Life @ Matchday - Desert Island Edition

Welcome to the first of our behind the scenes series: Life @ Matchday - Desert Island Edition.

Although everyone at Matchday Towers is beavering busily away on Matchday Champions, we managed to corner some of our team members and asked them what video game, album, and book they'd take with them if they were stranded on a desert island. Yes, albums used to be a thing!

Joan Marcet – Social Media Manager

• Video Game: Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• Album: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys
• Book: If You Liked School You'll Love Work - Irvine Welsh

Joan's game choice is all about endless exploration and adventure. He says that a big regret of his was selling his Switch and he wants to get back into this in the future, when he has more time. Oh have we not heard that before.

Cristiano Soleti – AI Team - R&D

• Video Game: Pokemon Emerald
• Album: Meteora - Linkin Park
• Book: Carpentry for Dummies "It's an island, no time for literature!"

Sara Iunia C?rstoveanu – UI Artist

• Video Game: Spiritfarer
• Album: Rumours - Fleetwood Mac
• Book: The Bible

With one eye on the afterlife, Sara's aiming to walk the spiritual plane between existences with her choices. And that album... not only one of the best of all time, but one of the best articles of all time was written about the creation of that album (by an up an coming writer by the name of Cameron Crowe).

Joshua Thomson – Biz Dev and Partnerships

• Video Game: Pac-Man
• Album: Joshua Tree - U2
• Book: Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

Stuck on an island, stuck in a maze. Josh's choices are on the one hand stress inducing and on the other following the path to enlightenment. Plus, no one else around to make fun of?U2.

Kareem Rifai – Community Operations Specialist

• Video Game: Rust
• Album: Ride the Lightning - Metallica
• Book: A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

Assuming a desert island internet connection (thanks Starlink), Kareem goes for the meta 'survival within survival' approach with Rust, a sort of Lord of the Flies style videogame. All while rocking out to the big M. Rumour has it, even alone on a desert island, Lars Ulrich will find a way to annoy someone.

Paul Vauvrey – Design Lead

• Video Game: Tetris
• Album: Darkness on the Edge of Town - Bruce Springsteen
• Book: His Dark Materials trilogy - Philip Pullman

Effortlessly tasteful and elegant, Paul's game choice of the puzzle classic Tetris means fun forever, or as long as his thumbs hold out. His book selection is technically a trilogy, but let's imagine it's an omnibus edition and let it through.

Matteo Tanca – Backend Lead

• Video Game: Diablo
• Album: The Wall - Pink Floyd
• Book: The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

Matteo's choices are great for whiling away long hours lost at sea. Drift away on his musical journey and get fully lost in the world of Frodo, Sam and the gang. He didn't ask for the entire trilogy, because he's not consumed with greed like Paul, meaning as a bonus we'll include The Hobbit too.

And that's it for our Matchday Desert Island picks! What would your choices be in this desert island situation? Come, join us on Discord and share your choices!