The Game (treasure hunt)

Did You Know?

• Teams have been required to walk around the roof of the Space Needle.
• A puzzle was once hidden in a live rat.
• Teams circulated a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide from local ecosystems while dressed in superhero outfits.

History

The origins of this puzzle race trace back to 1968, when composer Stephen Sondheim and actor Anthony Perkins organized a Halloween hunt in Manhattan. Participants rode in limousines, using annotated maps to solve clues across the city. Director Herbert Ross, who took part, later hired the pair to write the screenplay for The Last of Sheila, a film inspired by the event. In 1973, graphic designer Donald Luskin and his friend Patrick Carlyle, motivated by that movie, launched one of the earliest versions of The Game in Los Angeles. Teams spent the night solving puzzles around the city for a $100 prize. They held it four times during the 1970s, initially as an underground affair until the Los Angeles Times and later Disney took notice, leading to the film Midnight Madness. In 1985, high school student Joe Belfiore and his friends in Clearwater, Florida, created a race based on that movie. After four more games, Belfiore moved to Stanford University. There, with classmates Eli Ben-Shoshan and Andrew Reisner, he founded the Bay Area Race Fantastique (BARF), which ran six times before being renamed The Game. The early BARFs were hyper-competitive, with few teams finishing. After Belfiore graduated, the Stanford version became known as a "Gentleman's Game," offering only bragging rights. Two more Bay Area events followed before Belfiore relocated to Seattle for Microsoft, taking the official name with him, though Bay Area organizers still claim their events as The Game. From 1995 to 2002, games were held in Seattle, Napa/Sonoma, New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. Today, Stanford dorm staff run regular versions, and Microsoft hosts an "Intern Game" for summer interns, organized by Stanford alumni.

Game communities

The next Game each year is typically run by whichever team feels the ability, chutzpah and desire to do so. In early BARF and Seattle Games, first-right-of-refusal fell to the winning team. Bay Area future Game Controls relied on previous GCs' expertise and the 'Captain's List'. There is no central system or ownership in the Bay Area, but an autonomous collective of Gamers and a group-moderated site. As the Game grew, it became more high-tech and psychological, with each Game trying to outdo previous ones. Teams became increasingly competitive, sometimes breaking rules and misleading others, leading to blacklisting by the community. This self-policing prevents out-of-control teams from destroying the events.

Alternative Versions

The Bay Area spawned several spinoffs of The Game, including the Bay Area Treasure Hunt (BATH), Bay Area Night Game (BANG), Park Challenge, and The Iron Puzzler. New York City hosts three similar yearly games: Midnight Madness, The Haystack, and The Great All Nighter. Hot Springs, Arkansas also has a yearly game called Midnight Madness, while Midnight Madness Brevard runs events in Brevard County, Florida, and Midnight Madness Vermont holds MMVT events multiple times a year. In 2009, Deborah Goldstein created Different Area Same Hunt (DASH), the first multicity Game, played simultaneously in eight cities. The Black Letter Game (2012, 2015) focuses on puzzles in physical artifacts mailed monthly, requiring no travel.

Notable events

The 1999 Game saw a Marriott Hotel worker at the World Trade Center in New York City discover a bottle of bright green liquid, which led to a partial hotel evacuation. Three years later, during "Shelby Logan's Run," player Bob Lord misread a clue and plunged thirty feet into an abandoned mineshaft near Las Vegas, crushing vertebrae and becoming quadriplegic. He later sued the organizers for failing to include the hazard in the liability waiver. Following this incident, the Seattle Game was paused for three years, while the Bay Area Game kept going. In August 2005, a dozen veteran Seattle Gamers revived the tradition with the "Mooncurser's Handbook" Game, placing a strong focus on safety.