This Game Dev Created A Real-Life Battle Royale (With Less Violence And Better Loot)

Jason Rohrer is understood for creating video games with some pretty off-the-wall concepts, however his newest venture–a battle royale often called Undertaking Skydrop–takes issues a step additional. Rohrer teamed up with good friend and musician Tom Bailey to create the sport, and in contrast to most battle royales, Rohrer’s new journey will not see gamers combating to the loss of life. There’s a catch, nevertheless: Undertaking Skydrop takes place in actual life, and the winner will obtain a custom-made strong gold trophy.

Rohrer says he is been engaged on Undertaking Skydrop since 2021, and after years of planning, plotting, and buying a sufficiently spectacular reward for the winner, the sport is now afoot. The treasure–a 10.9-ounce 24-karat solid-gold trophy value roughly $26,000–was commissioned and paid for by Rohrer himself, however in keeping with a profile by Wired, the winner can also obtain a “life-changing quantity of bitcoin,” with the precise quantity dependent upon what number of gamers participate within the hunt.

The sport solely lasts for 21 days, and on the time of writing, there are 16 days left for gamers to trace down the prize. Rohrer has revealed that the trophy is positioned “someplace within the northeastern United States,” and at this level, Undertaking Skydrop may sound like a easy (albeit extraordinarily profitable) treasure hunt. So what precisely makes it a battle royale?

Rohrer says Fortnite impressed him to place the treasure someplace inside an ever-shrinking circle. The circle was 500 miles vast the day the hunt started, and has been shrinking every day since. Every single day, the circle grows smaller, and a map on the game’s official website is up to date to indicate gamers the scale and site of that day’s circle.

Moreover, every day of circle-shrinking is accompanied by a brand new picture of the 24 karat trophy. The images began out as close-up pictures of the prize’s hiding place, however because the circle shrinks, the images of the trophy zoom farther and farther out, giving gamers a extra detailed view of the encircling space every day. Based mostly on the circle’s present place, the prize is hidden someplace in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, or Vermont.

This is not the primary time Rohrer has despatched gamers on a wild goose chase in change for some premium loot. In Fall 2021, Rohrer created Undertaking Skydrop’s precursor. With the assistance of his children, Rohrer hid a chest containing $3,000 value of silver cash in a state park close to his dwelling in Dover, Delaware. Then he slipped some clues about its location into his (laptop) sport, One Hour One Life. Rohrer feared the clues–which have been hidden in a poem that was programmed to vanish from the sport after only one day–were too cryptic, and would in the end show too tough for gamers to unravel.

Eight hours later, One Hour One Life gamers had decoded the poem and have been headed to the chest’s location. Rohrer was amazed–and barely frustrated–by the velocity with which gamers had solved the puzzle. After the Dover chest’s fast discovery, Rohrer started working to create the “excellent” treasure hunt: one which “doesn’t final 10 years and doesn’t final in the future.” Thus, Undertaking Skydrop was born.

As for the sport’s 21-day run time, Rohrer advised Wired it is all concerning the spectacle.

“Three weeks is a reasonably good timeline for a dramatic arc,” he mentioned of Undertaking Skydrop’s lifespan. “It appears lengthy sufficient for folks to really feel like they’ve an opportunity, however not so lengthy that everybody loses curiosity.”

For extra info on Rohrer’s wild battle royale (together with the most recent updates on the shrinking circle’s location) see the official Project Skydrop website, the place Rohrer has arrange a reside video stream of the trophy to make sure the sport’s dramatic finish is caught on digicam.