Editorial: February 2019

Welcome to February’s editorial post, a monthly progress report which rounds-up all the happenings here at Later Levels along with the games we’ve been playing. The past few weeks have been filled with love, not just because of Valentine’s Day but also for our backlogs, so let’s find out what’s been going on.

Statistics:

Blog life:

Forget Valentine’s Day and Cupid: the most romantic event to take place in February was #LoveYourBacklog Week with LightningEllen over at Livid Lightning! This was our attempt to encourage everyone to appreciate their ever-growing pile of video games rather than feel ashamed by it. We asked bloggers to write a post all about their backlogs; and for next month, we’ll be tackling the title that’s been waiting for us the longest for #MaybeinMarch. Keep your eyes peeled for more information soon on the Livid Lightning site.

I’m also in the process of cooking up something new with Chris from OverThinker Y. We’re still not entirely sure where it’s heading yet but it’s a project which will see us combine our skills: his talent for narrative and character development, and my love for flowcharts and formulas. There’ll be more news as soon as we’ve made progress but in the meantime, why not take a look at the Side-quests page to find out what else is going on? If you’ve got a collaboration you’d like to see added to the list, get in touch!

Real life:

Since moving into our house two years ago, we’ve not really touched the garden and it’s now a complete mess. We contacted a company to help us with it at the start of the year but progress has been hindered by a rogue designer: despite giving them our budget upfront, they produced a design which would cost more than triple that figure to create. We’ve since sacked them and will now be doing as much of the work and project management ourselves as possible – which means less time for video games, but a nice garden to use come the summer months.

This year’s Time to Talk Day took place on 07 February 2019 and I opened the Later Levels’ doors to anyone who wanted to chat. It enabled me to have some important conversations but Katie from The Gaming Diaries made a very good point in a tweet: “#TimetoTalkDay is great but that also needs to continue outside today. All throughout the year people need this.” There’s a great community here and so much support. If we can just keep encouraging everyone to have open conversations about mental health, we can make a difference.

Gaming life:

#GameBlast19 in statistics: ⏰ 24 hours of video games 👋 17 viewers watching 🎮 8 games played 🥨 6 bags of W… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

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Later Levels (@LaterLevels) February 25, 2019

My highlight of February was of course GameBlast19, an annual gaming marathon for SpecialEffect. Pete and I managed to keep the Later Levels Twitch channel on air for 24-hours (click here for video evidence) and as with every event, we learnt some very valuable lessons. Two fantastic things came out of our efforts: £612.14 was raised for the charity with the help of you amazing people and we were invited to become a Twitch Affiliate! Thank you so much to everyone who supported us, popped by to say hello in the chat, and made a donation – you’re simply awesome.

After being contacted by the developer with a fix for a game-breaking bug, I finally managed to complete J.U.L.I.A.: Among the Stars and loved every minute of it. I’d highly recommend checking this one out if you like adventures like Myst, science-fiction and independent female protagonists. One I wasn’t so keen on unfortunately was Captain Disaster: Death has a Million Stomping Boots. I can see what the creator was trying to achieve with this point-and-click but I think it just misses the mark slightly because it’s inspired by certain classic games which aren’t entirely my cup of tea. Saying that though, it could well be worth playing if you’re a fan of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders.

Coming up:

And now over to you guys: what have you been up to lately, and what have you got planned for the coming month? Is there anything the community can help with or get involved in? Let everybody know in the comments below so we can show our support. Thanks for reading!