter. I'm still streaming on Twitch. I do have my YouTube channel that gets very little updates mainly because I've been juggling so many other projects lately, but now that I've cut one out, I should have more time for that. And all that has happened is I have moved to a different site and different brand, but I plan to keep churning out the content you've grown to love.

If you decide to continue to follow, thank you, and if you don't, that's fine, I'm not for everyone. But thank you for stopping by and taking a look at who's behind the writing. It's nice to be seen.

RJ Mercy

POSTED JANUARY 20, 2023

Hello Guys, Gals, and other Pals.

It's turning into a yearly thing to update my About section (which is where you are if you got lost somehow). If you want to read the previous "About" posts, they are below. However! I have new news and I'm happy to be finally able to make this post.

Doki Doki Digest has been my passion project for 28 months! It started with a selfish desire to see reviews that contained all the info I wanted from a game, with none of the info I didn't want; and has grown to be :waves hand: this thing. I love it. I'm happy to be here. I'm also happy you're here too, and I hope you love it as much as I do. If you've been a staunch follower, you'd notice all the reviews just kind of tapered out early in the year in 2022, and there's a reason for that that is briefly explained on the What's Next? page. I suffered a hand injury that turned out much more severe than I had previously thought, and it took literally months to heal. After that I had surgery which took many more months to recover from. But that is all in the past and I'm finally ready to tackle 2022 with a backlog of reviews to write.

So, what are you going to find here? Well, much of the same as before: in-depth, spoiler-free reviews on romance-centric games. The links on the side will take you to what I've played, planning on playing, and currently playing. I also have a Twitch channel that I live stream new releases 3x a week. It's a good time for the most part, but I might be a bit biased. I've also expanded to a YouTube channel to record indie or off-brand games - this honestly hasn't been as productive as I had hoped with all the medical issues last year. Haha. But we're starting again, and I'm planning on digging in deep.

There are multiple platforms you can follow or find me on, including Twitter and reddit. Basically, I'm growing bigger and starting to think of this hobby as more of a job, and one that I love. Someday I might try to separate Doki Doki from my personal life and make it a full fledge business venture, but until then this is what we have - and I love it still.

Expect to see many reviews in the coming weeks and months as I catch up with the limited number of games I played last year, and the many I'm already putting in for this year. Eventually it'll even out to my usual 2 per month.

Thanks for stopping by and being interested enough to make it here. I hope you enjoy your stay and become a return visitor.

RJ Mercy

POSTED FEBRUARY 2, 2022

Hello Guys, Gals, and all those in-between.

I'm making a little update in the About section (which is where you are right now). If you want to read the original "About" post, it is below, just scroll on down. If you're here for the new info, I'm about to get to that.

It has been almost 18 months since I started this romance review blog. We've seen a name change, from Otome Opinions to Doki Doki Digest (which I love, by the way, thank you friends who helped me find that name!). And now for phase two! Or... phase three? Whatever phase we're doing, I'm proud to announce I will be streaming Let's Play Otome! Ah yes, everyone and their mother is streaming these days, and what is it that I'm going to have to offer that's different? I'm glad you asked! Because the answer is simple: Me.

Chances are, if you're this deep in my blog, then you actually like it. And if you like it, it's probably because some part of my personality appeals; whether it's my humor or that I try too hard, it doesn't matter, you're still here and still found something that tickles you. So why not go a step further and get to see a live recording of not only a new game, but me interacting with it? Does it sound fun? I sure hope so, because I get nervous at the thought and am going to have to pretend everyone's naked or something just to settle my nerves.

Let's get down to the brass tacks. Starting February 24, 2022 I will be located on the Twitch platform under RJMercy, you can find my channel here. It is also conveniently located on the left sidebar, granted, down near the bottom but it's there. Live stream will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm Eastern time until 9pm Eastern, or until I get tired. I will play a release from Aksys during those times, and with my interaction and commentary, we will (hopefully) make it through the full game. I think this is going to be fun, tbh.

There will also be what I call Side Quest Sundays, which will focus on a short(er) indie game instead of the current commercial game I'm playing. This way new people can check it out if they're not keen on joining in on the middle of a spoilerfest Let's Play. Mark your calendars for Sunday at 7pm Eastern to check out what hidden gems are hanging out waiting for you to go through them.

This is a big step in broadening my brand, and getting some love out there for love. I have also added some social media links to the left sidebar as well. I still haven't decided to open e-mails, because the idea of having to respond to messages stresses me out. Basically, I'm a big mess. All. The. Time. Nothing new here.

I hope to see you around, and thanks for stopping by!

RJ Mercy

POSTED JUNE 19, 2021

Hello Guys, Gals, and all those in-between.

I've finally gotten around to explaining what this is if you happened to stumble on my blog by accident, though it seems pretty clear what it is since all posts contain the word "Review" in them. But, this page is another platform for me to talk entirely too much about the what and why and probably give too much information that isn't actually useful. So, if you're here for the first time, and you don't know what's what, this is a review blog for romance-centric games. Originally I had intended it for otome, as that was what I first got into when looking for fictional romance, but since then I've branched out to galge and Boys Love, and why limit myself to strictly otome? Love is love is love. At least it is for me. Suiting that I write this page during the month of June when the USA celebrates Pride Month.

In the last week of January of 2020, I bought my first otoge. That's a long and complicated story, but needless to say, I kept with it since it has been nearly a year and a half and I'm still heavily into the genre. The problem I faced in February 2020 - when I went to make my first purchases after deciding this was something I wanted to pursue - was that otome was pretty new for the Switch (my first console for the genre) and I simply didn't know enough to know where to look for recommendations and reviews. If I searched for a title, I'd get tons of results of rants and gushing of characters, full stories, and every review I found had major spoilers. It was a rather frustrating experience to try to navigate the spoiler minefield while also getting the information I wanted to know: in-depth, but spoiler-free.

Six months later, September 2020, I finally decided to start my own blog for a few reasons, but the biggest is I wanted to write the reviews I wanted to find and read. I didn't care much if I developed a following or became popular, because that's a load of stress I don't really want; but I did care to let people know that I was doing this just in case they were looking for the same things as I was in a review. And I had fun with it. I've enjoyed writing throughout my life, but always put too much emphasis in if others were going to like it. This time - perhaps because I've grown older and with age typically comes less concern about others' opinions on oneself - I just wrote for me. I wrote to me. And I found my stuff hilarious. I'm probably my biggest fan. My biggest critic. But most certainly not my biggest support. I'm lucky to have friends that push me to continue when I get those urges to just burn it all to the ground.

This got a little long and a little sappy.

So! If you want to hang out and read the things I've written, you can check out the homepage and navigate from there with the search bar, the archive, or just browse the pages. If you want to see what I plan on playing/finishing/or just high hopes for the future, hit up What's Next? I update it regularly when games get shuffled around (by me).

I'm slowly joining the SNS world, and someday I might add those links to this as well. Perhaps some sort of messaging system in the future... I don't know! I never wanted this to turn into work, so if you can deal with the utmost casualness that I give to my own blog, then I think we'll get along just fine.

Speaking of my blog, I typically update it twice a month. I play a variety of systems and games all dealing with romance. And I have a backlog that will keep me busy and entertained for approximately 15 years. So I'm here for the long haul.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy your stay.

RJ Mercy