A different kind of road warrior

April 21, 2004 4:10 PM

The Game. It’s 4am. In the past twenty hours you've done everything you could ever have imagined-- been chased by black helicopters, climbed mountains, been scared out of your wits, broken the land-speed record for a mini-van, agonized over the inadequate size of your cranium, jumped for joy, and told your best friend off. Everything but sleep. You won't get to do that for at least another 8 hours. A combination of scavenger hunt, road rally and mental gymnastics, The Game sends six-person teams scurrying across the landscape in vans equipped with laptops and photocopiers, maps, bibles, walkie-talkies, GPS units, cryptographic cheat sheets and, variously, wetsuits, sledgehammers and blowtorches. Sound fun? Go for it!
posted by Daddio (9 comments total)

This sounds pretty damn sweet.
posted by Cyrano at 4:23 PM on April 21, 2004

... The cost is $75 per person, so the minimum payment is $300 ...
posted by milovoo at 4:27 PM on April 21, 2004

I'll only do it if my brother buys me the subscription, I fall in love with the anonymous blond woman, and I keep thinking that the game is over.
posted by thanotopsis at 4:34 PM on April 21, 2004

Actually, costs vary by games. There's some correlation to how elaborate and costly the clues are themselves, and to how long the Game is. Running one of these is not a small endeavour - Game Control works very very hard, and spends a lot themselves. Playing is absolutely worth the entrance fee.

Really though, the best part is how cool the other teams are.
posted by synapse at 4:47 PM on April 21, 2004

i've tried to get into a few of these, and the applications were meticulously ridiculous. perhaps we were too funny or not funny enough ... never had to pay any money though.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:06 PM on April 21, 2004

They should market it as "24: The Home Version".
posted by wendell at 5:09 PM on April 21, 2004

Portland had this weird trivia night at the Horse Brass pub for years that would culminate, once a year, with the hunt for the Golden Keg.

Five or six teams of four or more players compete in an all day all drinking scavenger hunt for a keg of PBR that had been spray painted gold. Each team had a designated driver and a complimentary designated drinker. There were a variety of tasks that took you all over the city finding clues to unlock new tasks, etc. Ones that I (dimly) remember included doing aerobics in the street -- while drinking -- one block off of Hawthorne, playing quarters against the quarters champion from one of the local bars, and mooing like a cow while crawling the entire length of the Gypsy (pre buyout) and then finishing off a punchbowl.

It's all much more complicated than that, but it was a very fun, and very adult, event.

The year after I did my first one the guy who ran trivia night moved away... I've never met a more creative soul, and it would sully the idea if it weren't pulled off right.
posted by togdon at 8:49 PM on April 21, 2004

Sounds very similar to The Go Game, except with helicopters... HELICOPTERS?!?! What kind of budget do they run on? Do they turn a profit?

Some friends of mine were involved in the 11/02/02 Go Game in SF's SOMA and reported that much funnage was had.
posted by quasistoic at 10:50 PM on April 21, 2004

can this be as cool as it sounds?
posted by klik99 at 9:39 PM on April 23, 2004