I am CJ Curry. This is the Experience. And you are just about to be 1-Up'd.
EPISODE ONE FIVE FOUR: AND THEY SAY MARATHONS ARE HARD!
Alternate title: "What the Slender?!"
Those who say that “video
games are useless, time-wasting pieces of garbage” can definitely
put those words to rest right now. Those who find video games
entertaining can put that skill to good use in a number of different
ways.
I am a versatile gamer, a
jack-of-all-trades. I do not excel at any one genre – rather, I
lack some skill in most areas. I do not have the time, the patience,
the raw skill. But one thing I am very good at is endurance. I have a
never-say-die attitude, and only quit when the situation is
mathematically stacked against me. I also know that I can always
challenge myself to go higher, stronger, faster – better, and that
I never back down on promises if I can help it. So, I decided to put
those traits to good use and challenge myself to the 24-hour gaming
marathon known as Extra Life.
The genesis of the
weekend was in August 2011. Doing my 365 project (one photo every day
for a calendar year), I reflected on a LAN party I had been to the
previous year and another LAN party that was possibly coming up. I
had gamed for basically 24 hours straight (though I had slept enough
to be able to drive back home), just playing WarCraft III. (Loved
that damned Felhound game!) The idea was to play 24 different games
in 24 hours. I drafted the first rules I had for the marathon, and
remarkably, it has changed very little. The idea lay reasonably
dormant until April 2012, when I combined the idea with Extra Life –
a friend of mine, Sam, had done “a game marathon for charity” in
October 2011 and I was suddenly inspired.
So, in May 2012, I
drafted the first set of games I would complete, the achievements to
go with those games, and so on. I thought I'd do it after leaving
college, but then I thought of Extra Life and decided to make it a
bit more fun. Donations started up, and slowly but surely trickled
in. I set the bar at $200, which was all I needed for a free T-shirt
from the Extra Life people. That incentive was enough for me, and
within four donations I had the $200. But I knew I could do better. I
had done fundraising in March 2012 – dyed my brown hair (which I
would NEVER EVER DYE SO HELP ME BECAUSE I LOVE THE COLOUR) into a
very attractive shade of green, to raise money for the Leukæmia
Foundation of Australia. The decision was a hasty one, made with no
regard to my dating life1
(which was far too existent at the time), and for both those reasons
I raised roughly $285 (the exact figure escapes me, but I know the
total in the “cents” column was 66, as someone donated $6.66).
I
set the bar higher. I wanted to see exactly how much I could raise –
double my hair-dying efforts would be ideal, but given most of my
friends are college and uni students (or college/uni age), I didn't
see much happening. Of course, I forgot about the one thing that
always fascinated me in all my mathematics studies: how so many small
numbers can combine to make a huge number. I set people the challenge
of extending my $200 to as high as possible, with $1,000 being a very
ambitious upper limit. I added incentives along the way: at $400 I
would stand on my feet for most of the games, at $500 I would play
Slender deep at night and with minimal lighting, at $600 I would wear
clothing inappropriate for the weather, at $800 I would not drink any
energy drinks, at $1,000 I would take challenges from the audience in
between games. I also set myself the target of achieving 16 out of
the 24 achievements I'd set myself (because some of them were just
too lofty, or I was just playing the game(s) for fun – namely
Bubsy).
Within
the coming weeks and months, I prepared myself. I knew that I needed
three key things: a venue, people, and health-and-safety
considerations. The most annoying thing to get was the venue –
there are plenty of places around the university, but all of them
either booked or not appropriate (or not bookable, for that matter).
I had to settle for a venue that was not ideal, and which required
more equipment than I originally thought. People was no issue – I
billed it as “a LAN party with a sideshow”. Besides, I live at
college – plenty of people would rock up, even just passing
through. Health-and-safety was the one that gave me the biggest
headache – have I got enough stuff to keep me sane and healthy?
Water, vitamins, carbs, sports drinks, caffeine? In the end, I
settled for what I had and asked a couple of people to stick around
as long as they could, to administer first aid if needed.
