15 Days: Part 19

November 22nd to December 6th 2025

• AdventureX
• Fitness update and comparison;
• Christmas is coming
• ThinkyCon 2025 Podcast

AdventureX: AdventureX is a narrative-driven gaming event featuring demos and talks, and the opportunity to meet people who represent every level and aspect of game development within this genre. It’s also the very last event I am attending in 2025.

I’d been looking forward to this one for a while; a mix of returning to the first event I ever attended since I started testing, and anticipating a different experience after contributing to so many projects in the last four years. Where I knew hardly anyone in 2022, now I am friends with many in 2025.

I wasn’t sure what to expect on the weekend but what struck me with most people I spent time with is how we now have stories to share, memorable experiences, and that same desire to make the best games we can, offering whatever we can in our own way. It felt very good to be in the presence of people who I’ve worked with and admired, knowing we’ve collaborated on some great projects.

Due to all the catching up with familiar faces, I only managed to get to the keynote presentations over the course of the weekend but they were excellent. Dominic Armato’s talk on Imposter Syndrome was particularly insightful, especially after my own battle with it in Part 12.

Talks for both days can be found here:
AdventureX Talks Day 1
AdventureX Talks Day 2

I’ve also noticed how much more relaxed and quietly confident I am now than in 2022. That’s a combination of being at so many events this year and becoming accustomed to their demands, and simply putting in the work when it’s come to testing. This has given me a good reputation within the game dev community but, most important of all, it’s given me a lot of new friends.

Fitness update and comparison: Another graph below to show the caffeine, chocolate and alcohol tracker. Picking up with day 6 after I stopped drinking coffee, it was more cravings, more aches, and then it was over. I’ve been tempted twice but held strong. My sleep has improved and aside from a day or two of tiredness, I feel really good. I can’t help but feel that my body has been propped up with caffeine for so long, it’s starting to readjust and demand more rest and food while it finds its natural equilibrium but, overall, the caffeine dropped by nearly 10% and I am feeling good.

Chocolate consumption is a bit naughty. It’s steady but that just indicates that for every day I don’t have some, there’s a day where I do. Alcohol can be attributed to AdventureX’s after party and a quiet glass of wine once or twice. Still, that’s the highest it’s been so far so I’ll keep an eye on that as well.

Actual fitness and exercise have been close to non-existent. I find myself taking some time off and enjoying the normality of day-to-day. It won’t last long but simply spending some downtime at home with my wife, doing a few chores, watching some television has been a good change of scene, especially after the whirlwind of CRASH Live! and AdventureX. I have written out an exercise plan to start in the coming weeks, based upon the one I mentioned in Part 15, but with additional exercises added in. That will start soon.

As before, the numbers in parentheses are the number of days since July, per 15 Days, accumulated, with the percentages in each section showing the amount across the total days so far.

Christmas is coming: It would be remiss of me not to point you in the direction of two websites belonging to my Brazen Gameplay buddies, Tony Warriner and Stoo Cambridge.

Stoo’s website offers bespoke customisable canvases, art prints, pixel portraits and more, based around his Sensible World of Soccer work and the computers of the day. There’s some eye-catching stuff, and having seen some of these at the various events we’ve attended this year, I’ve been able to look closely at what’s for sale. It’s impressive; the detail and quality show through. So, take a look at his website here, search around and see if something catches your eye too.

Tony’s book Revolution: The Quest for Game Development Greatness is now available in paperback as a 2^nd edition. Following on from the success of the hardback 1^st edition, it comes with some additional extras and is well worth reading. I certainly learned a lot about Revolution Software and I enjoyed it. The link to his website is here.

Like I said, Christmas is coming.

ThinkyCon 2025 Podcast: So, I said I’d come back to this and that time is now. Did you watch this podcast I linked in Part 18? Well, here’s some of my thoughts on it.

For a brief summary, this podcast shone a light upon Tonda’s approach to finding play-testers for Blue Prince. What I found most interesting was what kind of play-tester was needed rather than how to find them. He was looking for play-testers whose gaming choices overlapped between puzzle and strategy games; he wanted to find people who are more attuned to the game being made, rather than to a larger audience. It wasn’t about bug-testing but about playing Blue Prince holistically; only wanting the normal experience of someone playing a game, while recording the run and wanting to see how it went. No surveys, no request for feedback, just the gameplay and the authentic reaction and approaches, something you don’t truly get from data only.

As for whom he landed upon, there’s some lovely insights into how Tonda found these play-testers, and in my experience probably one of the most thoughtful approaches I’ve seen. Bearing in mind there’s a particular type of player being looked for (remember the overlap).

And this leads me to some of my own experiences from a testing point of view. Every single developer I’ve worked with has been different in their approach. No exceptions. And I find this quite bizarre because with over 30 projects behind me, I’d expect some overlap but there isn’t any. This tells me that whatever approach one may take in making a game, there’s no one-way-fits-all, it’s open to whichever way you choose to go or the routes you are aware of. It also means I have been fortunate to experience many different ways of working, often highlighting what I prefer or don’t. While it’s been very positive, it hasn’t always been so. There are one or two I’ve tested for in the early days that didn’t fulfil their side of the bargain when I’d completed my part but then they don’t get mentioned in my blogs or listed on my website, and I’ll not work with them again. There are one or two other stories but, on the whole, spending time within many different teams means I can be flexible about how I work and it’s given me some valuable experience. I think my main point in highlighting Tonda’s podcast is that I hadn’t considered that particular approach before and the thought behind it, which shows me I can still learn more. Something I am always happy to do.

As always, until next time, stay safe, and thank you for reading.

Paul.