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Desert Bus is often described as the "worst game of all time" -- a driving game where you pilot a bus, in real time, for eight hours, along a perfectly straight road.
"Your task is simply to remain conscious," says TV illusionist Teller, who revealed the secrets of the game's creation in a New Yorker article this week.
There is no traffic. The game cannot be paused. Worst of all, the bus lists constantly to the right -- so players have to steer constantly.
If the bus swerves, it goes off the road, and players have to start the eight-hour drive again from the beginning. Completing the mind-numbing journey earns players one point. High scores are, understandably, thin on the ground.
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The game was created by illusionists Penn Jillette and Teller in 1995, but remained unreleased -- but is now available on iPhone and Android.
The idea is simply to be as boring as real life, Teller said, to show politicians what a "realistic" game would be like.
“Every few years, video games are blamed in the media for all of the ills in society - in the early Nineties, I wrote an article for the New York Times citing all the studies that show video games have no effect on a child’s morals," Teller says. "But we wanted to create some entertainment that helped make the point.”
"The route between Las Vegas and Phoenix is long. It's a boring job that just goes on and on repetitiously, and your task is simply to remain conscious. That was one of the big keys - we would make no cheats about time, so people like the Attorney General could get a good idea of how valuable and worthwhile a game that just reflects reality would be."
An annual marathon of the game, Desert Bus for Hope, raises money for the Child's Play charity. Desert Bus for Hope are behind the current smartphone version.
"One man. One Bus. Three hundred and sixty miles of simulated post-apocalyptic desert, and the endless struggle between man and nature personified," the game's description says. "Desert Bus. The most realistic verisimilitude reality game ever created by man or beast or man-beast is here at last."