Today is the fourth and final update on my streaming challenge: to beat The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on Master Mode while only wearing hats. I’ve cleared all the Divine Beasts, beaten all the shrines, fully expanded my inventory by collecting four hundred fourty-one Korok seeds, gotten all the memories, beaten the main plot, defeated Calamity Ganon, and only ever worn clothes when absolutely required to by the plot or circumstance (such as the one or two Korok challenges that require using the Zora armor to complete). I’m also just over halfway through the main DLC questline (which I should finish tonight), and then I’ve got a handful of shrine and side quests to find and complete. I have the Trial of the Sword quest on my to-do list, but that’s still going last since I’ve never once cleared it on Master Mode. It will be my crowning achievement on Wednesday or Thursday evening, should I complete it.

Regardless of how far I get, though, most of Thurday’s stream (starting at 7:30pm central time) will be a review of the experience, a second challenge of Calamity Ganon, a review of all memory cinematics I’ve unlocked, and then a Q&A for anyone who has questions about what I’ve done or even just the game in general. It’ll be a “final stream before Tears of the Kingdom releases” event and I’m hoping people show up. My goal is to catch anyone up who needs information before launching into the new game or even just reminding people of the events of Breath of the Wild so they can go into the new game with it fresh in their minds. I have no idea who will show up (I rarely stream on Thursdays, so I’ve got no clue if any of my regulars are even available that night), but I hope it’ll still be a fun, pre-release evening.

Overall, I’ve had a good time. This has kept me busy and focused on doing something, rather than fretting about all of the stuff stressing me out. I don’t think I can maintain this streaming pace any longer than the rest of this week, nor do I think I’ll ever push myself to do something like this again (an entire month of streaming about six days a week is so much work and effort), but I definitely learned a lot and enjoyed myself. I think I’d take more time off if I wanted to do another challenge like this in future, and probably do it during a time that I’m not super stressed at work and doing as much overtime. I could do a pace like this if I wasn’t dashing home from work, showering, eating, and trying to start streaming all in less than an hour. I could also do a pace like this if I streamed only two hours a night after work and had a bit more solid of a streaming structure on the weekends. My haphazard approach, largely the result of needing to handle a bunch of personal stuff like preparing for a trip and finding a place to live next month, meant I was often eating at weird times and that’s a recipe for larger disruptions in my life.

I still haven’t figured out how much I’ll be streaming in the future. I don’t really have to, yet, since I’ll be leaving on my trip after work a week from today and won’t be able to stream anything for another week after that. Then I’ll be busy trying to pack and move, so I’ll only be streaming a tiny bit no matter how much time I’d like to spend. If I even stream at all, that is. Its not like moving is going to be quick and easy. I’ve got too much junk for that. The first chance I’ll have to really set up a streaming schedule is the second weekend in June, about a month from now, since I’ll hopefully be mostly settled into my new place at that point. Only time will tell, though, since there’s a whole lot to do between now and then, not to mention everything I’ve got going on at work, too. I don’t imagine things will be any more calm at the ol’ day job a month from now, since our current hectic pace has been going on for six months already. We might get a small reprieve, soon, but I’m going to be missing most of that while I’ll be on my trip and working on my move, so it won’t benefit me much.

I know I will keep streaming, though. I’m enjoying it too much to stop. I just have to figure out how much and when, so I can fit it into my schedule while leaving room for trying to get some tabletop gaming groups together. And trying to get my existing ones back to playing regularly. All I know for certain is that every time I try to think about what my life and schedule will look like a month from now, my mind just comes up blank. There’s too much between now and then to even consider it. Until I figure it all out, though, I hope any of you who read this blog AND watch me stream will stick around. I’m having too much fun to stop at this point and I could always use more fun in my life.