Over £160,000 was raised for SpecialEffect during GameBlast24.
Hundreds of gamers all over the UK came together to take part in this gaming marathon weekend from Friday, 23 to Sunday, 25 February 2024. Their aim was to generate funds and awareness for the charity, to help it continue tis work to bring the joy of gaming to even more people.
SpecialEffect transforms the lives of individuals with physical challenges through the innovative use of technology. At the core of their mission is their work to optimise inclusion, enjoyment and quality of life by helping people to control video games to the best of their abilities. This not only brings families and friends together but has a profoundly positive impact on confidence too.
We’ve taken part in the GameBlast event since it began in 2014. Pete and I have completed all sorts of Twitch stream durations for it: 24-hours, longer periods with the help of friends organised in a shift pattern, 50 days of regular streams, and even 100 days too. A few years ago through, we decided to stop doing anything that was 24-hours or longer because we were just getting too old.
So why on earth did we think it was a good idea to return to that period for this year’s event? Well, nothing seemed more fitting than kicking off a 24-hour stream for GameBlast24 on Saturday, 24 February 2024. And did we manage to pull it off? Yes, but not in the way we expected to. Several things didn’t go according to plan but we managed to get there in the end though. Read on to find out what happened, as I share the lessons learnt from this year’s marathon stream.
Running right before GameBlast isn’t a good idea
I’ve been training for the London Marathon since being offered a place on SpecialEffect’s team last summer, and have recently returned to weekly long-runs which usually take place on Sunday. I knew that this wasn’t going to be possible during the GameBlast weekend so I took a day off work on the Friday and hit the road early in the morning to get it out of the way before the event. Experience has now taught me that this isn’t wise unless you want to start a marathon stream tired and get progressively sleepier as it continues.
No matter how much you test, there’ll always be an issue
Being as thorough as she is, our awesome mod Ellen from Strength in Sarcasm always gets annoyed at Pete and I for not testing properly before we go live. We therefore made a point of testing our set-up during the week before GameBlast24 and again on the day prior just in case. But no matter how much preparation you do, there’ll always be something that goes wrong during a marathon stream. Thank goodness Ellen was on hand to point us in the right direction and get it sorted when a weird sound issue occurred early on.
Whenever there’s a jigsaw puzzle, there’s Zelda
I can’t get out our jigsaw board without our cat Zelda being all over it. There’s something about its fuzzy beige surface which calls to her and within five minutes, she’s rolling around and covering it in fur. This time she also decided to steal a few pieces and get her teeth into them. We can’t be angry with her though because she’s the real star of the show and everyone turns up to see her rather than her humans. There’ll be more Zelda coming when we finish The Art of Murder jigsaw on Twitch at some point over the coming month.
Be prepared with backup games
Pete was over the moon when everybody voted for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 as the choice for the action section. We updated it during the weekend before GameBlast24; and we tested it again on the Friday afternoon to be certain it would work during the stream. When it decided that it wouldn’t start without an update when we tried to open it on the following day, we were obviously frustrated. But there was no need to worry: previous experience had already taught us to be prepared and we already had Grand Theft Auto V ready to go.
Simple games work better at 02:00
As GameBlast is a family-friendly event and SpecialEffect support people of all ages, we try to schedule the horror section of any marathon stream as late as possible. I think we’d have to start switching this up or skip the genre altogether if we were carrying on with 24-hour streams though. Playing something like Dead Space, where you must keep your wits about you and be ready for the occasional puzzle, is really difficult at 02:00 in the morning. Whatever you pick for this time period needs to be as simple as possible.
The older you are, the tougher 24-hours is
We went into GameBlast24 fully committed to be awake for 24-hours, but knowing there was a possibility that we wouldn’t make it and being transparent with our supporters about this. It had been four years since we’d completed such a long continuous stream so we’re older (and more tired) now. I made the decision to cut the stream shortly after 19 hours at 03:00 because it felt like we were going to collapse – but we came back the following morning to finish up the remaining five hours and add a few extra as compensation.
Everybody likes ducks – except Pete
Those compensation hours mentioned in the section above were mostly filled with everybody’s favourite: Placid Plastic Duck Simulator. While Pete maintains that this isn’t a game, the rest of us are fans of the fabulous fowl. Each person who donated had a duck named after them and we watched the story unfold. There was drama when we thought one of the original ‘GameBlast24’ duck’s ducklings had gotten lost; and violence when the ‘Jake & Tim’ duck decided to stab the inflatable flamingo. This is so much better than watching a soap opera.
We have the best online friends
There are so many people we need to thank. There’s Mr. Wapojif from Professional Moron, who ensured that over 300 puns were made during the stream. Nana from NMarfoBlogs, who joined in with Twitch chat and shared our social media posts. Ellen and friend-of-the-blog Phil, who took care of the mod side of things and made sure everything ran as smoothly as possible. Ethan for wearing the Pokémon costume when Pete wouldn’t. And so many friends who kindly donated and helped us raise £3,101 for SpecialEffect.
Pete and I always feel sad once GameBlast is over because it’s one of our favourite events of the year and we have a great time taking part. But on a positive note, the amount above is amazing and every penny goes straight to the charity to support them in helping even more people to play video games to the best of their abilities. If you’d like to find out how your donations are spent, take a look at this image for an overview and check out some of SpecialEffect’s work on their YouTube channel.
We aren’t done yet though. Our fundraising efforts are continuing through to the end of next month, as I’m due to take part in the London Marathon for SpecialEffect on Sunday, 21 April 2024. There’ll be an update about the training for this coming towards the end of March. Before then, I’d like to say another huge thank you to everyone for their support and motivation throughout GameBlast24 – we couldn’t have done it without you.