We Roleplayed the End of the World with 4000 Other People

- Hello, YouTube. I'm Quinns here with People Make Games in the Mojave Desert to cover Wasteland Weekend. Brace yourself 'cause this video's gonna get (beep) weird. Each year, more than 4,000 people head out into the desert to experience the end of the world. Drawing on post apocalyptic fiction, but especially Mad Max, Wasteland Weekend is a five day immersive event in which all attendees must commit to the theme. In fact, that's what you're there for. That means not just role play, character na

mes, costumes, vehicles, campsites, and tribes, it means the most dedicated folks showing up way in advance of the event to build a town from the ground up and it all needs to feel like it belongs, which is why I look like the manager of a Hot Topic who's been sleeping in a cave. The events organisers say they want you to feel like you're living in a movie, but to us there was a way more immediate comparison because as you'll see, Wasteland Weekend feels like waking up inside a video game. For a

start, actual US dollars are often completely useless here. This world has its own economy based on bottle caps and barter, there are quests to complete and different factions to gain reputation with. And so, eager to excel in this dusty new frontier, I look back on my many years of RPG experience and decided to do what I knew best. It was time for PMG to conquer the local economy. Okay, we are here at Wasteland Weekend for four days, and in that time we are going to try and amass as much loot

as possible in the world of Wasteland Weekend. Here's what we're starting with, we have exactly nine bottle caps, five of which we brought ourselves when we remembered we needed bottle caps, four of which were given to us out of pity. We have, today's issue of The Wastelander, the official Wasteland Weekend newspaper that a team of journalists write every day, and one crisp linen scented candle that we bought at a pharmacy because we thought, what is this place gonna need, you know, as barter to

trade? So from these humble beginnings, let's get, let's level up. (mellow rock music) Following a dramatic opening ceremony at the city's gates I quickly learned two important things. First of all, the words "fuck you" had a whole new meaning, out here in the dusty future. (participants screaming fuck you) It seemed to be a form of greeting. I'm pretty sure that's what was going on because I've been sworn at about 30 times already. Secondly, I've met a stable seeming man called Blowout who sug

gested we visit The Faceless Merchants, one of Wastelands many tribes, which have been set up not by the organisers themselves, but by the community. That's where we're going, that's apparently a tribe that helped people who are new to Wasteland Valley. The current cost of doing business for us is not, like, a lack of generosity of anyone it's just walking around in the Mojave Desert, super hot as it turns out, and the more walking we do, the more water we have to buy and we're already, we alrea

dy have lost like 30% of our chips, ah, caps. Fuckin', let's go! It's hot. Hoping to make a good impression with the tribe, I attempted the Wasteland customary greeting for myself. Fuck yeah, okay. Fuck you by the way. Unfortunately, it turned out, I'd just flipped off the tribe's leader. Oh! Okay, I retract the fuck you. I want us to be on good terms. That's just... Okay, cool. - You have my good graces. Please come inside, talk to our desk clerk and learn what we're all about. - Great. What's

the guy's name? - Blowout. - Blowout sent us. - [Leader] Yeah, Blowout's, he's one of my very good boys. - [Quinns] Okay. (laughing) My dreams of post-apocalyptic wealth took another early blow as I waited in line to pick up my first quest, another Wastelander by the name of Voltage who was also looking to sign up with The Faceless Merchants, convinced me to pay her one of my few remaining bottle caps to use her portable petting zoo. - Yes. Look how nice. - That's, that is... - Doesn't that make

you feel better? - No, the felt is good. Yeah. This was an expense I simply could not afford. Perhaps sensing my panic as I realised I'd soon have absolutely nothing left to actually trade with, Voltage gifted me a unique trinket, which she'd crafted herself. What! This is like a rabbit's foot in a shotgun shell? - [Voltage] That's a Guinea pig, technically. - Oh no, that's a real fuckin... (gasps) Thank you! (Voltage laughing) This is, oh no, hang on. But I have to pay you for this. - [Voltage

