In November of 2007, in a dilapidated student house in Victoria, BC, a crowd of 20-somethings sat in a dim room and watched 4 young men alternate playing an incredibly boring video game. On the television screen was an antiquated video game rendering of the front window of a bus, as seen from the inside. Outside the bus lay a straight, black highway with grainy yellow desert on either side.
What is Desert Bus?
The game was Desert Bus. A game not quite published for the Sega CD over a decade ago, Desert Bus was designed as a joke by famous Las Vegas magicians Penn and Teller. The game consists entirely of driving a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada at 45mph in real time, requiring 8 hours of play.
The road is completely straight, and the scenery… well, there is no scenery. Only flat, dull desert the entire way. With one tumbleweed. And a bug splats on the bus’ windshield halfway through the trip. The sky changes to light or dark according to time of day, and the speedometer shows the miles driven.
Other than that, there’s nothing to see. One last component: the bus lists slightly to the left, demanding constant though minute attention from the player. After eight hours of this, the player reaches Las Vegas and gets the chance to turn around and do it all again.
Desert Bus was never actually released. In 2007 Paul Saunders, a member of Victoria’s online sketch comedy group LoadingReadyRun, found that someone had posted a downloadable version of the game on the internet, taken from a rare preview copy. “Maybe people could sponsor an hour of us playing Desert Bus,” he told the other 7 members of LoadingReadyRun. “It could be like a 24-hour relay…” And that’s how it began.
LoadingReadyRun Does Desert Bus Charity Marathon
James Turner, another crew member, had the idea in November of 2006 to hold a fundraising event for Child’s Play, a charity that donates toys and games to children’s hospitals. Saunders, separate from this, came up with a video idea that involved playing video games until unbelievably sleep deprived.
At some point the two ideas were combined, and LoadingReadyRun decided to play Desert Bus for donations, which would go to Child’s Play. They set up a website at desertbus.org that explained the event and provided a place to make Paypal donations. Each donation bought a certain amount of playing time, and the amount required for another hour of play increased exponentially in order to keep the crew from being forced into an eternity of Desert Bus.
Their goal was to raise $5,000 dollars. They didn’t anticipate more than a couple days of play, max. Four of the crew – Paul Saunders, James Turner, Morgan VanHumbeck and Bill Watt – set aside their busy and not so busy lives to alternate driving the bus in four-hour shifts.
The other crew members – Kathleen De Vere, Jeremy Petter, Graham Stark and Matt Wiggins – also gave up the outside world to be on hand for the event. “It pretty much ruined my life for a few days,” was Petter's cheerful proclamation. He checked the website as soon as he woke up in the morning, and spent the time he wasn’t sleeping or in class down at the Desert Bus house.
In the end, LoadingReadyRun played Desert Bus for 4 and half days – 104 straight hours -- and raised $22,800 dollars for Child’s Play. And they’re ready to do it again.
Desert Bus 2008 to Begin on Friday, Nov. 28
Now, in November 2008, the crew is setting up to hold Desert Bus 2008 once again. While Turner unhesitatingly deemed Desert Bus “boring,” he’s looking forward to playing again, and keeping his world record as player of the most hours of Desert Bus. “[We’ve] gotta do it again,” said crew member Paul Saunders. “That’s 22 thousand dollars… that’s basically how much I made last year in my job… It was this amazing community thing.”
This year the crew is putting more time into preparation and working out all technical glitches before the charity drive begins. Fans and crew look forward to 6pm on Friday, November 28, when Desert Bus 2008 will begin. This year’s drivers – Turner, VanHumbeck, Watt and Petter – are preparing for hours of monotony, hours they hope will be well spent in service to comedy and charity.
Natalia Heilke - Natalia Heilke is in her final term of a creative writing degree at the University of Victoria. Her focus is on short fiction, but she ...
