I, along with Burn Unit and Lauren, planned Journey to the End of the Night Minneapolis. But I will admit that the details behind it are a little unclear. It started started way back in October, 2009. Back in 2008 Burn Unit, Teucer, OliverX, Star5, Ink Tea, and I had all come together put together a game. We had always wanted too do it again and in October, Burn Unit got in touch with me with the intention of putting together a simultaneous game with the game in San Fransisco on Halloween. This didn’t come together. The weather didn’t support it and we didn’t get the planning together. So we cancelled the event and stowed the planning we’d done away until spring.

Sometime later, after a winter of thinking about it and not doing much of anything, we started began planning again. I’m not sure when. Over time we decided on a route, recruited or enlisted various staff for the checkpoints, obtained the required materials, and did all of the tasks required to do. I don’t really remember when. Planning for Journey to the End of the Night was done concurrently with me finishing my last semester of college, so I was also doing a lot of essay writing and reading and not getting a lot of sleep. Actually considering the amount of things that the planners had going on outside the game, it’s surprising that it even happened. But happened it did.



Which brings us to the day of the event.

I showed up at Prospect Park much too early, around 6:00. For about half an hour I waited around until Shea Wolfe showed up and then we waited fifteen minutes more until Burn Unit showed up. Then we all waited for the ribbons and manifests to show up, as players slowly started to trickle in. Ribbons and manifests didn’t show up until 7:30, which made both Burn Unit and I very anxious. On the plus side we actually picked up a checkpoint three during this period – we had previously planned to have it unmanned but someone came by and said that they were interested in being a checkpoint agent. We sent him off with a location and we were set.

Once the ribbons and manifests finally arrived, they were distributed and I explained the rules (with a megaphone that someone was foolish enough to give me) and then released the players. Once everyone was well sent off, I hopped in a car with Burn Unit and Felix (who was going the sixth checkpoint) and was dropped of at my checkpoint.

For my checkpoint, I was The Runner. I dressed in green and blue ribbons all over my legs and arms, plus some through the button holes of my jacket, more around my bag, and my old Chicago runner ribbon tied around my head. I also added a few of the extra life ribbons from the first Journey, for extra ribbon action. I also had a clipboard (with some more ribbons on it) and a big pile of manifests from previous Journeys. When I saw a runner, I’d run straight towards them (despite being in a safe zone, half of the time people would start running away) and I’d start yelling “I NEED YOU TO SIGN MY MANIFEST!!” Once they signed my manifest, I would sign theirs and run away.

The manifests had been swiped from various planner Praxises from previous Journeys to start with and then once I had collected all of those that I could find, I went to bother other people about sending me them. Dax kindly sent me maps for Chicago 2008 and Oakland, CG0 sent me a secret copy of their 2010 map, Star5 gave me a copy of the 2009 Minneapolis map, and Fin gave me copies of Vienna’s maps. The acquisition of the manifests bring me great joy. I’ve been managing a growing collection of these manifest maps, which I hang above my bed so I may stare up at them at night.

A lot of people found my checkpoint confusing. Sometimes it took them a moment for it to sink in that I was the checkpoint agent. One player told me afterwards that he’d thought I was a crazy hobo, who wanted him to sign my manifesto. Other people I thought I was a player. When there was any doubt, I’d say “Well, if there’s someone around who’s dressed or is acting oddly, they’re probably the checkpoint agent.” That usually clued them in. People were also confused on why they had to sign my manifest, but mostly I just yelled at them until they did it, grabbed their manifest and sign it, and then ran away. After all, I was the runner.

I am personally very happy that my checkpoint was so confusing. The theory that I had in my mind for the checkpoint was that I was a runner running an alternate version of Journey, one where I stayed still and the course moved through me. For my version, every player a checkpoint. One guy got it immediately. When I shoved the map for Journey Berlin into his hands, he took one look and said “Oh. You’re playing an entirely different game.” That was it exactly.

When a map was full, or when there was a lull between groups of runners, I’d take that manifest of a map and pin it to a board I had (which was basically just a box I got out of a recycling bin and collapsed). I started off with it covered in manifests that I’d accidentally printed single sided, and I added more and more maps as time went on. I’m not sure if any of the runners actually noticed my board, but I gave me something to put the maps on and a way to display them at the end of the route.

I was simultaneously handling communications between the checkpoints for this Journey. I got checkpoint agents to call me when first runner showed up and then I’d pass that information on too the next checkpoint and the chasers. I was also talking to Burn Unit a lot, trying to manage the game as it developed. The two useful things things that I actually ended up doing were that we felt that the first group wasn’t having enough trouble of it and was moving too fast, so I tried to get Shea Wolfe to intervene and jump them, and when it became clear that Burn Unit wasn’t going to be able to make it to the end before the runners, so I tried to find someone to send there instead. In the end I ended up sending one of the staff chasers there, although they didn’t get there before the first group.

I didn’t record when people where showing up at the time, but I can reconstruct events based on my phone records. At 7:55 the first people hit the first checkpoint, at 8:19 they reach the second one. I’m not sure when they hit the third checkpoint (maybe at 8:25) but at 8:50 they hit the fourth checkpoint. At 9:06 they hit my checkpoint and from there I lost them. This of course the first group. The last group came through the third checkpoint around 10:20 and I was done at my checkpoint by around 10:45.

Other news from my phone log is that at 8:43 there were 20 people making it through checkpoint 2. At 9:00 I called Rachel to ask if she could cover the end, since it was clear the Burn Unit couldn’t make it in time, and at 9:25 I called her to say that she should head over then. At 9:42 Burn Unit texted me to inform me that he’d found a bike chaser, which was cool. There’s also a steady stream of texts and calls to and from Shea Wolfe about where things were, what was going, and me telling him to catch more people.

My checkpoint was right next to the after party, so at eleven when my checkpoint closed I just took my board full of manifests and hauled it over to there. Then I basically didn’t do anything for the rest of the night until I went home and slept. The End.



Look back on Journey, there are things that went well and things that could’ve gone better. I wish we’d been able to figure out the routes earlier, so we could have given people more time to come up with checkpoints. I feel bad about thrusting it on people at the last minute. We also could have used more staff chasers. Two is too few.

But these lessons have been filed away and will be used to improve future games. Journey has a compelling enough core that even if you screw some things up, people still have a great time. But I feel that if you did it right, the game could go from being fun to being sublime, possibly even life changing. That’s a goal to shoot for anyway.

What’s next for MNØ? Couldn’t say. Perhaps Journey Saint Paul. Burn Unit has been talking about running A&U. Who can say? Keep your ear to the ground.