About the Alley of Doom

WELCOME

We've been expecting you.

The Alley of Doom is a Washington, DC-based pop-up game that lets you recreate -- and re-envision -- Indiana Jones' famous boulder run from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This kooky idea became real thanks to a mini-grant from our local chapter of the (appropriately named) Awesome Foundation. (You can read our grant application (and the early vision for this game) in full here.)

On September 29, 2012, we popped up in an alley off of U Street, NW between 14th and 15th for 3-plus hours of doom and hilarity. Over the course of the day, around 130 people came to join us (and even more to watch). We're still gathering together the official videos from the event, but to see some AMAZING IMAGES in our crowdsourced Flickr pool, click here!

In the next couple of weeks, we'll be releasing not only pictures and video (which will live here), but also a how-to guide that includes full documentation for how you can do the ALLEY OF DOOM in an alley near you. Stay tuned!

SO, WHAT...IS IT?

Think: one part theme park, one part guerrilla theatre, and one part pure, geeky wish-fulfillment. You play the part of Indiana "Don't Sue Us Please, George Lucas" Jones. We hook you up with some Indiana-esque gear, a gold idol, and play the part of ferocious boulder trying to (gently) smash you. How things play out is up to you.

You are free to run, walk, pogo-stick, moonwalk, bike, karate-flip, skip, scream, or funky-chicken away from certain doom. Cameras are set up along the course to capture the action so that, after you run, you no longer have to just imagine yourself as Mr. Jones: You'll be him! Sort of! All video is edited into personalized segments that are loaded onto YouTube (and shown on our website), and folks who give their email address when they run get their race sent to them directly. (Here's a taste of what the results look like.)

The point, as we said in this interview with the Awesome Foundation, is "to provide good, clean, weird fun in an under-utilized urban space. You can enjoy spending a few minutes getting dressed up, pretending to steal a golden statue, and being chased by a giant bouldery ball even if you have no idea Indiana Jones exists. Heck, you don't even have to like Indiana Jones to play the game. The point is that you have an opportunity to play at all."