About 1300 started out, at Justin Herman Plaza. About 100 made it to the end, on top of Bernal Hill. Journey to the End of the Night, organized by dedicated crews of volunteers, has been played in cities all over the world. Saturday night, it happened in San Francisco.
The game itself? It begins with a lot of runners, and a few chasers. When runners get caught, they switch their armbands from blue to red, and become chasers themselves. To make it to the end, runners also have to successfully pass through several checkpoints. And the checkpoints were where it got interesting.
The crew nailed plywood over a pre-existing mural to make a temporary mural for the game.
The mural.
Signaling the entrance to Checkpoint 1B, in soma. As it turned out, almost none of the 1000+ runners went to the alternate checkpoint, and so 1B was a madhouse.
Each player had a manifest with a unique ID that the organizers scanned at each checkpoint with their smartphones.
At checkpoint 2A, in the Tenderloin, runners were given “ninja training” in the form of the directive to attack other runners with a stuffed animal, while screaming “I am a ninja”
The checkpoints were partly a stalling tactic, part improvisational street theater. Here, a ninja demanded that a runner demonstrates his “ninja fish pose.”
Adrenaline levels were high. This man hit this reporter with a whale, then apologized.
At checkpoint 2B, runners had to tag a part of the mural.
Some of the checkpoint’s organizers were also tagged in the process.
At Checkpoint 3, on Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley: incredibly long lines, and a pretend DMV for time travelers. “Who rules the world in 2050?” read one question. “When was time invented?” read another.
At Checkpoint 4, out by the water treatment plant on Mission Creek, hipsters. They drank PBR, listened to Tone Loc, and waited for runners to arrive.
Here, two runners tightroll each others’ pants in order to meet Checkpoint 4 standards. They won’t be allowed to leave until they’re deemed cool enough.
They had a selection of mustaches and face tattoos to choose from.
Which were then drawn on them with a Sharpie. “Go easy on him” said the other runner, cheerfully. “He has church tomorrow.”
As the game progresses, runners who are tagged switch teams and become chasers. Here, a group of chasers lay in wait for runners bound for Checkpoint 6.
Checkpoint 5 was right between the Mission and Potrero Hill, in front of a bridge crossing the freeway.
The theme? Airport security.
Runners were told to take off their shows, put them in plastic bins, and submit to extensive scanning, all while being asked, repeatedly, “Do you feel safe now?”
This runner, who still had his hipster mustache from Checkpoint 4, was pulled aside. “Are you now, or have you ever been, a hipster?” he was asked. “Have you ever traveled to any hipster countries.”
When he protested, airport security covered his mouth with a strip of black duct tape. It took a while to find his shoes again.
At the 6th checkpoint, at Garfield park, an organizer checks her smartphone. It’s 11 pm, and the word is out that someone has actually made it to the finish line, though most runners still haven’t made it to here.
At this last checkpoint, runners were psychoanalyzed. Here, two runners undergo 70’s era consciousness raising.
Here, an organizer administered the replicant test from Blade Runner.
Runners also had to visit the pharmacy as part of their psychological treatment. “You got your Rogaine, your Rohypnol, and a little Viagra…” said one pharmacist, counting out what appeared to be Smarties.
At the very end, nothing but Bernal Hill.
After all the noise and hoopla, it was quiet, foggy, and beautiful.
H.R. Smith has reported on tech and climate change for Grist, studied at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow, and is exceedingly fond of local politics.
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