This time last year I did the 2010s in photos and short summaries, so let’s have a go at doing the same thing for 2020!
It’s been a hell of a weird year, so it might be hard to pick apart when certain things happened, but here goes…
January
In January, I started the year at Below Stairs at another fantastic Riptide experience. I took part in Christmas Werewolf and learned to No Seriously Don’t Trust Anthony.
We went out for dinner at Neighbourhood and to see Jumanji 2. I went to Sheffield to take Keeleigh to her first escape room. I also did back-to-back escape rooms at the Escapologist.
We housesat for my in-laws after they had a burglary attempt. We went to the annual panto over in Oldham. Symonds came to visit. We visited Annika and Ralph in Lincoln and I discovered the joy of the Masked Singer.
We got our first Return to Arkham Horror boxsets. We playtested an escape room experience around the Royal Armouries.
February
We headed to the Lake District for the game-filled wedding of Matt and Becky. We bought our wedding rings, had our menu tasting and held a brownie tasting. We also had our first dance lessons.
I went to see my brother’s new house in Derby. I went on a daytrip to Manchester, visiting the Fan Boy Three, Lucardo and various other geeky hotspots.
There was flooding and I played the best game of the year, the Return of the Obra Dinn. We did our first ever remote game – pre-Covid, with our friends who moved to Japan.
I listened to Six The Musical and Hamilton on repeat constantly. I played in Crisis in Elysium as the High Priest of the Church of the True Martians, in my only physical megagame of 2020.
March
We went to see Katherine and John’s new house. My work moved to our new office for precisely 3 weeks – I spent less than two weeks in there total due to a First Aid at Work course.
I went to London for an action-packed weekend of Moonlight Hustle, TimeTrap and a murder mystery, but by this point Covid was definitely on our radar.
I went to my dress fitting, and later that evening my work offered me the opportunity to work from home owing to my pre-existing health conditions. A week later, the country went into lockdown and I was told to shield for a minimum of 12 weeks.
I started playing Pandemic Legacy Season 1 over Zoom. We started our weekly Discord hangouts and weekly Friday drinks.
We postponed our wedding for a year. I left the house for the last time for 6 weeks.
April
I played my first online Megagame, Den of Wolves. I had my e-hen. We watched all of Battlestar Galactica.
I took part in Riptide’s Project Intimacy and got to know a complete stranger for two weeks. I took part in the Easter time-travelling Werewolf and VERY NEARLY won.
We found out there was a parcel thief in our building. I played my first ever game of D&D. I got obsessed with Fallen London for a few months.
I played in Draft Night 3077. I made myself and Tim on Sims 3.
May
We had our not-wedding weekend, featuring Arkham Horror, brownies, free-flowing prosecco and a home-catered meal by a professional chef in our building.
I snuck out of shielding for us to take our first trip to Roundhay Park – my first time outside in more than 6 weeks. I spoke at the True North Megagame Design Symposium about Megagames in 2030.
I watched most of the Starkid musicals, then stalled at Ani and switched to watching all the Star Wars movies (most of them for the first time). I watched Eurovision on Zoom with Keeleigh.
We discovered most of the takeout places that got us through lockdown – Pizzaluxe, Cadillac Jack’s and Bengal Brasserie. I started playing Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr, over Discord with friends in Reading and Cambridge.
I was released from shielding after 10 weeks, because my risk level was reassessed.
June
I emailed my MP about the UK government’s reaction to the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. I met my family in a damp car park for the first time since Christmas.
We leaned heard into the do-at-home activities, including a martini kit, some cookie dough and The Insiders by Deadlocked Escape Rooms.
We got very into Unfortunate Spaceman, and my mic glitched so my friends surrounded me and killed me for being sus. I started a big rewatch of all of new Doctor Who.
I got back into CosyKiller for a few weeks and opened up three more of their boxes. (I found that I prefer to dip in and out of their cases rather than binge them!)
July
The country opened back up, and we went and sat in North Star for the first time since March. We got a tasting menu at home from Vice and Virtue.
Hamilton was released on Disney+ and I got obsessed again. I finally finished the Game of Thrones Telltale game (as the worst Northerner in the history of Game of Thrones).