] No, no, you already paid me. Aren't you, like, down to four caps? (both laughing) - [Quinns] Yeah, but if I see you round... This is- - You just attach it to... - Oh, this is wicked. Thank you so much. I am on my way to earning my trade licence (bullet ricochets) with The Faceless Merchants. These are a bunch of the affiliates, different tribes that I can go and barter with. If I go and barter in some way or try to barter, they will then give me a signature. I come back, having attempted to ba

rter with all these people then I'm officially, gonna be an accredited Faceless Merchant Trader! However, like all good quests, this would include some light peril. Oh yeah. No, there is a catch. This is insignia showing that I'm with The Faceless Merchants on my, like, training, which means I'm fair game for any Raiders, and if any Raider managers to take this off me, then I have to come back here and get another one, which is gonna cost me time, heat, and more water. There was nothing to do bu

t cross my fingers and hope I wouldn't be accosted by frightening desert bandits. Now, I hadn't come all this way on my own, I brought Chris along as well, although it seemed he wasn't taking my pursuit of market dominance anywhere near as seriously as I'd have liked. - They've got a whole editorial team, like people, they write the day's news. Honestly, I decided to leave Quinn's to his skeletal rodent feats and find something a bit more hygienic to do instead. And so, I trekked down Deadline,

the editor of The Wastelander, and asked him if I could write for his paper. He assigned me a story about some gang conflict that was meant to kick off by the main gates that afternoon. And if I wrote just 400 words on whatever it was that happened, I might just have a shot at making tomorrow's edition. And so, with a press pass in hand, and even a Wasteland name of my very own, Muckraker, I set out to make the front page. (quirky music) (metallic scraping) (eraser whooshing) - While Chris was t

urning Wasteland Weekend into a topless extension of his real life job, I had to hoof it back to the car park to pick up a scuff to become faceless. Okay, face covered. That is The Autumn Packed, to do my first trade. The scented candle is gone. - Oh really? - Yeah. No, we, we did it. We have to do a fuckin' trade Chris! - Well, what did you get? - Most important thing, I got my first signature on the path to being a merchant. - [Chris] Okay, but what did you get for the- - I know, well, you're

not gonna love this, but I did get three items. - That candle was from- - I know! But I got three items. - The Dollar Family. (Chris exclaims excitedly) - Okay? Yeah. - Okay, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Ah, it's a shotgun shell! - Whoa! - No, it's a lighter! - [Chris] But this is a, this isn't... What are you talking about, "I wouldn't love this." I love this. This is great. - And just a dumb waiter, you know, for when you need to... Ah, it's rusted. - Oh no. - It's rusted shut, but we won't show th

at to people. They had a box of junk. And so there we were! Our very first bit of Wasteland bartering. Did I love the items we'd received? No. Was I relieved to get rid of the scented candle that we now realised was shamefully off theme? Yes! (engine rumbling) Step two, Merchant Quest Complete! (Chris and merchant giggling) We traded, our very fine bottle opener, a waiters assistant for... Oh, I need to get better at this or I'm never gonna be a grownup merchant! A spooky photo! (creepy music) I

n what was becoming a troubling pattern, the second merchant I visited also took pity on me after I'd drunk the water she'd offered with the urgency of a British games journalist who now found himself out in the California desert. She offered me a sun reflector and a map free of charge, and reminded me to take regular breaks in the shade. Monopolising the local economy, however, doesn't allow for breaks and so, it was straight over to The Bolt Cutter Clan to trade my tiny haunted portrait for a

hand stitched patch of a big tarantula they'd seen twice when setting up their tent the day before. They also encouraged me to give myself a Wasteland name. I came up with Corvid. They then politely informed me that Raven names were totally played out, (bird caws) and so we workshopped it to Carrion and I was on my way. Doesn't get any less intimidating walking into a place that looks like this. Oh wow! You're actually pretty stocked, huh? I was just given a reflective screen, don't know if this

is of interest to you. If it's not, don't worry, I got other stuff. I have some sunglasses of questionable quality and I have a lighter that is also a shotgun shell and it works. - Okay. They're all pretty great. I like all of them. - Yeah. Good, good. Glad to hear it. - Why don't take a look? I got more stuff here. (Quinns guffaws) Immediate, yeah, no, this is... We're pretty sold on this immediately. I'm interested in this as well. All right, let's make a deal. - What about, the sunglasses an

d the lighter for bottlecap chain and the fan? - You know what, I could make that deal. (bluesy music) I think this is a genuinely cool game design, right? Because I'm sort of, I took on this quest, I thought this beginner quest would be nonsense. But look, I have to go to like all these different... I had to get this map. I had to find out where all these little merchant stands are. And like, in doing this, I'm kind of participating in Wasteland Weekend, 'cause I'm bartering, I'm meeting people

