GameBlast21: games and goals

How does playing video games for 24-hours straight sound to you? It’s certainly tiring and takes a whole load of stamina to make it through to the end, but it’s also a lot of fun. And doing it to support an amazing cause makes the experience even more worthwhile.

This is what’s going to happen on a dedicated weekend in February when hundreds of gamers all over the UK will be taking part in GameBlast21 to raise funds and awareness for SpecialEffect. The charity aims to put fun and inclusion back into the lives of people with disabilities by using technology to help them play video games to the best of their abilities. This not only brings friends and families together but has a profoundly positive impact on confidence and quality of life too.

With now only a month to go until our own event, read on to find out about the games we’re going to be playing during our 24-hour stream along with our fundraising targets and the rewards you can expect to receive.

24-hour marathon game schedule confirmed

Towards the end of December, we asked you to help us decide on the schedule for our marathon stream by voting in a short series of polls. Thank you to everybody who took part and created the confirmed line-up! There’s a nice selection of games with a little something for all gaming tastes. We’ll try to stick to the timings below as much as possible and have posted a handy visual reminder of these here.

#DaysForDonations fundraising targets and rewards so far

A huge thank you to everyone who has kindly donated to SpecialEffect through our JustGiving page to date! The higher we get, the more rewards that will be unlocked – so look forward to some special streams which are likely to involve us embarrassing ourselves. We’ll also complete an additional stream for at least an hour a day during a specified period after the main event, and you can see everything unlocked so far in the round-up below.

How you can get involved

We’d be lying if we said that donations weren’t greatly appreciated and put to good use. They enable SpecialEffect to continue their work assisting hundreds of physically-disabled people all over the UK to experience the joy of video games. The charity does this free of charge, and shares the knowledge gained from their lifelong assessment and support services with hardware and software developers – so a feature that’s worked successfully for one individual can then go on to benefit thousands of others.

Check out our JustGiving page for details if you’d like to donate. It’s not just about money though: anything you can do to raise awareness and help spread the word about SpecialEffect is hugely beneficial too, as it increases the potential for them to reach more people they can help. Tweet about the charity’s work, share the press release which will be published here in February, come along to any of our GameBlast21 streams and join us in chat; it’s all valuable and we’re so grateful for your support.

Give the official GameBlast account on Twitter a follow for the latest announcements and visit at the SpecialEffect website to find out more about what the charity do. It’s time to get everybody back in the game.

We’re taking part in GameBlast21 to support SpecialEffect, the gamers’ charity.
Making a donation will bring you great loot, increase your XP by +100 and make you immune to fire.*
(*Not guaranteed.)