The Premise
A few years ago, for my podcast, “Noob’s Book Club”, I read the book Ready Player One. Having grown up in the 1980s, I fell squarely in the book’s intended demographic. The book also gave me an idea. What if I recreated Halliday’s Egg Hunt from the game and completed the challenges? At the time, I couldn’t make it happen. However, this year, I finally worked up both the courage and the time to dedicate to making it happen. Initially, I thought I would be able to finish one per month. However, that schedule proved unrealistic and I complete them when can. I wanted to put this page together to have a single place where I can show off my progress.
Challenge #1 Tomb of Horrors
The Challenge: In the book, Wade needs to find the Tomb of Horrors, hidden on one of the planets in the OASIS, and make it to the end of the dungeon. I followed a similar path, but adjusted it slightly. I came up with a D&D character for myself that became my persona in the videos. I also quickly abandoned my idea of facing the tomb fairly. Instead, i researched and stretched the boundaries of the rules to their breaking points. Let’s call it creative license.
Super Cut Video Coming Soon.
Challenge #2 Joust
The Challenge: In the book, after Wade makes it to the end of the Tomb of Horrors, he has to play the archlich in a game of Joust. He needs to win best two out of three. Unable to figure out a way to make that (or even a high score challenge) entertaining, I came up with the idea to compare different versions of the game to the arcade.
Challenge #3 Wargames
The Challenge: Wade must act out the movie Wargames as one of the characters. Again, boring as a video concept and I wanted to write more than a simple review so I decided to take the angle of talking about the movie through the lens of nostalgia. For years now, I question the very concept of nostalgia, especially since developing my severe anti-capitalist streak. I hope you enjoy my take on the concept.
Read the article and let me know what you think.
Challenge #4 Dungeons of Daggorath
The Challenge: Wade needs to beat the game on a replica TRS-80 computer in a simulation of Halliday’s room in the OASIS. I played the game twice. Once before reading the manual and once after reading the manual. The video talks about my experience. I will say this. For the time, the game is very impressive and surely inspired many games for years to come.
Challenge #5 Zork/Whistle
The Challenge: Wade can find the Jade Key in a place long neglected. This leads him to the boarded up house at the beginning of the game Zork. By finding all of the artifacts and placing them in the cupboard, he is rewarded a whistle. This is the famous Cap’n Crunch whistle that allowed people to bypass long distance charges.
Zork Article – Coming Next
Cap’n Crunch Whistle Article
Sub-Challenge: Pac-Man
The Challenge: Wade thinks the game is part of the challenge. It actually gives him a quarter if he completes the game to the kill screen. Chekov’s gun tells us this will come in handy later on in the story. No spoilers this time. I will explain when we get there. Instead, I want to do a video where I defend the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man. This game, and E.T. (another game I love), gets far too much hate from the community and it’s time for some healing to happen.
Video coming soon.