Clued In describes The Game:
Put simply, The Game is a puzzle-solving race. Teams of four to 10 players drive around the Bay Area in pursuit of clues, which involve data collection, decryption, even a bit of performance art. Each solution leads a team to the next destination — and clue. Most teams cross the finish line in about 24 hours, while some limp along for 36 straight. The winners get a place in Game history and the chance to head home to bed.
[...]
The idea for this mental marathon germinated amongst a group of Clearwater, Fla., high schoolers in the mid-1980s. Joe Belfiore and his buddies created all-night scavenger hunts called Midnight Madness, inspired by the virtually unwatchable 1980 movie of the same name. When Belfiore enrolled at Stanford, he brought his Game along.Stanford, with its vast, scenic campus and multitude of smarty-pants always looking for a challenge, proved to be a consummate Game setting. Six Games were held on the Farm under Belfiore’s auspices. Now the general manager of Microsoft Windows eHome division in Seattle, Belfiore, 90, still participates in annual Games with his high-tech colleagues. And his brainchild plays out all over the country. Once a rather secretive pursuit, The Game now flourishes in communities from New York to Michigan to MIT. Mini-Games — which last a mere seven or so hours — are deployed to build corporate unity or mingle alumni of different Ivy League schools. But the Stanford/Bay Area community still hosts the country’s largest group of bona fide Gamers, with some 40 teams competing semiannually.
I vaguely recollect not doing a Midnight Madness event in high school. Odd…