About

What is Gatomaton?

It’s a portmanteau of the latin words for cat (gato) and robot (automaton). It’s also my website!

Who are you?

Hello! My name is Tom! I go by doops./YoDoops on the internet! Maybe you’ve seen me around on there or elsewhere! Sorry if I said I don’t like the games you like. It’s nothing personal, I swear!

Here’s an artist’s impression of me! (Thanks to https://vgen.co/Fuululuu!)

Here’s another artist’s impression!
(This is also me. Thanks Dad!)

It’s been kind of a dream of mine to have my own games writing website since my early teens. Not exactly an adventurous dream, but certainly an achievable one. My first attempt at one was a lil website that I ran with my dad called LevelUpNetwork in the early 2010s. No one read it except for us two, but it was a fun little exercise in what that kind of life could look like. Suffice it to say, I fell in love with it immensely.

Then, several years later, I fell (back) in love with filmmaking and writing for a time, and had designs to become a screenwriter, which I would then go on to study at university for 3 years. Long story short, along the way, I sort of fell out of love with it, which isn’t unusual for university experiences. However, what those 3 years did instill was a passion for writing, which I then decided to marry with my lifelong love of video games (and cats (and robots))—and here we are!

Now, after three years of both formal and informal practice and plenty of procrastination, I finally built Gatomaton: an editorial gaming blog that focuses primarily on indie games of all genres and scopes. Why indie games? Because I love indie games, but also because the gaming industry is in a bad place currently, now more than ever, and indie games need all the help they can get. With all the joy and lessons that I’ve inherited from the indie games I’ve loved over the years, any way I can share the good word around and bring more eyes to them is more than enough creative and personal fulfillment for me.

So whether you’re here for a quick visit or you’re here to stay, I cannot express my appreciation for your valued time and energy enough, and I sincerely hope you enjoy at least some of what you can read on here. 😽

Oh, and just for posterity, here are my favourite games: