Desert Bus for Hope: Difference between revisions

In 2007, Victoria sketch comedy group ''[[Loading Ready Run]]'' organized a gaming marathon for the benefit of [http://www.childsplaycharity.org/ Child's Play], a charity helping children's hospitals. The game used? ''[[wikipedia:Penn %26 Tellerchr(27)s Smoke and Mirrors#Desert Bus|Desert Bus]]'', a bus-driving "verisimulator" that has the player drive from Tucson to Las Vegas (and back). This takes about 8 real-life hours. A one-way trip scores a point. The game cannot be paused. Going off the road or stopping results in the motor overheating and a tow truck dragging your bus back to the starting point in real time.

 

 

To spare their sanity, ''[[Loading Ready Run]]'' organized the fundraiser so that each consecutive hour "cost" 7% more than the previous hour, starting at US $1 for the first hour. So for them to continue playing after 5 hours, for example, $5.75 (or 1+1.07+1.15+1.21+1.31) would have needed to be donated by that time through the [http://desertbus.org desertbus.org] website. The first time around, they hoped for $5,000 in donations. They got $22,805. The total has climbed every year; 2011's ''Desert Bus 5'' raised $383,000, enough to buy 150 hours of solid busing.

But the real key to the success of ''Desert Bus For Hope'' is not the [[Schadenfreude]] resulting from donating to a good cause to make gamers suffer, it's due to the fact that they stream their experience live and have a dedicated IRC channel, which allows viewers to interact with the on-duty driver and attending hangers on. Plus, for enough money, fans can issue "challenges" to the team. This has led to all sorts of memorable shenanigans.

 

* [[Ascended Meme]]: A lot, due to the participation from the online chat. The ''LRR'' crew is constantly 'appoint', [[Rickroll|Rick-rolls]] and [[Caramelldansen Vid|Carmelldansen]] pop up from time to time, and ''Desert Bus 4'' introduced their helpful [[Star Wars|Bothans, many of which have died to help the childrens.]]

* [[Audience Participation Song]]: During a group singing of ''Intergalactic'', the Desert Bus Chat sang the chorus.

'''Jer''': Yes, chat room, you must sing along. }}

* [[Catgirl]]: In ''DBFH3'', Tally and Kathleen were dressed as some. Although most of the crew had a turn with those cat ears...

** In ''DBFH2'', donations were made to make Matt see ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]''. He had to see it four times in total. The next year, he [[Tempting Fate|pledged to see New Moon as many times as possible during a day]] if the donation total rose to 100K. He had to see it six times in all.

** For ''Desert Bus 5'', Matt insisted that he only go and see Breaking Dawn if [[Desert Bus for Hope]] could reach $500,000 lifetime donations (which required about $57,000 this year) within 36 hours of the marathon starting. If they did it within ''24 hours'' (James's shift), James would have to go and see it with him. The donations ''almost'' made it within the 24-hour mark, and James agreed to see it anyway.

* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: Literally, with the only entity ever able to accomplish such a feat: the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYQSBUPz-Cc Creepy Doll]

* [[Hidden Depths]]: Paul Saunders, cutscene snarker, website designer, comedy writer, and consummate geek...[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANaZH1AXzOk&feature=related with the voice of an angel]. <nowiki>#TeamPaulSexual</nowiki>, indeed.

* [[Manly Tears]]: The ending of De5ert Bus. Graham just couldn't hold it in and most of the cast went with him. Except for James cause he's a dick.

* [[Mood Whiplash]]: After a story about a little girl being diagnosed with lymphoma:

* [[Music Video]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrNzp-BiuV0&feature=channel Tuscon or Bust], courtesy of Andy Cownden

* [[Rocks Fall Everybody Dies]]: In ''Desert Bus 4'', the crew ran a ''[[Pathfinder]]'' game involving Lava Bears. At one stage, they activated a trap and lava fell from the ceiling. Almost [[Total Party Kill]]. This suits this trope particularly well, because what is lava? Molten rocks.

** Happened during Desert Bus 5 so that the team had to bus for a whole extra hour, which gave them time to wrap things up.

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: ''[[Penny Arcade]]'''s posts promoting ''Desert Bus For Hope'' quickly turned to the theme of "Dance, monkey, dance!" They even promised to match the donation total (up to a chosen threshold) as part of "Operation Infinite Bus".

* [[Unusual Euphemism]]: Since it's for the children, cursing is replaced by variants on "bus".

 

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[[Category:Desert Bus For Hope]]