So….Extra-Life. I’m still not sure what to tell you about it, other than the fact that it was one of the most awesome experiences of my life. A bunch of my friends crammed into the apartment and played games. For 25 hours.
That’s easy, you say. I do that all the time, you say. Well…I said the same thing, and it’s not as easy as it sounds
I’ve been recovering all week. I’m still recovering. I cannot tell you what time it is for the life of me. This marathon is hard, exhausting, mind shattering…and totally worth it. You get to do something you love, and help children who really need it all at the same time.
When you think about people who run, walk, or bike, marathons, they all train and prepare before hand. If gamers were smart, they would too!
Ok, maybe gamers are smart and I just wasn’t….or I and half of my team weren’t. Going to bed at 12:30am when you have to be up at 8 and stay up for 25 hours…who would have thought that was a bad idea?
In any case. We got little sleep, woke up, stayed up all day and night, and had a blast. We a little ADHD with our games…with 6 of us in the apartment and only so much bandwidth and so many computers, we had to switch around and be creative.
Some of the video games on our playlist were: Arkham Origins (of course), World of Warcraft, Borderlands 2, Arkham City, Saints Row 4, Star Wars Kinect, Halo 4, and Castle Crashers. I was even convinced by a friend to buy Diablo 3 (that did not take much convincing at all).
We also threw in some board and card games such as Legendary (the Marvel version), Seven Dragons, Fluxx, and Betrayal at the House on the Hill (pictured above).
The board games were helpful to get us talking and interacting, which provided some chance to wake up. The Kinect was also helpful at waking us up, and also provided a chance to get moving.
My roommate also streamed the entire thing live, so everyone and anyone could have a chance to see us acting crazy. At around 2 in the morning, this happened:
We lost our minds. At one point, one of my teammates said she was Geordi Picard. We also created a Captain Dragon song, sung to the tune of Captain Planet. We were silly, and loopy, and it was the most fun I’ve had in a while.
Then around…4 or 5am, we really started to crash. While playing Castle Crashers, I kept button mashing and it started to lull me to sleep. I couldn’t focus on which character on the screen was mine. My teammate literally started to nod off sitting up with the controller in her hand. Her character just kept running into the right hand wall until we woke her up.
She still had a better score than I did.
Once it was over, we all crashed and slept for half of the day…and then had a full night’s sleep that night. And yet…I don’t think any of us have caught up on sleep. I probably never will.
I still say it’s worth it. We helped a lot of kids, had a lot of fun, and created a lot of memories.
My team of 7 (6 here in California, and 1 in New York) weren’t very organized, but we raised nearly $2,000 for Children’s Hospital Oakland.
At the end of the 25 hours, Children’s Oakland won an extra $60,000 from the Diablo 3 challenge for having raised the most money. I think it’s at $333,000 now.
The total at the end of the marathon for all of Extra-Life was $3.4 million dollars. That’s up to $3.8 million today, with a make up day this Saturday for all those who missed some time…
Or for those who want to sign up now and do the whole thing.
All I know is…I did my 25 hours, helped some kids, played some games…and now it’s time to start getting ready for next year. Registration starts in February.
You know you want to join me.