ZombiePie's Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run 2026 Plans!

That's RIGHT! It's Time To Get Excited For User-Led Charity Streams Again!

Come one, come all; it's time to watch some user charity streams from April 10th to the 12th. I'm not exactly the first person to bring the upcoming Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run (i.e., GBCER) to people's attention. PersonZ recently published an article declaring their commitment to reviving Dave Lang's "Push Up Club," and there's also a thread on the forums with more general details about the event. Nonetheless, today I plan to share my objectives for the event, along with a pitch to have you all tune in and join the fun. And just like Extra Life, we will have an assortment of community streams continually rotating on the Giant Bomb chat! Even if you can't donate, feel free to drop by chat to share words of encouragement to whoever is streaming.

Nevertheless, I might be getting ahead of myself here. First, and foremost, what is the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run? Well, it's like Extra Life, but entirely community-run, held in Spring instead of Winter, and works with the educational charity Pencils of Promise. If you're unfamiliar with Pencils of Promise, they are a 501(c)(3) organization that works to build schools, train teachers, and send kids to school in Laos, Guatemala, and Ghana. Presently, they operate over 600 schools across those three nations, and they have been operating since 2008. They are a fantastic charity, so I want to raise at least $1,000 to help Pencils of Promise continue their great work. If you have enjoyed my articles or blog posts on the site, or the Community Spotlight feature at the end of every week, please donate even a small amount. Every bit helps.

But what we really, really, REALLY need right now are more participants! If you or someone you know is streaming this coming weekend, even for just a few hours, please consider attaching your or their stream to the GBCER's Pencils of Promise team. Even if you can't commit to a long four to six-hour stream or a marathon session, the more the merrier, as they say! Likewise, with the team goal set at $10,000, we desperately need more people to join the effort, as we currently have only a handful of streamers attached to our PoP team.

And here's one of the advantages Pencils of Promise has over something like Extra Life. Even if you are reading this a year after its publication, Pencils of Promise doesn't purge or delete charity pages after groups like ours have wrapped up their activities. So, if you do tune in and have a blast watching some fun streams, and then find a wad of cash two or three months later, consider dropping a donation! Here are all of the links that pertain to the GBCER team and me before we review my specific plans:

• My Donation Page

• The Team PoP Page

• My Twitch Account (You Can Find My Streams Here When I'm Not On Chat)

So, What Are My Plans?

Friday

PowerWash Simulator 2 with RioStarwind - 3:30 - 6:30 pm (PDT)

I'm keeping things simple for Friday as I have to tie up things I normally do during the weekend, and likely need to rotate people into the Giant Bomb chat. Nonetheless, I still plan to stream something to start the event off on a positive note. Therefore, I'll be tagging along with a friend to keep myself active. That friend this time around will be RioStarwind, another moderator on the site, and a continual partner I played PowerWash Simulator 2 with from start to finish. With the game finally getting its first batch of DLC, but this one being about the animated series, Adventure Time, the two of us decided to dust off our digital powerwashing tools for charity. Now, I'm going to be honest with all of you. I enjoy playing PowerWash Simulator, but Adventure Time was never my jam. That's not to say I hate the show, but it's more an admission that it aired during a time when I wasn't exactly turning on Cartoon Network to check out their attempt to court Millennials with their adult-ish animation programming. I have zero opinions on how the show ended or on any of the relationships that wrapped up during its final handful of seasons. I have nothing to add to the current zeitgeist of online commentary about the genderbent Fionna and Cake spin-off series. I'll probably get zero for the references in this DLC and will need others to help me understand who I am talking to or interacting with in the game. Nonetheless, I really like PowerWash Simulator 2 and have been starving for some new content.

Saturday

Dokapon Death Pact - From 1:00 – 5:00 pm (PDT)

Have you been asking for the glorious return of Giant Bomb's Mario Party Party feature? If so, then goodness, do I have a charity stream for you! Fellow Giant Bomb user, ArbitraryWater, and I plan to play a whole "Normal" match of Dokapon Kingdom Connect with hopefully two other companions to boot. What's Dokapon Kingdom? Well, imagine Mario Party but with more bullshit, and it is much more mechanically like a Jinsei game. Unaware of what a Jinsei game is? Well, it's the Japanese version of the board game Life, with the most iconic interpretation being Fortune Street. However, while I like Fortune Street and even Mario Party, I am not a fan of Dokapon Kingdom. And that's because this series/franchise is notoriously long-winded, with it sometimes taking upwards of ten to fifteen minutes to complete a single turn. On top of that, Dokapon Kingdom is way more fickle and mean-spirited than Mario Party. To give you a hint of what I mean by the former point, the game's "Story Mode" takes approximately 50 hours to complete and takes place on a single game board. That's partly why ArbitraryWater and I will be playing the game's "Normal" mode, which is estimated to take about four hours across twenty turns. The game is bullshit and is only bound to get our blood boiling, so it should be a blast to watch.

