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Jason Rohrer is known for creating video games with some pretty off-the-wall concepts, but his latest venture–a battle royale known as Project Skydrop–takes things a step further. Rohrer teamed up with friend and musician Tom Bailey to create the game, and unlike most battle royales, Rohrer’s new adventure won’t see players fighting to the death. There is a catch, however: Project Skydrop takes place in real life, and the winner will receive a custom-made solid gold trophy.
Rohrer says he’s been working on Project Skydrop since 2021, and after years of planning, plotting, and acquiring a sufficiently impressive reward for the winner, the game is now afoot. The treasure–a 10.9-ounce 24-karat solid-gold trophy worth roughly $26,000–was commissioned and paid for by Rohrer himself, but according to a profile by Wired, the winner may also receive a “life-changing amount of bitcoin,” with the exact number dependent upon how many players take part in the hunt.
The game only lasts for 21 days, and at the time of writing, there are 16 days left for players to track down the prize. Rohrer has revealed that the trophy is located “somewhere in the northeastern United States,” and at this point, Project Skydrop might sound like a simple (albeit extremely lucrative) treasure hunt. So what exactly makes it a battle royale?
Rohrer says Fortnite inspired him to put the treasure somewhere inside an ever-shrinking circle. The circle was 500 miles wide the day the hunt began, and has been shrinking each day since. Every day, the circle grows smaller, and a map on the game’s official website is updated to show players the size and location of that day’s circle.
Additionally, each day of circle-shrinking is accompanied by a new photo of the 24 karat trophy. The photos started out as close-up shots of the prize’s hiding place, but as the circle shrinks, the photos of the trophy zoom farther and farther out, giving players a more detailed view of the surrounding area each day. Based on the circle’s current position, the prize is hidden somewhere in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, or Vermont.
This isn’t the first time Rohrer has sent players on a wild goose chase in exchange for some premium loot. In Fall 2021, Rohrer created Project Skydrop’s precursor. With the help of his kids, Rohrer hid a chest containing $3,000 worth of silver coins in a state park near his home in Dover, Delaware. Then he slipped some clues about its location into his (computer) game, One Hour One Life. Rohrer feared the clues–which were hidden in a poem that was programmed to disappear from the game after just one day–were too cryptic, and would ultimately prove too difficult for players to solve.
Eight hours later, One Hour One Life players had decoded the poem and were headed to the chest’s location. Rohrer was amazed–and slightly frustrated–by the speed with which players had solved the puzzle. After the Dover chest’s rapid discovery, Rohrer began working to create the “perfect” treasure hunt: one that “doesn’t last 10 years and doesn’t last one day.” Thus, Project Skydrop was born.
As for the game’s 21-day run time, Rohrer told Wired it’s all about the 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 more information on Rohrer’s wild battle royale (including the latest updates on the shrinking circle’s location) see the official Project Skydrop website, where Rohrer has set up a live video stream of the trophy to ensure the game’s dramatic end is caught on camera.
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