An article from Rolling Stone Magazine About A "Game"

April 24, 2005 9:05 PM

The article was about a game that was played amongst a few teams, almost like a scavenger hunt, insane clues were given and the mastermind teams unlocked them and went on quite a journey. I remember one clue led them to a party with about 40 people and they all turned out to be actors or something. Quite a fantastic tale. It said that these games take place all the time. I'm looking for the article from RS, or a link to anything remotely close to this. Thanks you
posted by AMWKE to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (8 answers total)

Don't know what it was called, but I know you're not making it up -- I read it too. It was in 2002-2003 sometime.
posted by almost incandescent white tuxedos at 9:46 PM on April 24, 2005

The Game
posted by Rothko at 9:56 PM on April 24, 2005

You're talking about The Game, a 30-hour team puzzle-solving event originally inspired by the movie Midnight Madness, and by which the film The Game was in turn very, very, very loosely inspired. It started in Stanford, was brought to Seattle, and now enjoys a healthy life in the SF Bay area where multiple Games run every year. A new Game is happening in Seattle this summer, and other Game communities have sprouted up in New York, Florida, and elsewhere. For those who want to get their feet wet with a shorter event, Shinteki is a 12-hour Game that happens to be running their third event next weekend in San Francisco. More information about past Games, including the Rolling Stone article you mention, can be found here.
posted by Zair TL at 10:39 PM on April 24, 2005

Years ago, composer Stephen Sondheim (a game collector and puzzle enthusiast) used to create and orchestrate games like that. I read somewhere that one of the teams lost because they were served a cake with a clue written on it in icing. They ate the cake without noticing the clue.

Sondheim co-wrote a fun mystery movie based on these games, called "The Last of Sheila." And the movie "Sleuth" was VERY loosely based on Sondheim's games. The original title of the movie was going to be "Who's Afraid of Stephen Sondheim."
posted by grumblebee at 5:23 AM on April 25, 2005

My employer arranged something like this a few months ago for one of our quarterly team building events.

We hired these guys (http://thegogame.com/) to arrange it all. It was a great success and was a lot of fun.

They had numerous actors working undercover during the game. Clues and answers were all handled via web enabled cell phones that they provided. Many of the answers were photos and videos that were assembled into a video presentation that was ready at the end of the competition.

It was some money but given that we amused 100 people for a day it was totally in line with our budget.
posted by deanj at 8:05 AM on April 25, 2005

There used to be (still are?) keg races (aka. The Qwest for the Golden Keg) in Portland. Someone appears to have blogged about the September 2004 race.

The tasks for clues that I remember from 2001 were:

• Go ice skating while drunk in a Tutu and singing "Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting". At the Mall.
• Do Aerobics with a Jane Fonda tape while stopping traffic on Hawthorne.
• Climb a rock wall to retrieve the clue from the very top
• Play quarters with the best quarters player I've ever seen.
• ...

The clues were all written in barely decipherable Haiku form, and I'm certain that several laws were bent along the way.
posted by togdon at 9:33 AM on April 25, 2005

Discussed earlier here.
posted by Daddio at 12:04 PM on April 25, 2005

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but one guy who participated in that last Game in Las Vegas was severely injured and is now legally blind and quadriplegic.

I'm just guessing he wouldn't recommend the experience.
posted by DawnSimulator at 9:52 PM on April 25, 2005