This evening I’ve finished both To Spring Open and CYBERQUEEN, two games with excellent writing and atmosphere, but where I don’t quite get what is going on? But in very different ways.
Now I shall go to bed, and in the morning tackle You, by Carter X Gwertzman
Due to the time I lost to having migraines, I didn’t get in as many bonus plays as I would’ve liked, but as Swigian is pretty short, I did play that just now, and wrote a quick review as well! Swigian - Details
Happy to announce that I have played You and am thus at the finish line 
Reviews forthcoming.
The crowd roars as iaraya (#4) crosses the finish line with less than 30 minutes to spare! Way to go, @iaraya!
Time’s up! The Great Play Marathon is over! Congratulations and cheers for all runners – all told, nearly a hundred plays were completed, averaging 5 per participant!
I’ll start compiling the data for the various awards, but one of them must be determined by vote:
Please note that for purposes of the Toughest Terrain award, squares counted must be in a contiguous path, without any “skipping” or “hopping” over squares. Using my own path as an example (since I’m not eligible for the award), the run to consider would be from The Owl Consults (F6) to Draculaland (A2) and then on to Fingertips: Fingertips (B1) because that’s only one square away. Everything after wouldn’t count.
Also please note that while most runners are shown on squares for unfinished games, the following runners have completed the games on the squares where they are shown:
I’ll leave the poll open for 48 hours (until the end of August 2nd as measured by UTC), and it’s open to onlookers as well as runners.
I voted JohnD because Moondrop Isle is, for my money, the biggest mountain to climb on this map, and then to finish with The Plant, which is a decent-sized hill as well, is pretty tough. But iaraya’s 4x4 Archipelago → The Anachronist → Worlds Apart stretch is quite rocky also.
Yeah, those feel like the two to beat. I re-played 4x4 Archipelago recently and was surprised by just how long and grindy it was (IIRC some builds can be a little faster, but I definitely didn’t get one of those this time). And The Anachronist is over 90K words – basically a full novel. I think iaraya’s shorter with-hints time for Worlds Apart is the only thing that tips me toward JohnD…
Anyway, congratulations to all the runners; that was a lot of fun to watch! Kinda wish I’d taken part, but with having already played most of columns 4 and 6, and most of rows B and E…
The vote was close, but we have a winner! The final update listing all award recipients has been added to the top post of the main event thread.
Thanks for playing, everyone!