The Encounter - A New Russian Extreme Game

The rules of "the Encounter" are simple enough. To take part in it each team is making a payment (the team which has taken the 1st place is getting 50% of the total takings for the game). The game runs several cars — crews of "field players" that are in real life. The cars must be fuelled to capacity and the players — equipped with cellar phones and flashlights. The other part of the team is its "brains’, its "headquarters". In the headquarters there are computers linked to the Internet , "coordinators" who are getting tasks at "the Encounter" web-site and passing them over to the players at the "field".

The goal of every mission is to find the code, enter it into the web-site and thus get access to the next task. The code can be hidden in any place and in any way: placed in the basement, drawn on the stone or on the wall, printed in the fresh issue of a newspaper, fixed up a tree, handed over to the "agent". The code can materialize in a set of figures or symbols, a line from Shakespeare, the name of the caretaker from the neighboring street.

Having obtained the code, the crews are letting the headquarters know by cellar phones. Experienced and better equipped field players , for the sake of time economy, are logging the answer into the web-site straight from the car, using a lap-top linked to the Internet.

The participant must fulfill ten missions and the team which is the first to go through all the levels is the winner. The virtually-actual encounter is sometimes running through the whole night — from late evening to the small hours of the next morning.

When the game with these rules was first launched in Minsk, it gained popularity quickly and became a noticeable event of the local life. Townsfolk are exchanging sagas about mysterious nocturnal incidents. Populous teams have been formed, a new steady community of "the players of the night" has emerged. Severe representatives of the road police are grinning with understanding at the sight of the car with "Encounter" sticker. There have been a series of reports on the adventures of the Encounter players in the local papers and on TV, the repute of the founders of the game is rocketing.
Official Website: Encounter