We played an episode of Betrayal at the House on the Hill Legacy and was the betrayer for my second time out of three plays of the game.
I played in my second ever D&D game, this time set in Japan. I failed to escape an (at-home) escape room in the time limit for the first time, due to taking too many pictures.
Went away to a cottage on Sutton Bank for a few days, visited the Finest View in England and finished our first successful run of The Forgotten Age.
August
In August, we had had enough of our city centre flat, and started casually browsing properties. We gave notice for our wedding and booked it in for the end of September. We also bought a car! Top month for adulting.
I started watching classic Doctor Who on Britbox (gosh, the First Doctor is hard to watch – but I do love the Second Doctor). Used the Nuclear Option in Pandemic Legacy Season One (not technically a spoiler because I’m not telling you what that did). I played in Red Planet Rising.
We started the Couch to 5K (for the second time) (spoiler, we got to about week 5). I went into Leeds City Centre for the first time since March, and also went to Temple Arches for a fun Covid-safe summer food and drinks experience.
I had to get a Covid test due to panicking about my sense of smell (it came back negative). Unrelated to that, I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism, my third chronic illness.
September
I took part in OMGCon – as a presenter, on a panel, in a watch party and playing multiple games.
I took part in a Covid-safe games course to learn how to design games using Actionbound.
Tim and I discovered the Umbrella Academy and got obsessed. I also discovered Among Us and started playing a regular Sunday night Among Us game. Red is sus.
And then did a just-married escape room – and my only post-Covid escape room that wasn’t virtual or a box game.
October
We played Fog of Love, one of our wedding presents.
I turned 30 with an awesome birthapalooza featuring Discord games, an online escape room, a cottage stay, wedding champagne,
a TARDIS, brunch, balloons, a escape room in a box,
a special Tim-cooked meal, cocktails, a trip to Derby Arboretum to see my family, and lots of lovely zoom calls.
Tim and I randomly decided to watch Heroes and binged the entire first season. Following our official wedding, we further postponed our “big do” to September 2022. I dressed up as a devil for Halloween then played in an online murder mystery set on a space station.
November
My work announced that we would be making the switch to work-from-home even after Covid, on a trial basis to start with. I got hooked on the US elections for about a week and basically mainlined CNN.
I started playing Society of Curiosities’ fantastic game, Madok’s Lost Treasure.
I ran an online pirate deep game adapted from the one I ran at university, using Gather.Town. It was a massive success and one of my favourite achievements from during lockdown.
I photoshopped Tim’s moustache onto random celebrities after he successfully completed Movember.
December
We started playing The Circle Undone over Tabletop Simulator with Ellie and Callum. I started yet ANOTHER game of D&D, this time playing a quarter-elf bard who totally can see in the dark, she doesn’t need your silly torch.
I helped Tim celebrate turning 30 at a cottage featuring games, a trip to Harlow Carr and more wedding champagne.
I controlled for a pretty big online Watch The Skies and helped my aliens become the pizza aliens.
We had an online work Christmas party featuring lots of wine and online games. I also got a ton of lovely presents from my work Secret Santa who definitely busted the budget. We celebrated Christmas at Tim’s parents, in one of the most normal-feeling days this year.
We celebrated the New Year with a super tough quiz then a lot of Among Us. And more wedding champagne.
Summaries
Finally, here are a few stats for my 2020:
Weddings attending: 2 (including MINE)
Countries visited: 0 (was supposed to go to Vietnam and Japan but that was cancelled for some reason)
Megagames attended: 6
Escape rooms escaped: 12
Pandemic Legacy games played: 18
Lockdowns survived: 2
Zoom meetings: like a million
2021…?
Okay, so we’re a week in and already back into lockdown number 3. But I still have hope for this year – hope that the vaccine will come through for us (I’m in group 6 on the priority list); hope that we’ll make it on our honeymoon; hope that life will start to go back to normal. It might not be as soon as we all would like, but it’s on the horizon.
And in the meantime, I’m looking forward to drinking nice wine, eating tasty food, playing excellent games, and making some incredible new memories, both digitally and IRL. Here’s to 2021!