ArbitraryWater's 2021 GB Community Endurance Run Poor Life Choices Plan

Hi Hello and welcome to another exciting installment of “ArbitraryWater plays video games in order to incentivize people to donate money towards charitable causes.” Following my Mass Effect Andromeda hijinks from Extra Life and my RPG Ironman Ironman runs from last year, the time has come for me to ramp it up a notch. Not only is this my second Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run, this also marks the one year anniversary of my poor life choices streaming career in general. So of course, I need to do something on-brand. Thus, it is my great pleasure to announce

THE MINIATURE WHEEL OF DUBIOUS CHARITY STREAM GAMES

Because why settle for one questionable video game when I could randomly pick from FIVE? That’s right friends, your donations fuel the blood that spin the wheel and grinds my soul into mush (also, you know, helping build schools and improve education in the developing world.) For every $50 American Dollars donated to my Pencils of Promise page by you, the viewers, I will SPIN THE WHEEL and play at least an hour(ish) of one of five dubious video games all tied together with the loose theme of “disappointing successors.” That’s right, our contenders for “what bullshit did I spend far too much time trying to play nicely with OBS” are

• The Evil Within - Tango Gameworks. Shinji Mikami’s return to the genre he helped create is a messy-as-heck combination of veteran game design and just the worst, most frustrating garbage imaginable. Boy howdy I’m so excited to play through the terrible introductory hours of this game on stream.
• Blood 2: The Chosen - Monolith Software. Following my playthrough of Blood this year, clearly the next logical step is to play its disappointing sequel. You know how Half Life and SiN were the big flagship shooters of holiday 1998? Blood 2 also came out around then. Maybe a secret pilot episode for The Wheel of Dubious FPSes? (probably not)
• Mighty No 9 - Inti Creates. The video game that kinda murdered Big Video Game Kickstarter. Will playing it make me cry more than an anime fan on prom night? Fun fact: I never went to Prom.
• Project Snowblind - Eidos Montreal. The game that was, at one point, going to be Deus Ex 3 before hastily being changed to something unrelated before release. Given that I already streamed a playthrough of Invisible War this year, I honestly wonder how Project Snowblind could top it.
• Hitman Absolution - IO Interactive. I’m to understand you don’t get Hitman 2016 without Absolution, but that sure doesn’t fill me with excitement. It also tripped my antivirus software for some reason!

Five Games with a $250 goal means each game is guaranteed to get some play. But what would any stream be without dumb gimmicks?

GIMMICKS

$0: First Round, Totally Vanilla

$50: Vtuber Round. Are you ready for at least an hour of almost nothing but Vtuber talk? I know you are. Want me to stop? THROW MONEY AT CHARITY.

$100: Fire Emblem Round. An inexhaustible supply of pointless knowledge and discussion about the Fire Emblem series, directed entirely at myself and the three people in my chat who have played Thracia 776

$150: Positive Round. Almost nothing but nice things to say about whatever I’m being subjected to.

$200: Open Mic Round. I will sit in an open discord chat room and let YOU nightmare people co-commentate with me. Or chat about whatever. Depending on how this goes this might extend past this round.

$250 (GOAL): Oh, what’s that? What do you mean I’ll run out of games when we reach $250? Guess I’ll just have to play Devil May Cry 2 instead.

Stretch Goals

$350: OVERTIME: what’s that, you want me to stream a few more hours?* Ok. I reserve the right to switch to a “bonus game” as a palette cleanser.

$400: OVERTIME 2: What’s that, you want me to be on the hook for finishing one of the five games (of my choosing) on stream at a later date? Ok.

$500: Let’s Rock Baby! I’ll finish Devil May Cry 2 on stream, which means playing through with both Dante and Lucia. This game is short as hell and it’s quite possible I might finish all of it during the marathon, at which point we’ll switch to a bonus game.

Super Duper Stretch Goals (not exactly expecting to get close to these but hey why not dream big)

$600: OVERTIME 3: I will finish another one of the games on the wheel, on stream, at a later date.

$800: OVERTIME DELUXE: I will revisit one of the games I’ve previously streamed on ANY of my dubious wheels, with a vote to be taken at some point in the future. Is it finally time for the full ArbitraryWater playthrough of Ultima IX?**

$1000: HELP: I will finish all of Devil May Cry 2 on stream as Trish, which requires me to play through the game again with Dante on Hard. So I will have to play this game four times. If it reaches this, you will both have my gratitude and my enmity.

When can I watch these wonderful streams?

Well, I will be streaming all weekend, THIS weekend at twitch.tv/arbitrarywater That’s right; twelve hours, all three days.

Friday, April 9: 3PM PDT- 7PM PDT

Saturday, April 10: 1PM PDT- 5PM PDT

Sunday, April 11: 8 AM PDT - 12PM PDT with an option for overtime*.

*: Depending on how I feel by the end of twelve hours of streaming, I reserve the right to relegate overtime streaming to another day. For better or worse, I have a job that requires me to speak into a microphone for multiple hours, so I’d rather not strain myself if speaking into a microphone is causing issues. Similarly, I reserve the right to end my stream at any time if anything major comes up, but we’ll probably be fine.

**: to be clear I’m also not on the hook for a full playthrough of ANYTHING if we reach this goal. Just another stream. Maybe two, if I’m feeling spicy.

So please, come around this weekend, watch me punish myself, and maybe throw a few bucks towards helping build schools in Guatemala, Ghana, and Laos? I’ll leave my donation page up through the end of the month, so even if I don’t reach everything during the marathon there’s still plenty of time to ensure I end up doing things I will end up regretting later. So, hey, did I mention you can DONATE?