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The Ultimate Anti-Action Online Game: Waiting In Line 3D 94

Freshly Exhumed writes "Looking a lot like the venerable Wolfenstein 3D or similar Id action games of the DOS days, the new online game Waiting in Line 3D was released Monday by developer Rajeev Basu, and was played 50,000 times in its first 24 hours of activity... er... inactivity. Is the complete lack of any action a brilliant satire of computer gaming? Is it software-based performance art? Is it silly? Judge for yourself, if you can meet the challenge!" Now's a good time to confess if you spent a major portion of your post-Thanksgiving dinner recovery time camped out in line for some of those Black Friday come-ons.
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The Ultimate Anti-Action Online Game: Waiting In Line 3D

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 30, 2013 @03:58AM (#45560059)

    Pippin Barr's "The artist is present" was released years ago - it's a game based on a real-life museum exhibit where you get to.. wait in line to look into Marina Abramovic's eyes.. in full 8-bit-esque glory.

    http://kotaku.com/5841304/new-video-game-delivers-the-immersive-realism-of-waiting-5-hours-in-line-at-a-museum [kotaku.com]

  • by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 30, 2013 @04:00AM (#45560065)

    EA are ready to sue the creator of "Waiting in Line 3D".

    A spokesman said "It copies key gameplay elements of hit EA titles such as Sim City, where much of the excitement can be derived from queuing endlessly to connect to a server so that they can play. We will rigorously defend our patent, so that our customers can look forward to the unique EA queuing experience in all our future titles."

    • A spokesman said "It copies key gameplay elements of hit EA titles such as Sim City, where much of the excitement can be derived from queuing endlessly to connect to a server so that they can play.

      They must have licensed that tech out to Rockstar for GTA Online. Once I passed level 100 I started getting kicked from about 4 out of 5 jobs I join. It's gotten so bad that some days I spend more time connecting to sessions than actually playing.

    • EA my ass Disney is waiting to sue first. Disney reps were quoted as saying "this immersive experience directly mirrors the Disney experience of waiting for things in our parks. We feel it infringes on our models.".
    • Poe's Law, in full effect here

      "Without a blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of extremism or fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing."

      I guarantee you, someone at EA could read this and think "That's a great idea. SUE HIS PANTS OFF."

  • Like Desert Bus... (Score:5, Informative)

    by marciot ( 598356 ) on Saturday November 30, 2013 @04:13AM (#45560093)

    Nice, reminds me of the anti-action driving game, Desert Bus

    http://desertbus-game.org/ [desertbus-game.org]

    • by fatphil ( 181876 )
      Desert bus is way more action packed than IdleRPG, and also is a single player game, whereas IdleRPG is massively multi-player.
  • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re:Unwinnable (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 30, 2013 @04:36AM (#45560143)

      I think that is kinda the point.

      If you want a real objective to this game, try observing the relationship between the hp regen rate and the sleepy meter. My best time so far is around 5 minutes. It appears as if the following (rough) values are in place:

      HP regens about about 1/sec
      punch consumes ~11hp
      Punch provides approx 20% awake bar
      awake bar will diminish by about 25% per 11 seconds

      It should be possible to derive what the absolute longest possible time is, given there are absolutely no power ups to extend the slow and painful health to wakefulness mechanic of the game, and thus prolong the shopper's suffering.

      Trying to get the longest possible time then becomes a metagaming exercise that has a theoretically attainable goal.

      • According to your numbers, you can only last for 220 seconds, since you lose 5% hp every 11 seconds. This must be wrong if you managed to last for five minutes (300 seconds)

        • Sorry, that's 5% of the awake bar. And 220 seconds is to maintain full hp. You could last longer by gradually losing hp, but the amount of total hp is missing.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        The game is implemented in javascript. You can just read the source code of the game to get exact values. For that matter, you could cheat by altering the javascript, or altering the values with a JS debugger like Chrome's. I know that's even more pointless than playing and not cheating, but at least it's not as silly as sitting there trying to calculate that shit for maximum game time.