Remarkably,
people were responding to the fundraising challenge. I hit $400 in
mid-September, $500 a week later, then $600 within a week of the
event. What I certainly did not expect was that the $624 I had raised
by midday on October 12 grew to $1,050 by midday on October 13 –
the day of the challenge. I had set that exact time as the cutoff for
all challenges – if it wasn't in by midday, I wouldn't do it. The
final $150 that pushed me up to (and over) the thousand-dollar mark
came at 11:59am on the day, so I accepted the challenge.
Game
on. The day finally came, and with the last-minute donations I had to
offload my energy drinks to those who needed them. I took my
equipment to the venue (which is at my college), met my friend, and
moved furniture and such around in preparation for a LAN party (which
never happened). We set up a live stream, a projector and a stage.
Before noon, I had everything ready to go, and then I heard the news
that my oldest friend's brother had pushed me over the $1,000 mark. I
gritted my teeth, said to myself “one foot goes down” (my ethos)
and went for it.
I
started out with The
Neverhood, a 1995
claymation game that still seems to have a cult following. The
challenge was to beat the game within the hour – unfortunately, I
made several crucial mistakes during gameplay and only picked up 13
of the 20 required disks.
Following
that, the games (and challenges) happened fairly quickly: I passed
the Wii Sports
challenge of obtaining five medals, then had two disappointments in a
row with New Super
Mario Bros. 2 and
Portal
(only the second of which was known to be almost impossible). I
capped off the first quarter with two easy victories, in Super
Smash Bros. Brawl and
Tetris 3D.
I was now on three out of six. At that stage, I still felt on top of
the world. My feet were starting to feel a little strained from all
that standing, but my lower back was feeling it worst of all. Not
thinking about how I would be standing, and not taking my 6'3”
stature into account, I had picked a table that meant for all the PC
games except for Slender, I would be in a very awkward position.
For
the next six hours, I (mostly) could not repeat my success. The
InstaGib Capture The Flag against the CPU in Unreal
Tournament 2004 was a
tie game, and not the victory I needed. The 30-turn Battle Royale in
Mario Party 8
turned out to be too long, and though I was in a good position, only
13 turns were played before time expired. I made a crucial mistake
during Pokémon
Black (technically my
final DS game) and ended up not getting anywhere near the Super
Single stage. A misbehaving StarCraft II was changed last minute to
BIT.TRIP BEAT,
but even that proved too difficult. I had a last second reprieve
during Mario Kart Wii
– my intense concentration and hours and hours of gameplay gave me
the three flawless victories I needed – with almost literally
seconds to spare.
Perhaps
the biggest source of annoyance among the crowd was when I played
Bubsy: Claws Encounter
Of The Furred Kind. I
never grew up with a SNES and so was deprived of this cartoonishly
fun game, but I intended to attempt a (very ambitious!) speedrun, and
if I didn't get anywhere I'd still have a bit of fun. The jazzy
in-game music was a tension-alleviator, particularly since I was now
twelve hours in, and feeling a little more tense than I perhaps
should have. At the time, though, I was feeling mentally and
physically OK, with the exception of my feet and back. Starting to
feel a bit worn at the time, but otherwise fine. The pizza I had
during Mario Party and the jelly after BIT.TRIP BEAT probably helped.
Post-midnight, I kicked off with a massive standard deathmatch win in
Age Of Empires 2,
and followed it up with a fail-and-a-half during Super
Paper Mario. Then came
the moment a lot of people had been waiting for: Slender:
The Eight Pages.
Unfortunately
for those watching the livestream during Slender, there really wasn't
much to be seen because the lights were turned off and the sound was
increased. Two of the audience members (both very silly) decided also
to poke fun: one by fake-screaming, the other by putting on a fake
falsetto Southern accent and generally bringing the mood to annoyance
rather than scaredness. I most likely would have been very stoic if
not for them, though I did jump when Slender Man teleported a couple
of times. Mostly I swore not out of shock, but out of “god DAMN you
video game, I was so close”. I ended up scoring four pages out of
eight in the best case.
To
get me through the hardest part of the night – physically and
mentally – I opted for Fruit
Ninja, Borderlands
2 and WarioWare,
Inc. with goals I
thought were easy enough. However, I was very tired by this point and
Fruit Ninja failed miserably. Significant speedrun progress through
Borderlands 2 meant I succeeded in my achievement, and the simple
goal in WarioWare meant I was able to achieve that one. I was now at
6am, and light was creeping up on the horizon. I pushed on.
