It has been over a month since our big breakdown, and our bus is still lacking an engine.
I’m starting to suffer serious bus-driving withdrawal.
Fortunately, I’ve found the next best thing to actually driving our bus – the amazing iOS app Desert Bus!
(And before you droid folks start to complain… here is an Android link too…)
Yes, believe it or not – there is an ultra-realistic bus driving simulation which recreates the 360 mile trip between Tucson, AZ and Las Vegas, NV – in a vintage bus with a top speed of 45mph.
Though our bus has a slightly faster top speed, I can assure you that Desert Bus is the closest you can come on your phone or tablet to the real bus driving experience.
It is like driving the real thing, particularly considering that the game is played in real time with no breaks, no pausing, and the bus continually pulls to the right.
Players score a single point for each successful 8-hour trip completed.
From the game’s description:
One man. One Bus. Three hundred and sixty miles of simulated post-apocalyptic desert, and the endless struggle between man and nature personified.
Desert Bus. The most realistic verisimilitude reality game ever created by man or beast or man-beast is here at last. So real in action, you’ll think you were really the driver of a bus crossing a Desert.
No way out, no way home but the long way – by tow truck. Desert Bus puts you, the player, to the ultimate test of endurance in this mind-numbing blowout experience. There is no other game quite like Desert Bus.
The game was initially conceived of by Penn & Teller, way back in 1995, as a special mini-game within the larger “Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors” for the short-lived Sega CD platform. The first player to score 100 points was going to be awarded with a real life desert bus trip between Tucson and Vegas – in a bus packed full of showgirls and a live band.
The Sega CD died before the game was ever released, and the game was lost to legend until it was rediscovered in 2005, and it has become a cult gaming classic ever since. The recent iOS and Android ports capture the 8-bit Sega CD look perfectly.
Some consider Desert Bus the hardest video game ever made, and others the worst.
And as far as I know – no one has managed to score 100 points yet.
But the annual Desert Bus for Hope marathon gaming event has raised over a million dollars for charity – with last year’s marathon lasting over six days of non-stop desert driving, and raising $436,015.71.
I’m still trying to break into single digits…
But at least I have a way to scratch my bus driving itch while we await our engine rebuild!
*grin*
Thanks for the link! I gotta try this one.
Good luck with your bus.
Are we to assume that Kiki is assuming her official Desert Bus traveling pose? 😉
will Tucson to Phoenix to Las Vegas by way of Grand Canyon and back do
don-that
remember all roads tend to crown to the right
O no u got way to much time on your hands,,, Go wax something
supplement your income sweep the shop..bake cookies..sweep and paint the yellow line
take up spray painting go graffiti something
push the shop tool cart to the street and have a street sale
start a pre-burning man rally point
see how many time u can run naked a-round (outside)the bus at night
go to a senior center find a Alzheimer patient tell tham your a long lost son get him to take u to supper
go out at night and see how many bikes u can bring back
find a milk box stand on a street corner preach computers are running our lifes we cant stand for it (don,t forget to pass out your card)
take a trip go to the beach (pool willdo)
go to custer!s last stand and find 10 that particpants (ok 5)buy tham supper
O i forgot u dont have an oven
P/S U failed the BUS DRIVE-ING GAME Mister Technomadia geek WELL the guys at Visual Dynamica,s Melbourne beat it all the tine
Mister Ed… If I drank coffee in the morning, I would have spit it out all over my screen. Thank you for the morning laughter! Now go enjoy some bikinis on the beach!
I saw the interior of your bus on Home and Garden TV tonight. I was watching last night’s episode of HGTV Star online. The challenge was to design the interior of school buses. They showed the interior of three “school buses” being used as RVs and one of them was yours! It’s only on camera for a brief moment. I thought, I know that bus! I ran it back a couple of times to be sure. LG
Cool… we had almost forgotten we gave them some pics to use. We’re amazed at how many folks have recognized our interior from a brief shot 🙂
You caught me out with this one. I downloaded it and it…zzzz.
Here’s a idea for you. Imagine designing a Lego Mindstorms robot thingie that can autopilot the Desert bus for you! With it’s help you could be the first to get 100. (Youtube has lots of vidoes of Mindstorm creations rapidly solving Rubics cubes. If creations can do that then driving a bus should be possible.It’s not that bus driving is easy, but most bus drivers cannot solve Rubics cubes). =;^)
Anyways, playing with Mindstorms does seem like a suitably techie passtime for the Technomadias!
I hope you are back on the road soon. — Regards, Ross
Hmmmmm…looks like a pretty “Dry” game.
We’re really starting to worry you’ve been sitting still at the repair facility too long… :cO