This is a very interesting story. It involves gaming but it goes way beyond that. The story of “Chain World” crosses into human behavior, religion and greed. “Chain World” is a game invented by Jason Rohrer for Game Design Challenge 2011.
Chain World has a strict set of laws that all players must follow. There’s only one true copy of Chain World and it exists on a USB stick Rohrer carried with him into the GDC session. This USB drive contains a world and a custom script that Rohrer created. A player of Chain World inserts the USB stick and loads into his PC. He then plays in this world and does whatever he desires.
He plays until his character dies. Following the character’s death, the player must immediately save, quit to the main menu, and leave the game. Rohrer’s script than creates a duplicate of this altered world, saves it onto the USB drive, and deletes it off the player’s PC. The player can never play again and must pass the drive on to the next player.
Put simply, this is a video game only one person on Earth can play at one time—a chain of people that influence a single world. Sounds great, but things got terribly out of hand. Read this Wired Mag article to find out what happened.
The Rules of Chain World:
1. Run Chain World via one of the included “run_ChainWorld” launchers.
2. Start a single-player game and pick “Chain World.”
3. Play until you die exactly once.
3a. Erecting signs with text is forbidden—your works must speak for themselves.
3b. Suicide is permissible.
4. Immediately after dying and respawning, quit to the menu.
5. Allow the world to save.
6. Exit the game and wait for your launcher to automatically copy Chain World back to the USB stick.
7. Pass the USB stick to someone else who expresses interest.
8. Never discuss what you saw or did in Chain World with anyone.
9. Never play again.