Could We Dig Up Humanity’s Last Game in 2000 Years?
May 24, 2013 by dracs
Game designer Jason Rohrer has apparently created a game which humanity won't be able to play for 2000 years. Why? Because he buried it.
I stumbled across this article over at Eurogamer. Apparently this year's Game Design Challenge was to come up with "Humanity's Last Game", a rather open statement which led to one game designer proposing a reality TV game in which hackers would try to cause a nuclear apocalypse.
The final winner was John Rohrer who created a board game which can only be played in 2000 years, at least in theory. Rohrer has reportedly buried the board game somewhere in Nevada. The location has been kept secret and Rohrer has printed off over one thousand pieces of paper, each of which holds 900 possible coordinates. These pieces of paper were handed out to those people who attended the Game Design Challenge Panel. Only one of those has the correct coordinates.
So what exactly is this game? Well the board and pieces are made out of titanium, so that they will survive their two millennia under ground. But what of the rules? We don't know, the instructions are buried with the game in a vacuum sealed titanium tube of their own.
From the glimpse of the board my guess is that it is similar to games like the Japanese game of Go, an idea backed up by the way in which it was once said that if there are intelligent alien races out there they almost certainly play Go.
Would you join this treasure hunt? What do you think this game would play like?
I will put in a time box Dreadball KickOff for sure, because i’m sure that people in the future ( if there is one… ) will love to recreate this game for real and we probably know some aliens to play with 😛
The rules should be carved in stone or engraved on the titanium sheet…
Btw, a familiar story; humanity has found carved on rocks rules once, and since then trying to cheat them as often as can. Therefore the rules should contain instructions on how to shouldn’t play 🙂
I don’t quite know what you mean…
We “found” such rules more than once, actually. And they were mostly interdictions, so “how not to play” indeed.
Not only did “we” found them, but “we” wrote them in the first place, in all occasions; furthermore people felt the need to write them down because they weren’t respected in the first place.
I have a hard enough time finding my right socks in the sock drawer let alone a game in Nevada. Someone let me know in 2000 years when they find it.