A
problem with the Rise
Of Nations game meant
I only achieved my win on a technicality. Nevertheless, I took the
win and ran with it. I also took the win during Pokémon
Battle Revolution when
I managed to defeat not one, but two Masters sets. Spelunky,
however, proved to be insanely difficult – my best efforts were
thwarted time and time again by Derek Yu's sadism. However, it was
now 9am, and time for the home stretch. Mentally, and physically, I
was worn out. I doubt people would have blamed me for throwing in the
towel at that point, but I was refusing to surrender. Remember that
never-say-die attitude?
My
last Wii game was Wii
Sports Resort. I was
only able to achieve one stamp, possibly because I had achieved the
bulk of achievements during the summer of 2011, and possibly also
because I was wiped. My last handheld game was Kirby:
Nightmare In Dream Land;
this I attacked as best I could, but whilst I allowed myself to sit
down for this one, I probably would have fared better standing up as
I nearly fell asleep twice.
At
11am, I started my last game, the freeware PC game I
Have No Tomatoes. By
this point, I had achieved 9 out of 23, and needed to smash 1,200
tomatoes within the hour to achieve 10 out of 24 (a nice round
number). I was also bizarrely energised by now, as I could feel the
home stretch coming to a close. I could feel the audience who had
left after Slender trickling in again as I concentrated on not
screwing up, and smashing as many tomatoes as I could. After three
games, I had a total of 864 tomatoes; I needed no less than 336 in
the final game (which I only just had time for) to complete the
achievement. By the end of level nine, I had 332. This was going to
be easy. As soon as I smashed the 336th,
everyone in attendance gave me a round of applause. I responded by
pausing the game, turning to them, and bowing.
I
managed to smash another 23 tomatoes before the game was finished,
then I collapsed into a sitting position on the stage. We checked the
cash donations that had been given, and I ended up with an extra
$31.50, bringing my total to $1,154.50 over the months I had been
asking for donations. I reiterated to the audience and livestream
(and later Facebook) about how proud I was of everyone, and they
reiterated how proud they were of me. For the first time, while
wearing my orange Extra Life T-shirt (which, by the way, has the word
“HERO” emblazoned on it), I truly did feel like a hero.
It's
worth noting all the one-minute challenges I did in between games as
well. In order:
1:00pm
– as many forward rolls as possible (I managed 10)
2:00pm – as many
pushups as possible (I managed 42)
3:00pm – sing the
entirety of Pretty Fly For A White Guy (I managed two-thirds of the
song)
4:00pm – play CLOP
(I did fairly OK)
5:00pm – dance the
Gangnam Style dance (did as best I could)
6:00pm – Jen's
Video Game Trivia Quiz (two questions right out of seven)
7:00pm – run from
one end of the college to the other (passed well and truly)
8:00pm – scull
cans of Fanta (I got through two)
9:00pm – call
someone and ask them on a juice date (succeeded2)
10:00pm – another
video game trivia quiz (three correct out of seven this time)
11:00pm – jump
like Mario for a minute (well and truly passed)
12:00am – kiss
another guy (all too easy – I am a gay chicken veteran)
1:00am – arm
wrestle two people (failed it something shocking)
2:00am – crush 16
cans (did so – including one full one. Damn trolls!)
3:00am – complete
three brainteasers (did so within 37 seconds)
4:00am – as many
“burpees” as possible (managed 38)
5:00am – beat New
Super Mario Bros. 2, world 1-1 (succeeded)
6:00am –
impersonate David Attenborough (did so, with the subject being a
sleepy friend)
7:00am – drink a
creaming soda with a Mentos inside it (tasted awful!)
8:00am – tell as
many puns as possible on a given topic (surprisingly, failed!)
9:00am – do a
silly walk (passed, well and truly. I was wiped by then)
10:00am – guess a
minute (I guessed 1'02.13”)
11:00am – thank
everyone involved with the marathon.
Myself
and six others packed all the equipment and food up, returned the
hall to its original state, and left.
Got home. Got back on
Facebook. Read all my fifty unread notifications (which had
apparently accumulated thanks to some dogged work by my Facebook
friends to get the word out about the livestream). Slept.
Having
said that, my green hair attracted me two girlfriends.
And
I went on said juice date, with a good friend. Juice was had, and
proof has been uploaded.
B
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