Jason Rohrer is renowned for crafting video games with unconventional concepts, but his latest endeavor—a battle royale titled Project Skydrop—pushes the envelope even further. Rohrer collaborated with his friend and musician Tom Bailey to develop the game, which stands out from typical battle royales by not involving players fighting to the death. However, there's a twist: Project Skydrop unfolds in real life, and the victor will be awarded a custom-made solid gold trophy.
Rohrer revealed that he has been working on Project Skydrop since 2021. After years of meticulous planning and securing a substantial prize for the winner, the game is now in motion. The coveted prize—a 10.9-ounce, 24-karat solid gold trophy valued at approximately $26,000—was commissioned and funded by Rohrer himself. According to a profile by Wired, the winner might also receive a "life-altering sum of bitcoin," with the exact amount contingent on the number of participants in the hunt.
The game spans 21 days, and as of writing, there are 16 days remaining for players to locate the prize. Rohrer disclosed that the trophy is hidden "somewhere in the northeastern United States." While this might sound like a straightforward (yet highly profitable) treasure hunt, what makes it a battle royale?
Rohrer credits Fortnite for inspiring him to place the treasure within an ever-shrinking circle. The circle, which was 500 miles wide at the start of the hunt, has been gradually shrinking daily. Each day, the circle becomes smaller, and the game's official website updates a map to indicate the size and location of that day's circle. Additionally, each day brings a new photo of the 24-karat trophy. Initially, the photos were close-ups of the hiding spot, but as the circle shrinks, the photos zoom out, providing players with a more comprehensive view of the surrounding area each day. Based on the circle's current position, the prize is concealed in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, or Vermont.
This isn't Rohrer's first foray into creating elaborate treasure hunts. In Fall 2021, he devised a precursor to Project Skydrop. With the assistance of his children, Rohrer stashed a chest containing $3,000 worth of silver coins in a state park near his home in Dover, Delaware. He then embedded clues about its location within his computer game, One Hour One Life. Rohrer worried that the clues—hidden in a poem programmed to vanish from the game after just one day—were too cryptic and would prove too challenging for players to decipher. However, within eight hours, One Hour One Life players had decoded the poem and were en route to the chest's location. Rohrer was both amazed and slightly frustrated by the swiftness of the players' solution. Following the rapid discovery of the Dover chest, Rohrer set out to create the "perfect" treasure hunt: one that "doesn’t last 10 years and doesn’t last one day." Thus, Project Skydrop was conceived.
Regarding the game's 21-day duration, Rohrer explained to Wired that it's all about creating a spectacle. "Three weeks is a pretty good timeline for a dramatic arc," he said of Project Skydrop's lifespan. "It seems long enough for people to feel like they have a chance, but not so long that everyone loses interest." For further details on Rohrer's unconventional battle royale, including the latest updates on the shrinking circle's location, visit the official Project Skydrop website, where Rohrer has set up a live video stream of the trophy to capture the game's dramatic conclusion on camera.