        • Well aren't you just a killjoy! Part of the fun was sitting there with a stopwatch and doing an actual experiment to figure out the answer. BUT NOOOOOO, you just had to blurt out the answer and steal all the thunder. Now there is truly no point in playing a game that had no point :(
        • by floodo1 ( 246910 )
          thanks
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You may as well punch yourself in the face for real. This just wasted 2 minutes of my life and the line never moved.

      Yes, I know. The realism is absolutely cutting edge.

    • You may as well punch yourself in the face for real.

      Mr. Durden, is that you? I have an idea for a club...

    • Start the game in Chrome, open the developer console, alter the code so that punches to the face don't do any damage, then punch yourself in the face for the next hour.
    • Kinda like waiting in line to upgrade a 4s for a 5, but not as boring.

  • by black3d ( 1648913 ) on Saturday November 30, 2013 @04:16AM (#45560101)

    It's just a joke.

    • You're half-right. It's computer-based art. Hey, you might think the message is stupid and shallow, but that doesn't make it not art even if you're right.

      It's not performance art, though, it's just art. Playing it is appreciating the art. Coding it was analogue to painting.

    • by dingen ( 958134 )

      Hmmm, seems like it was as big week for joke browser games with http://vlambeerclonetycoon.com/ [vlambeerclonetycoon.com] also getting a lot of press. Will this be a thing in 2014?

  • Now I have something to play between marathon sessions of "Desert Bus"!!

    http://desertbus-game.org/ [desertbus-game.org]

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_&_Teller's_Smoke_and_Mirrors#Desert_Bus [wikipedia.org]

  • by cervesaebraciator ( 2352888 ) on Saturday November 30, 2013 @04:23AM (#45560121)
    Looks like it has a more advanced competitor now. But Waiting in Line 3D shouldn't give Healthcare.gov too much problem. We know it'll take years before the sequel, Waiting in Line Forever comes out.
  • There already has been a game about waiting in lines: Postal 2. Though you have a lot more optionshow to deal with the situation.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Pretty much this.

      I don't think it is right to call this a game more than one would call Dear Esther [wikipedia.org] a game.
      Games gives the player a choice and an ability to change the outcome of the game, even if the outcome means that you have to start over and play again. If it doesn't it would be better to call it interactive fiction.
      There are a lot of interesting things about the human psyche one can explore with games. For example we know that people get enjoyment and are willing to spend a lot of time on non-violent

      • I don't think it is right to call this a game more than one would call Dear Esther a game.
        Games gives the player a choice and an ability to change the outcome of the game, even if the outcome means that you have to start over and play again.

        So, what you're saying is, the only way to win is not to play? //rimshot

  • Finally (Score:4, Informative)

    by Black LED ( 1957016 ) on Saturday November 30, 2013 @04:46AM (#45560163)
    A game that beats "Soda Drinker Pro" and "Progress Quest" in pointlessness.
  • Would work better if it wasn't crashing.

  • Want to see something cool? Here's something quite close to the Wolfenstein 3D engine implemented in a GPU shader [shadertoy.com]. Obviously you cannot control the game as the GPU has no access to input devices. But the whole thing is calculated on the GPU, running silky smooth.

    Browse the whole site of Shadertoy, it's fun stuff. Although in my experience WebGL likes still to explode a lot so it's a matter of luck if you can get the site to work.

  • Reminds me of progress quest which frankly was much more clever.

    http://progressquest.com/ [progressquest.com]

  • I'm more of a wasd kinda guy.
  • by dmomo ( 256005 ) on Saturday November 30, 2013 @12:18PM (#45561869)

    Is there a standthrough for this available?

  • To many people were using bots to hold their place in line.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    This is just a new form of the "How bored are you?" game [kfu.com] which is itself as old as many readers here.

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