From Tucson in Arizona to Las Vegas in Nevada, a car traveling at a speed of only 45 kilometers per hour takes about 8 hours. What kind of experience is this? A game born in 1995 - Desert Bus may give you an immersive experience.
Let’s first take a look at the game’s title line, “The game is as numb as reality.” Desert Bus is known as the most boring game in history - it didn't even have a chance to be officially released, because at least for most gamers who seek "fun", it is too... realistic, so realistic that it's boring and crazy. The feeling of boredom brought by this game is so different, it has a madness with black humor from the beginning to the end. In the
game, you play the bus driver and you need to complete the journey in the same amount of time as in reality before you can pass the game. Maybe players who are new to this game will think, this is simple, just find something to hold down the accelerator button, why am I so stupid to have to drive for 8 hours? The game developer
also thought of this problem, so it "intimately" designed the operation of the vehicle in the game to veer to the right from time to time. In other words, if the player keeps holding down the accelerator button without controlling the steering wheel, the vehicle will veer all the way to the right and eventually run off the road, which will also lead to the end of the game. Therefore, the player must maintain the entire operation, and there is no pause or save in the game.
In the game, you can only see a highway. There are no other cars on the road to accompany you, and there is only a yellow desert on both sides of the road. In addition to the occasional cactus-like plants that appear to indicate that your vehicle is moving forward, you will also occasionally see one or two mosquitoes flying to the windshield in front of your vehicle and being knocked into a pool of green liquid.
As time passes in real life, time in the game will also pass simultaneously. At this time, the scene in the game will change from day to dusk, and then to night. When the time comes at night, the only thing that lights up in the scene, apart from the road signs, is the area illuminated by your headlights.
When the player arrives at the destination after driving for 8 hours like a day shift, you will see a prompt from the system to add points to you (that is, 1 point added!). After playing this, players will think what is the purpose of this design by the game developers? But in fact, there is a story behind this game.
In the 1990s, American magician Penn Gillett and comedian Taylor met their friend TV screenwriter Eddie Grodetzky who came to visit them. Taylor once wrote an article for New York Times , pointing out that all studies show that games will not cause any harm to children's minds, so the three of them came up with an interesting idea to satirize those who resist games, and then the game application Desert Bus was born.
Taylor later told reporters that the whole process is a straight forward but repeated work. The key to the game requires players to stay awake at all times, because the time in the game is consistent with the real time, so this game that can reflect reality is very "like". In this way, Taylor told the American officials who were most resistant to games at the time, how bad games without conflict elements really were. The developer
uses CD as a carrier to promote the game to the Genesis console of Sega . At the same time, the three people and the developer plan to provide rewards for the first player to get 100 points. According to the method of driving for 8 hours in the game, players can get one point. Players need to clear the game 100 times. In order to promote the game, they actually hired a bus to carry models and bands along the game route to promote the game. But in fact, no one can achieve this condition at all.
In 2003, a prank team called loadingreadyrun was born. They launched a charity event called "Desert Bus, Marathon of Hope", whose purpose was to provide free game consoles and game disks to sick children in underdeveloped countries. The more donations they receive during the event, the longer they will play Desert Bus.In the end, the team successfully scored 5 points and received a donation of $22,000. As of 2022, this event has raised a total of more than $9 million in donations, making it one of the longest video game charity marathons in history.
People from all over the world have begun to participate in this charity event through their own methods, and the Loading Ready Run team has already used their positive appeal to make this event more meaningful than a boring bus simulator game itself.
I wonder if there will be similar activities in the future to provide entertainment donations for poor or sick children?
