Take a seat and don't stand forward of the yellow line - Desert Bus for Hope kicked off its third marathon o' masochism, and looks to top the $70,000 it raised last year for the Child's Play charity.
Online sketch comedy team LoadingReadyRun is back behind the wheel, promising to play the most boring video game ever designed - Desert Bus, from Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors for Sega CD - in return for your donations. Desert Bus is a simulator that depicts driving a bus between Tucson, Ariz. and Las Vegas in real time. The game cannot be paused.
The first hour of driving - which begins this very minute at LoadingReadyRun's bus campaign HQ in Vancouver - requires only a $1 donation. But additional hours require donations that increase by 7 percent every hour. You keep donatin' and they keep drivin'. As of writing, they had already collected $5,640 before even cranking the bus' engine, buying a total of 88 hours so far. By their scale, a million dollars donated would double that playing time.
The bus crew played the game over five days last year, raising $70,000 in the process. Penn Jillette referred to the marathon in the latest edition of Game Informer, marveling that the team was able to pile up a score of "eight points." You get one point per completed trip between the two cities.
You can follow the action on two live streaming cams: The driver cam, and the bus cam. Donation info is at the link below.
Desert Bus for Hope [site]