Daylight Saving Time Ending Extravaganza

Game Day is November 5-6, and Daylight Saving Time ends in the wee hours of November 6th. That means that we have a bonus hour of games to do.

Excitement!

Extra Life 2015 Tentative Schedule

This is the tentative schedule of games we will be playing this year. Please note that the schedule is subject to change depending on lots of stuff.

• 8:00 AM Tokyo Jungle (PS3)
• 9:00 AM Rocket League (PS4)
• 10:00 AM Spelunky (PS4)
• 11:00 AM Towerfall (PS4)
• 12:00 PM NES Remix 1/2 (Wii U) (Also, lunch)
• 1:00 PM Super Mario Maker (Wii U)
• 2:00 PM Super Mario World (Wii VC)
• 3:00 PM Super Mario World (Wii VC)
• 4:00 PM Splatoon (Wii U)
• 5:00 PM Super Punch-Out!! Race (Also dinner)
• 6:00 PM DeathSmiles (Xbox 360)
• 7:00 PM Protect Me Knight! (Xbox 360)
• 8:00 PM Castle Crashers (Xbox 360)
• 9:00 PM WWE All-Stars (Xbox 360)
• 10:00 PM Super Smash Bros (Wii U)
• 11:00 PM Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing Transformed (PS3)
• 12:00 AM Monopoly (PS3)
• 1:00 AM Aegis Wing (Xbox 360)
• 2:00 AM Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two (Wii)
• 3:00 AM Midway Arcade Treasures (PS3)
• 4:00 AM Borderlands (PS3)
• 5:00 AM Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
• 6:00 AM Diablo 3 (PS4)
• 7:00 AM I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 (Xbox 360)
• 7:30 AM Misc, overrun?
• 8:00 AM Finished!

It sure is dusty in here.

Well, it’s almost that time of year again. That time where we gather a few friends together and play video games for 24 hours to raise cash for Riley Hospital for Children as part of the Extra Life for Kids video game marathon.

Last year was our best year to date, and I want to top our performance again this year. I can’t do it alone, so if you want to help, just let me know, either here or via the usual channels.

The marathon is happening November 7th and 8th, and it would be an honor to have you come along for the ride.

Extra Life 2014 Stream

This will become live at 8:00 AM Central Time. If it’s earlier than that, please wait a bit. If it’s after that… um… you might be waiting a while.

*Edit* It’s over!

The Final Countdown

This is it! Five days to go, we’ve reached the Final Countdown(tm)

Things are definitely shaping up, and we’ve already raised more than we did last year. I’m truly humbled.

The Steady March of Progress

It’s been a little bit quiet here for the last couple of weeks, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve been resting on my laurels. Mostly because I don’t know what laurels are (although I hear that they make great soup).

I would like to announce that Mr. Ellipsis (of the ‘Basscomm and Mr Ellipsis play something’ series on Youtube) has agreed to join this year’s video game marathon and will be here for the full duration. If you’re not familiar with his (or my) commentary, I’ve embedded one of our hit videos below.

We have also raised half of our goal of $100 and are well on our way to smashing last year’s total. I can tell, this year’s marathon is going to be great.

Switching it up

This is a 3 port HDMI switch. Looks pretty innocuous, right?

3 Port HDMI Switcher

This is the switch box that I have been using ever since I decided to dip my toes into the world of video game capture and streaming. It’s pretty great, and it even auto-switches between active sources, which you would think is a good thing, and it was… until I got a Wii U.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like my Wii U and think that you should get one, too. But it has an interesting… feature? I guess.  If you watched the stream last year or the Streets of Rage video from a couple of months ago, you know that we occasionally lost the stream. Every time this happens the Wii U goes from asleep to only mostly asleep. My guess is that it’s checking for downloads, messages, and whatever. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but it wakes up just enough that the switcher thinks that the Wii U is coming on and it gets switched over. This results in the stream/video/whatever cutting to black.

That’s less than ideal.

I had been living with it since it was easy to work around, even though I forgot about it enough times that it was a little frustrating. But, I recently came into possession of a Playstation 4, and I was suddenly had three ports, and four HDMI devices. That meant I might have to retire one of the things.

The horror!

But, with my backlog as big as it is I didn’t think removing one of the consoles to another area was the right solution… so I went ahead and got more ports… or, rather, a switcher with more ports on it.

5 port HDMI Swticher

So, what does this mean? Well, not only can I switch between five HDMI things (even though I currently only have four), but this new switcher does not auto switch. That means that any of the consoles can power themselves on as much as they want and I won’t suddenly lose the stream and have to panic.

And that makes it well worth the purchase price.