15 Days: Part 37

15 Days: Part 37 – October 16th to October 31st 2026

I’ve worked on nearly as many titles as I’ve had birthdays.

When I sat down to write this blog, I didn’t really think I’d done very much over the last 15 days. Yet when I looked through my notes, I was surprised to see that I have at least four games to tell you about, along with CRASH! Live and the tremendous fun that occurred.

And with this in mind, here’s what Part 37 has for you:

“Enter, Stranger!”
Back-to-Back Titles Launch/40th Milestone
UrbX Warriors/CRASH! Live
Time For Gaming

“Enter, Stranger!”: A couple of days ago, I sent out an exclusive subscriber-only teaser hinting at this, and so now I have some very exciting news to share.

Recently, it was announced that Knightmare: The Game, an official point-and-click adventure, based on the classic TV series and featuring the actors from the original show, is being made and is due for release in 2027.

To regular readers, it will come as no surprise that Knightmare is a beloved childhood TV show to me and, along with my testing on the Spectrum version in 2024, plus my work on the Hugo Myatt-related delight that is Cryptmaster (also 2024) and various point-and-click adventure games, any opportunity to continue this trend and help with development made total sense, so I contacted the team behind this wonderful new endeavour.

Made up of a small team of two, namely Ewen Watson and Sathya Schlösser, (again, you know how I thrive in smaller teams), we’ve struck up a lovely dialogue where we’re all on the same page, and I’m truly delighted to share that I’ll be working on their QA and testing.

Looking at the extremely positive reactions to the announcement trailer, this has the makings of something wonderful and, as I always do, I’ll treat what lies ahead with the utmost respect.

The official game reveal trailer is below the following image, along with the link to the website, and I’ll share what I can, when I can, but for now… “DISMISS!”

Website link: https://www.knightmaregame.co.uk/

Back-to-Back Titles Launch/40th Milestone: In an unusual turn of events, two games I’ve been testing this year launched on consecutive days. Heir of the Dog from Tall Story Games, and Sleepytime Village by Lightfoot Bros Games, on the 29th and 30th October respectively.

I’ve been on quite a journey with these two developers and I now fondly call them both friends. And I think we can see the growth and journeys we’ve all been on as we have marched along our individual paths over the years. There’s an understanding, acknowledgement, and celebration of what we have all achieved in our endeavours.

Among the many milestones, they’ve both released great games and, for me, with the launch of these two titles, I have now officially worked on 40 game projects, with the credits on these particular games including ‘QA Lead’. Even just seeing ‘QA Lead’ shows the strides I’ve made in five years. At some point, maybe at the end of the year when I do my annual reflections, I think I’ll mark this properly. For now, you can grab both of these games with launch discounts. They are also bundled up together, also discounted. There are bargains to be had here.

So, grab yourself two excellent games from two wonderful studios that I thoroughly recommend.

Heir of the Dog: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2431920/Heir_of_the_Dog
Sleepytime Village: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1918850/Sleepytime_Village/

UrbX Warriors/CRASH! Live: I head into the winter season with three events left for 2026. First up is CRASH! Live. You may have read about this in a previous 15 Days blog (Part 18) and I have to say this year’s event was the most fun of all so far.

The events I have the best time at are always the ones where I give myself an objective, however big or small it may be, and with CRASH likely to be the last one of 2026 where Stoo, Tony and I will all meet up together, I wanted to treat it a little bit like a live testing session.

Behind the scenes, we chat regularly about bugs that come up and we’ve got into a good flow of working. I find bugs, etc., I log them, they get fixed, I test the fix and repeat. There’s more to it than that but it works very well. Despite working remotely, the lines of communication are easy to maintain and information is shared quickly but there is nothing quite like being in the same room together and working through things. Which is why I spent around an hour playing and testing the Spectrum Next version at CRASH, having watched random players play and find issues that only live public demos can offer. I watched the gameplay, then sat down and replicated it. And by doing this, the three of us could record and understand what is happening and have some clues into why it’s occurring. I viewed it as a Brazen Gameplay team meeting, and I enjoyed every second of it.

I also took a selfie when I replicated a bug I spotted and whilst I’m not sharing the bug itself, the most heartwarming thing I will point out is that I never, ever take selfies. I’m a bit too self-conscious. So I really surprised myself when I grabbed my phone and took the photo below. I had no idea Stoo would photobomb it and that made it even more fun! But the best part of it is that not only did I feel so at ease that I took the photo in the first place, it’s that the look on my face is of happiness. I am comfortable in this world I find myself in, and it’s a credit to both Tony and Stoo that they create an environment where people can be themselves. I am very genuinely grateful for that.

A rare photo of yours truly finding bugs, and Stoo’s reaction. Sorry, not sorry! 😂

And for those of you wondering whether my UrbX Warriors arcade cabinet high score was still there a year later (see Part 18 again), it was not! The scoreboard was wiped. But fear not, I now have the highest score on the CRASH 2026 build. Read it and weep.

Time For Gaming: With all the work I have, I am trying to carve out some time to just play games. Demos continue to be my go-to choice lately. Quick and varied options abound; they’re a good distraction and a useful refresher between testing sessions. This time I carried on with Dredge (I’ve added the DLC now) and played two demos; The Marvelous Raincaster of Yell Holler and Incoherence: Dark Rooms