HeyDaniko // September 28th, 2022
I certainly didn’t travel anywhere near as far as those who flew from the States, the Netherlands, or even the frozen north of Scotland. But trekking down to London from Liverpool for my first real outing in nearly two years was quite the adventure indeed. And incredibly worth it, thankfully, as I will now attempt to elaborate upon.
For context, not sympathy, I have been largely housebound for the last 18 months having been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia whilst living abroad. Sadly, this put my life on indefinite hold as I was forced to reluctantly move back to the UK whilst I focussed on getting better. The ensuing collection of months that followed have been arduous, with any and all improvement I have felt only really happening within the last 6 to 8 weeks at the time of writing. Perhaps I’ll delve further into the difficulty of living with a chronic muscular skeletal condition in the future, as this article is most definitely intended to be a joyous one, not a miserable rant about sickness and a cumbersome, crumbling healthcare system. But I feel that it’s import you know that not only did I actually get out of bed this weekend, and not only did I put actual trousers on this weekend, but I actually travelled to an entirely different city and reclaimed a small remnant of the existence that I once had! And how bloody worth it it was!
So lets assume that if you’re reading this opinion piece you are either familiar Oxventure itself, or familiar with the other works of Outsidexbox and Outside Xtra. There is, of course, the third option that you are just a supportive friend glancing over this text because I sent you a link with a sad emoji, asking for validation. But, from this point on, I’m going to assume that you fall into one of the former classifications.
Oxboxtra has been an incredibly important part of my life these last 18 months, and I know it’s almost cliché to say at this point, but I feel like these guys really have helped me out during, easily, the absolute worst chapter of life. Hopefully ever. But with thousands of hours of backlog to catch up on, I’ve had very little excuse to be bored whilst stuck indoors since the beginning of 2021. I’m almost grateful that I was late to the Oxboxtra party as trying to catch up on literally everything has been an endless, mighty task.
Whilst live Oxventures are hardly a new venture for the OX collective they did, unsurprisingly, take quite the hit over the pandemic. As it stands, I think these shows at EGX 2022 may have only been their second or third return to live performances since it became safe to do so. I missed the last group of shows at EGX in 2021 as I was simply far too sick to make the journey, but with my mild amount of improvement this year I was absolutely set on attending. So I took my hobble stick, packed two bags with honestly, in hindsight, far more than I needed for two days at an Expo, and hopped on the first reasonably priced train I could find heading south. And thankfully it ended up in London.
Friday at EGX was quite a quiet day on the floor although, from what others have told me, it was still considerably busier than last year. But it was nice to be able to meander slowly back and forth, not really worrying about getting in anyone’s way or having to circumnavigate cramped corners. And I wasn’t particularly interested in trying anything out, as Oxventure was the singular reason I was even attending the event. So come 6pm, the first show began, and without wanting to give any spoilers away, it was genuinely incredible. Now I’ve already said this to several friends, several times over the last several days, but I’m not entirely sure if was just my heightened emotional state of finally attending a live show, or if Friday night’s Oxventure was actually one of the greatest to date. The entire episode was absolutely hilarious, with some incredible moments of shear fan service as we were all treated to favoured NPCs, earlier adventure callbacks, and signature character moments. It was such a wonderful experience to be in that room with everyone else truly fortunate enough to be sharing the joy. Going into the show, I could feel my arms shaking, and desperately hoped that it was more of a sensation than I visible thing. Seeing these humans whom I already felt like I knew so well, in person, for the first time, was honestly a little overwhelming. And for that first show I was only two rows from the stage, so was absolutely within earshot of both Luke and Ellen. And so the show cracked on with, I think, a pace of about one or two gags a minute, which kept the room in complete stitches throughout. The guild, somehow, managed to have quite probably their toughest ever fight early in the adventure, only to follow it up with perhaps their most savage boss steam-rolling, as of yet, a little later. But the audience bloody lapped it up! Its hard to imagine that the fantasy themed comedy we were all subjected to was actually improvised, as the cast seamed genuinely incapable of missing a beat, with perfectly timed clap backs and slapstick moments from start to finish. Though not one of Oxventure’s more narrative heavy episodes, with no real connection to long-running arcs or antagonists, Friday’s show was still a near flawless demonstration of everything our friends at OX are capable of delivering. If you haven’t yet found that perfect video to send about your circles in the hopes of bringing them into the fold, I think you may just be onto a winner once this show goes up on YouTube. Although we could be waiting a while. And you may have to see my face.
And so, Saturday’s show had quite a bit of living up to do. Not that I doubted it could be done. But, for another mild deviation into my personal journey, I somehow ended up even luckier than I had done the evening before. A kindly security guard caught me seated in the queue, cradling my crutch so that no one passing would trip on it, and practically demanded that I move to the front with the other mobility-challenged attendees. Admittedly, it didn’t feel good, as my illness was never something that I had hoped to gain from in anyway, but I was then shepherded into the theatre and right along the front row. At this point it honestly became a little difficult to feel bad about my “fortune” as I was even closer to the action than I had been for the previous show.
And so it began. I could feel my nerves as intensely as the previous evening, waiting eagerly for our cast of charismatic journalists to take to the stage. As always, they introduced themselves with japes and quips before jumping readily into the action, fantasy, comedy slurry we were all there to bask in. And God, it was good! Whilst not quite as laugh-a-minute as Friday’s performance had been, Saturday’s show was still, undeniably, peak Oxventure! We had character-centric high jinks, gruesome enemy endings, and good old critical path deviations from pretty much the onset, with quite probably more video game mechanic-related humour than we have seen in Oxventure before. But I don’t think there was ever any danger of the jokes being lost on their audience of adoring nerds. If we took anything away from Saturday’s show at all, it was quite the hankering for a croissant. That, and Oxboxtra can, absolutely, always be expected to deliver on their promises of high-quality, hand crafted, extremely engaging entertainment, no matter which form it takes.
I have been Daniko, an unapologetically hardcore Outsidexbox and Outside Xtra fanboy, wishing you nothing less than a wonderful day. And don’t be a Dob.
http://www.youtube.com/oxventure
http://www.youtube.com/outsidexbox
http://www.youtube.com/outsidextra
Thunder's Remnant 