Extra Life roundup

Extra Life was really, really fun.  And exhausting.  And now it's over, which is sad.  And a relief.

If you somehow don't know what I am talking about, congratulations on your recent awakening from your month-long coma!  If (and this is much more likely) you are sick of me talking about it all the time and filling your Facebook timeline with it, know that I'm almost done.  I just wanted to record some thoughts and memories so I don't lose them, and I thought people might be interested in knowing about the experience.

First, the facts.  Over the course of about a month, Kate and I solicited donations in anticipation of the game marathon.  Our goal was to raise $154 to give to the Children's Miracle Network.  That's one dollar for every day we've been blessed with a healthy, happy baby.  Thanks to our very generous friends and family, we obliterated that goal, and ended up raising $230.  Which was a small but important part of the five million dollars that Extra Life raised this year.

On game day, we tag-teamed games for 24 hours (actually 27, because we had to stop a few times to be parents).  We worked together on a puzzle that we received as a gift a few Christmases ago.  I generally don't like puzzles that much, but it was a really nice break when we were sick of looking at screens.

Kate played Super Mario World for SNES.  It is way harder than we expected.

I played two different FPSs: F.E.A.R (which I've heard good things about, but didn't really get into) and Modern Warfare (which was super fun).

Hakon played peek-a-boo for about an hour and a half, which he really enjoyed.

We played a very simple tabletop RPG with John and JaNae over Google Hangouts (since they live in Texas).  John was GM, JaNae was a doctor-turned-sniper/medic/mercinary (full disclosure: I zoned out when she told her backstory and was too embarrassed to ask her to repeat it), Kate was a telepathic circus bear, and I was a former Boy Scout leader who hated bears.  It was exactly as nerdy as it sounds, and it was perfect.  

We wanted to play more games with our other donors, but by the time we thought of it, it was just a little late to get our act together.  But that's something we'd like to do more of next year.  We are also trying to think of other ways to make the experience more rewarding and interactive for donors for next year.  Maybe a raffle for something game-related or something like that.  We are very open to ideas, so leave them in the comments or drop us an email.

To wrap things up, I just want to express my gratitude again to the people who donated to make this happen.  We are so happy to have contributed to such a good cause, and we are thankful to those of you who supported us.