The Game

The Game is a class of puzzle hunts, which generally focuses on weekend-long trips where teams drive from location to location solving puzzles. Historically, The Game has been played in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as the Seattle area, but has also appeared in other locations such as Boston and Washington DC.

History

Precursors

In the 1970's Don Luskin ran a series of games in Los Angeles, possibly inspired by the movie The Last of Sheila (which in turn may have been inspired by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins' puzzle parties). Many of the early puzzles were based off cryptic clues, but later games featured more variety. These games required signing up and had a fee to participate. These games ultimately inspired the movie Midnight Madness, which was the main inspiration for the next group of games, started by Joe Belfiore and his classmates.

The Game in Florida

Five games were run near Belfiore's high school in the community of Clearwater, Florida. The first game, held in 1985, had four teams participating, all named after colors (Black Team, Blue Team, Brown Team, Red Team). Later games would be run by the previous winners.

Hunt	Date	Hosts	Winners	Notes
Midnight Madness 1985	December 30-31, 1985	Don Myhill, Marie Martin, Tegwyn Stockdale and Joe Belfiore	Black Team	150 mile course lasting over 10 hours
Black Knights Invitational	1986	Black Team	Brown Team
Blue/Brown Game	1986	Brown Team	White Team (original hosts)
Midnight Madness 1986	1986	White Team	Black Team
Farewell Game	1986	Black Team	??

Bay Area Race Fantastique

When Joe Belfiore graduated from high school, he brought The Game tradition to his college, Stanford. The games were called the Bay Area Race Fantastique, or BARF for short. As with previously, teams were named after colors.

Hunt	Date	Game Control	Winners	Notes
Bay Area Race Fantastique	May 17, 1987	Joe Belfiore, Eli Ben-Shoshan, Andrew Reisner	Yellow Team
BARF II: The Players Revenge	July 22, 1988	Joe Belfiore, Eli Ben-Shoshan, Andrew Reisner	Yellow Team	Unlike in other games, each team designed one leg of the race and Game Control incorporated all of these legs together.
BARF III: Who Killed Game Control?	March 12, 1989	Tom Harding, Steve Nagy, Nancy Tillapaugh	Pink Team
BARF IV: The Reunion	?	Helen Huang, Laura Lee, David Rubenstein, Farouc Jaffer	Red Team
BARF V: Mission Impossible	January 21, 1990	Ric Simmons, Ron Kesing, James Porter	Pink Team
BARF VI: The Final Objective	May 28, 1990	Joe Belfiore, Eli Ben-Shoshan, Tom Harding, Steve Nagy, David Rubenstein, Rob Elhardt	Yellow Team
BARF VII: Committee to Re-Elect the President	August 14, 1993	Andrew Burke, Ira Lit	Red Team
BARF VIII: On the Trail of the Assassin	August 6, 1994	Tom Carey, George Monteverdi	Red Team

San Francisco Bay Area Games

At least 14 Games were played at Stanford and the surrounding San Francisco Bay Area between 1991 and 1997, known as the Stanford Games, perhaps as a continuation of BARF VI. Team counts increased to about 15-20 per game; applying to these games were more open.

Hunt	Date	Game Control
Mission Improbable	Spring 1991
Circle K	Winter/Spring 1992
Western Posse	Spring 1992
RATRACE	Spring 1993	Red Byer, Michael Witt, Prajnan Das
Alice in Wonderland	Spring 1993
HELL	Spring 1994	Red Byer, Michael Witt, Prajnan Das
The Most Dangerous Game	Spring 1994	Andy Collins
King Arthur	Spring 1994	Brent Holman, et al.
Operation: The Plague	Spring 1995	Nick Eve, Amal Trivedi, Mike Knaack
Magic: The Gathering	Spring 1995	Brent Holman, et al.
SETI	Winter 1996
The Godfather	Spring 1996	Greg Collins
Indiana Jones	Spring 1996	Brent Holman, et al.
Star Wars	Spring 1997	Brent Holman, et al.

Games would continue to be hosted regularly in the Bay Area until around 2008. A shorter form of The Game, to be played over a single day (and often without needing vehicular transport), was also created, as the Bay Area Night Game in 2002 by David Alyea. Other traditions inspired by the Bay Area Games include Shinteki, Bay Area Treasure Hunt, and Iron Puzzler.

