The Game is a non-stop 24-48 hour treasure hunt / puzzlehunt / road rally that is currently active in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle Area. It is one of the most noteworthy of the modern puzzlehunts, in that its teams pile into vans rigged with power and Internet access and drive hundreds of miles from puzzle site to puzzle site. Along the way, teams have to overcome often outrageous physical and mental challenges, usually with no sleep. Teams in recent games have been required to walk around the roof of the Space Needle, find a puzzle hidden in a live rat, and circulate a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide from local ecosystems while dressed in superhero outfits. Game founder Joe Belfiore famously described the Game as "the ultimate test for Renaissance men and women." A treasure hunt can be one of a number of things. ... Promotional poster for the 2003 Manbites Dog puzzle hunt A puzzlehunt is a puzzle-cum-game where teams compete to solve a series of puzzles, usually leading to a final answer or goal. ... A road rally is a car rally that takes place on the public road. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... USGS satellite photo of the San Francisco Bay Area. ... City nickname Emerald City City bird Great Blue Heron City flower Dahlia City mottos The City of Flowers The City of Goodwill City song Seattle, the Peerless City Mayor Greg Nickels County King County Area   - Total   - Land   - Water   - % water 369. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Space Needle from Downtown Seattle. ... The logo of DHMO.org, primary current residence of the dihydrogen monoxide hoax Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is a scientific name for water that is relatively unknown to most of the public, used in hoaxes that illustrate how the lack of scientific knowledge and an exaggerated analysis can lead to misplaced...

History

The Game was created in Los Angeles in 1973 by a graphic designer named Don Luskin. Teams competed all night long solving puzzles across L.A. for a $100 first prize. The game was a mostly underground affair, but eventually drew the attention of the Los Angeles Times and later the Walt Disney company, who produced a movie, Midnight Madness, based on Luskin's game^[1]. Midnight Madness is a 1980 cult comedy film from Walt Disney Productions, starring David Naughton. ...

In 1985 Joe Belfiore (then a high-school student at Clearwater Central Catholic High School) and his friends, inspired by Midnight Madness, created a race like the one in the film. They played four more games before Joe moved to Stanford University to go to school. With Stanford classmates Eli Ben-Shoshan and Andrew Reisner, he created the Bay Area Race Fantastique (B.A.R.F.) which occurred six times before changing its name to 'The Game'. There are some interesting notes about the initial BARFs and number of teams that actually completed them due to the hyper-competitive aspect of the BARF format. The term "Gentleman's Game" was used to describe the Stanford Game shortly after Joe Belfiore graduated -- meaning there was no prize for winning, only bragging rights. Clearwater Central Catholic High School is a private college preparatory school for grades 9 through 12 and located in Clearwater, Florida, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint Petersburg. ... Midnight Madness is a 1980 cult comedy film from Walt Disney Productions, starring David Naughton. ... Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly known as Stanford University (or simply Stanford), is a private university located approximately 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco and approximately 20 miles northwest of San José in Stanford, California. ...

Two more were held in the Bay Area before Joe Belfiore moved to Seattle to take a job at Microsoft, and took the official "The Game" with him, although the San Francisco Bay Area people still consider their games to be "The Game." Structurally, the two Games are identical, but the Seattle Games tend to be more competitive and require more technological gear, while the Bay Area Games tend to be more laid-back. Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ...

Currently, versions of The Game (both full-blown and abbreviated foot-transportation-only) are organized regularly by Stanford dorm staff members as a bonding activity for their residents.

What is The Game?

The general structure of The Game is a series of puzzle challenges (often called "Clues"). Each challenge solves to the location where the next challenge can be found. During the course of The Game, a team will often travel all around a metropolitan area.

Usually there is an overall theme to the clues, or even a story that ties all the clues together.

According to IMDB [2], this was the inspiration for the movie The Game, though many Gamers find this claim dubious. The Game is a 1997 psychological thriller film directed by David Fincher and produced by Polygram, telling the story of an investment banker who is gifted with prepaid access to a game that integrates in strange ways with his life. ...

Game communities

In Seattle, the organization typically fell on the previous winner. However, as time progressed, the Seattle System became unfeasible, and a central organization was created to ensure that Games were not spaced too closely together.

In the Bay Area, the next Game would be run by whatever team felt the ability, chutzpah and desire to do so. Future Game Controls ("GCs") in the Bay Area tended to rely on the expertise of previous GCs and the so-called legitimacy of owning the "Captain's List". In the Bay Area there is no "Central System" or "Central Ownership" per se, but rather an autonomous collective of Gamers (a group of teams that communicate with one-another) and a group-moderated site.