ZombiePie's Multimedia Torture Chamber - From 6:00 – 12:30 pm (PDT)

And after a quick break, I will return with my bread and butter: multimedia and FMV-based video games. Some of the games I hope to play are:

• Treasure Island Interactive

• Santa Fe Mysteries: The Elk Moon Murder

• Zelenhgorm - Episode 1

• Golden Gate (If Time Permits)

• Book of Watermarks (If Time Permits)

There's no real theme this year. Some of these games I have played and completed and really want to share with you, and others I know work on modern technology after tinkering with them for a bit using DOSBox Pure Unleashed, but I have yet to see them through to the end. Treasure Island Interactive is one of the latter examples, along with Santa Fe Mysteries, and in both cases, they are the first entries in franchises I look forward to covering in more depth with future written articles on the site. Zelenhgorm - Episode 1 is an interesting game I played back in 2025, and it has an incredibly captivating backstory. The game is basically Sweden's Shenmue, with its creator promising a multi-part epic, but, in the end, they were only able to cobble together a single introductory episode. Golden Gate is a game I covered on the old site and is interesting because it is an early project from Vince Zampella. The Book of Watermarks is one of the greatest FMV video games ever made and steeped in internet rumormongering and mythos-building that sometimes oversells what it really is, but I'm unsure if we will have time for those last two games. They will be there as alternatives if other games on my plate run short.

Sunday

Edutainment Game Gauntlet Of Doom

Part 1: ZombiePie's Stream (i.e., ME) - 7:00 am - 11:00 am (PDT)

• Magic Tales: Baba Yaga and the Magic Geese

• Scholastic's The Magic School Bus Explores Bugs

• Jar Jar's Journey Adventure Book

Once again, I hope to guide you through the murky and confusing waters of children's edutainment from the 1990s and early 2000s. The three games I have planned for you this time around skew younger than what I usually cover, but they should still be interesting topics. Magic Tales comes from the wonderful people at Animation Magic, the people who brought you the CDi Zelda games, and we'll see if the first entry in their Magic Tales franchise offers any evidence of a glow-up on their part. Scholastic's Magic School Bus edutainment series is among the most highly regarded in the genre, and even I recall enjoying a couple of them. I have never played their special on insects, though, so that should offer a fun exercise for me and all of my viewers. Finally, we're going to see what everyone's favorite Star Wars character, Jar Jar Binks, has to teach all of us. The less said about that one, the better.  

Part 2: thatpinguino's Stream: Graduate From Jump Start Academy - 11:00 am – 3:00 pm (PDT)

And, much like my Saturday, I will be participating in two streaming efforts on Sunday. Because, after I wrap up my four-hour edutainment escapade, I will be joining fellow thatpinguino in recalling the Jump Start Academy franchise. This stream will take place on his Twitch account rather than mine. You can find it here. Which games in the Jump Start series do they plan to cover in their four-hour stream? I have no idea, and that's part of the charm for this one! Nonetheless, I played the Jump Start games as they came out and even recall ordering one of their games using a paper order form from Scholastic Magazine. If anything, even if the math or reading problems end up stumping me, it should be a trip down memory lane.

But, Seriously, Even If You're Only Streaming For An Hour This Coming Weekend, Please Join The GBCER Team

But seriously, we need more of YOU to join us for this fun adventure this coming weekend. If you really can't stream, please mark your calendar to join us for some fun in the Giant Bomb chat. The Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run has been a blast in the past, and it should be fun this year as well. Donations of any size are appreciated. Whether it's a $5 donation or one that crosses the $100 mark, donate what you can and save your money if you are currently under financial or personal stress. I always enjoy seeing the faces that turn up during this event and chatting with people. If you can't join us as a participant or as a donor, please just spread the word. Share the team page and one of our team members' donation pages with someone who might be interested or able to contribute a small or large monetary donation.

The handy links from before are:

• My Donation Page

• The Team PoP Page

• My Twitch Account (You Can Find My Streams Here When I'm Not On Chat)