Hunt	Date	Game Control
The Green Game	November 8, 1997	Brent Holman
Dragonhunt	April 18, 1998	Red Byers
Amnesia	April 10, 1999
Espionage	May 22, 1999
Wonka	September 25, 1999
MegaHard	September 30, 2000
The 420 Game	April 20-23, 2001	Scooby Doobies
Homicide: Life on the Farm	May 5, 2001
The Legend of Zelda: A Hidden Link	October 27-28, 2001	Warrior Monks
Jackpot!	April 19-21, 2002	Just Passing Through
Eight Ball: The Blue Goo Adventure	May 18, 2002	The Wizards of Guzinor's Coven
FoBiK	October 19-20, 2002	Snout
The Goonies Game	April 26-27, 2003	Orange Crush
Overnightmare	November 1, 2003
The Genome Game	July 10-11, 2004	Team Advil
Justice Unlimited	July 31-August 1, 2004	Snout
California Rapid Alert Narcotics Enforcement Agency	March 4-5, 2005 (first run)	Cranea
Griffiths Collection	July 9-10, 2005	Burninators
The Apprentice: Zorg	April 15-16, 2006	Taft on a Raft
Paparazzi	June 3-4, 2006	XX-Rated
Hogwarts and the Draconian Prophecy	September 9-10, 2006	Snout
No More Secrets	May 19-20, 2007	coed astronomy
Midnight Madness: Back to Basics	May 5-6, 2008	Snout/Drunken Spider
Ghost Patrol	November 8-9, 2008	lowkey & Desert Taxi
2 Tone Game	April 2010	Larry Hosken

Seattle Games

Joe Belfiore brought The Game to the Seattle area, where the event was held annually between 1995 and 2002. However, the 2002 event, Shelby Logan's Run, resulted in a serious accident when one of the players entered a mine other than the one indicated, falling down a thirty-foot shaft and becoming a quadriplegic. This led to a lawsuit and the Seattle Games going on a hiatus. The next Seattle-area Game, The Mooncurser's Handbook, would come in 2005, with an emphasis placed on safety.

Several short-form games also were held in Seattle, named Seattle and Nearby Adventures in Puzzling (SNAP). Many of these were simulcasted with the Bay Area Night Games.

Hunt	Date	Game Control	Winners	Notes
The EnGenetics Weekend	July 17, 1995	Joe Belfiore, John Tippett	Purple Team
Hope2Die	Summer 1996	Brian Fleming, Jan Miksovsky, Bruce Oberg, Chris Zimmerman	Team Eject
Thanatos Society	June 28-29, 1997	Kenny Young, Dana Young	Purple Team
ISETV	May 24, 1998	Steve Bush, Christine Chang, Eric Levine, Ric Simmons, James Porter	Pink Team	Run in Los Angeles, CA
National Institute of Terrorism (NIT)	June 19, 1999	J Allard, James Gwertzman, Chris Jones, Ben Jones, Joe Petersen, David Treadwell	Silver Team	Run in New York, NY
VQuest	August 12, 2000	John Tippett, Mark Malamud, Susan Hautala, Vision Youth volunteers	Silver Team
Blau Foundation Symposium	August 11, 2001	Rich Brown, Jeff Pettiross, Mark Richardson, Dave Sanderman	Pink Team
Shelby Logan's Run	October 26, 2002	Kristina Belfiore, Joe Belfiore, Chee Chew, Scott Shell, Kevin Shields, Walter Smith	Gold Team	Run in Las Vegas, NV
The Mooncurser's Handbook	August 19-21, 2005	Galactic Consortium	Golden Nugget

Princeton Games

Princeton also held their own version of The Game from 1996 to 2014. Records exist of the themes held from 2001. The event was open to teams of Princeton graduate students, with clues leading them around the campus and beyond. The whole course was intended to be in reasonable walking distances.

Year	Theme
October 5, 2014	Aliens
2013	Zombies
October 22, 2011	Dreams?
2010	Batman
2009	Transformers
September 20, 2008	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
September 29, 2007	Pirates of the Caribbean
2006	Harry Potter
2005	Back to the Future
2004	The Lord of the Rings
September 13, 2003	Indiana Jones
September 14, 2002	Edward Gorey
September 15, 2001	Pirates

Modern Games

Instances of The Game still happen, albeit at a reduced frequency. These include the following games:

Hunt	Date	Location
World Henchmen Organization	June 17-19, 2011 November 4-6, 2011 (recast)	Seattle area SF Bay Area
Doctor When	September 17-18, 2011	San Mateo, CA
Wartron	August 3-5, 2012 June 29-30, 2013 (recast)	Portland, OR Boston, MA
The Famine Game	September 27-29, 2013	Washington, DC
Miskatonic University Game	August 15-18, 2019	Boston, MA

Other regional shorter-form game traditions have also sprung up, such as the Boston Area Puzzle Hunt League (BAPHL) and DC Puzzle Hunters (DCPHR).

See also

• DASH, a walking hunt in many locations, inspired by the BANG/SNAP cocasts
• Black Letter Game, a mailed collection of puzzles allegedly created by the creators of The Game in Seattle