In subsequent years, The Game became increasingly more high-tech and more psychological in nature, a result of each Game trying to "outdo" the previous Games. For instance, a team member might find themselves stripped of all clothes and spectacles, be dressed in nothing but a hospital gown, have the next puzzle be written on the back of their neck in reverse lettering, and then be deposited at a strip club. Teams became increasingly competitive and would even (inappropriately) mislead other teams in order to gain an advantage--much to the fellow participants' and organizers' displeasure. Note that such teams can become "blacklisted" by the community at large and no longer find themselves invited to future Games. This nature of self-policing (decentralized control and word-of-mouth) prevents out-of-control teams from destroying the elaborate events.

In the 2002 Game, "Shelby Logan's Run", a participant was injured severely in a mine shaft. There was no Seattle-based Game for three years after that, although the Bay Area Game continued apace. The August 2005 "Mooncurser's Handbook" Game in Seattle, run by a group of twelve veteran Seattle Gamers, has renewed the Seattle Game tradition.

The Game culture has spawned several spinoffs in the Bay Area, including the Bay Area Treasure Hunt (BATH), Bay Area Night Game (BANG), Park Challenge and Iron Puzzler. There have been several spinoffs in other parts of North America as well. There are three yearly games in New York City that are very similar to The Game: Midnight Madness, The Haystack, and The Great All Nighter. There is also a yearly game in Hot Springs, Arkansas also called Midnight Madness. Race In The City (Toronto) and The Amazing Hunt (Vancouver) model themselves after The Amazing Race, each scheduling different events on a regular basis all year long. Sign from the city limits. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... The Amazing Race is a reality television game show in which teams of two race around the world in competition with other teams. ...

Seattle games

• The Mooncurser's Handbook, Seattle, 2005
• Shelby Logan's Run, Las Vegas, 2002
• Blau Foundation, Seattle, 2001
• VQuest, Seattle, 2000
• The N. I. T., New York, 1999
• ISETV, Los Angeles, 1998
• Thanatos Society, Seattle, 1997
• Hope2Die, Seattle, 1996
• EnGenetics, Seattle, 1995

San Francisco Bay Area games

• Pirate's BATH (BATH3), 2007
• No More Secrets, 2007
• Hogwarts and the Draconian Prophecy, 2006
• Paparazzi, 2006
• Griffiths Collection, 2005
• Justice Unlimited, 2004
• The Genome Game, 2004
• The Goonies Game, 2003
• FoBiK, 2002
• Jackpot, Las Vegas, 2002
• Zelda: A Hidden Link, 2001
• Homicide: Life on the Farm, 2001
• The 420 Game, 2001
• MegaHard, 2000
• Wonka, 1999
• Espionage, 1999
• Amnesia, 1999
• Dragonhunt, 1998
• The Green Game, 1997
• Star Wars, 1997
• Indiana Jones, 1996
• Godfather, 1996
• SETI, 1996
• Magic: The Gaming, 1995
• Operation: The Plague, 1995
• The Most Dangerous Game, 1994
• King Arthur, 1994
• HELL, 1994
• R.A.T.R.A.C.E. 1993
• Alice in Wonderland, 1993
• Long Ride Home, 1992
• "Circle K" Game, 1992
• Mission Improbable, 1991

Shorter Bay Area games (less than 24 hours)

• The Apprentice: Zorg, 2006
• CRANEA, 2005
• BATH2, 2003
• BATH1, 2001
• Overnightmare, 2003
• Magic 8-Ball, 2002

Recurring Bay Area events (less than 24 hours)

• Shinteki - 12 hour events from Just Passing Through
• BANG - Bay Area Night Game

International Games

• Casino Royale: The Game - April 2007, Singapore
• Game Control NZ - Late 2007, Auckland, New Zealand. Aimed at secondary students
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At Wit's End - December 2007, Singapore

Other links

• drivefortheclue.com - Official Road Rally Hosting site
• Game Control - Official website of The Seattle Game
• THE GAME - A site of the Stanford Game
• Seattle GC - information source for The Game, focused around Seattle events and people
• Midnight Madness AR - Midnight Madness in Hot Springs, Arkansas
• Paregoric.org - Midnight Madness 2006 in Hot Springs, Arkansas
• Midnight Madness NYC - Midnight Madness in New York City
• The Haystack - Daytime NYC Game
• The Great All Nighter - Nighttime NYC Game
• Race In The City - A Toronto Game
• The Amazing Hunt - A Vancouver Game
• City Hunt - Another New York Game
• Snout - links to bay area games, past and future
• Microsoft Intern Game - The site for the incarnation of The Game run for Microsoft's Summer Interns.
• Los Angeles Race Fantastique - A Los Angeles Game
• The Great America Race - An eight day adventure from DC to New Orleans starting in July.
• Game Control: SG - Website of a Singapore-based Game Control

References

1. ^ "Fagabeefe: The Unofficial Midnight Madness Home Page / Director's Chair" (notes from the Midnight Madness directors) [1]