... - [Chris] You've acquired a nickname! - I've acquired a nickname, my name is now Carrion, 'cause a woman is making a patch for me that I'm picking up tomorrow. And like, I'm learning the layout and I'm learning, like the, I don't know. This is a better first quest than plenty of video games I've played. The next trader I visited wasn't actually open yet. And so here I was, confronted with an exciting opportunity to decide upon the morality of Carrion, the trainee Faceless Merchant. Okay, her

e's what we're gonna do. Because, one of the things I'm learning on the merchant route, is a merchant needs to make their own luck. So I'm gonna forge their signature. (gong rings) I can absolutely do that. I found out I could do this the moment, there was a woman over there who said, "What should I write? Should I write my name?" Which when it became clear there's not a system. So I'm going to exist in that lack of a system and I'm still gonna do like nine of the 10 things. (mellow rock music)

- While Carrion was stooping to yet new lows, Muckraker had some reporting to do. Quinns, there appears to be some commotion happening at the gate, I'm meant to be reporting on this. Rumour had it that a tribe was planning a public execution of a notable Wastelander and the Autumn Pact, amongst others, had been hired to intervene. Excuse me, I'm with the Wasteland Communication Corporation. Do you know what's happening here? What's, what's going on? - Skofield's is attempting to rescue someone.

I'm not sure who. - Okay. All right. A rescue attempt. Okay. - Yes. - That's useful, thank you. - Yes. - It now appears to be a photo shoot. I'm not entirely sure. This is gonna be a rubbish story. Hello again. I've met you before. I'm with the press. - Okay. - What's going on here? Do you know what the general vibe is? 'Cause someone said that somebody was being rescued and now it seems like it's a photo shoot. I have no clue, bro. - Okay. All right. Me neither. Okay, good. Good. For the record

, I am usually a better journalist than this. - I tell you what, if you're gonna watch the show, you might want to see it out there because that's where he's gonna be. - Oh, out there. Okay, thank you. - We're gonna march over there. - Thank you. Thank you. I've had an inside tip. The rescue attempt is happening out here. Oh, there's another tribe, Quinns, there's another tribe! Oh, that's Captain Finn. - [Tribe Leader] He will pay for his deeds! He will pay for is (indistinct) (Tribe exclaiming

) - It became apparent that these tribes had beef going back actual years. And the gathering threatened to break out into a shootout at any moment. Not my usual beats, honestly. I'm usually at home asking people about Rayman or something. But if Quinns and I didn't wanna run outta caps, there was no choice but to see this through. Alright, okay. So, I mean, it's a little unclear what happened. Your boy Finn, maybe Captain Finn, but Finn, he was getting, about to be executed outside the gates 'ca

use of a ceasefire that had been broken between two clans. One of 'em might have been called The Slugs, not sure on that, they've had his eye out with a spoon and now the ceasefire is very much done, so... - [Quinns] Do you think you have what you need for this story? Do you need to get some vox pops? - I would like to... - [Quinns] Get some quotes? - Interview Captain Finn, I think. (Quinns groans) Go straight to the source. The man's lost his eye, I think. - Where is he? - I don't know. - Dude

! - I can find him. (upbeat rock music) Oh, he's not looking in a good way Quinns, I'll tell you that. With a few waves of my increasingly grubby press pass, I was able to secure an exclusive interview with the now one-eyed Captain for the Wastelanders. Physically, how you feeling Finn? - I, feel much better. - That's good. (Quinns laughing) - But there was no reason for Zero to lash out like that, that was not fair. - Okay, great. Well thank you much, our readers will be... Well, very excited t

o hear you're- - [Quinns] Do you have anything you would like to tell the readers? - Yeah, - The readers? - Yeah. WCC. - The paper. - Tomorrow's print. Tomorrow's paper. - Oh man. Wear your safety goggles. (Quinns and Chris laughing) - Thank you very much. Thanks. Thanks Finn. - Yeah! Thumbs up. - Cheers then. Alright. Deadline's gonna pay real caps for this. I've gotta say, like, straight to the source. I'm a bit embarrassed about how, how bloody filthy my press pass is. Did you see, when I sho

wed it to Finn, I feel like, it almost repelled him. And the man was covered in blood. I need to get that sorted. But yeah, journalism, easy. It still exists. Wasteland or not. (spooky music) - Okay, halfway through the merchant's journey now and I'm celebrating, I have bartered for a Sapporo premium beer and then as a free extra, you know, sometimes you get like prizes with beers. I got this. I was told it's Death Glo repellent. I'm pretty sure it's just something that the bar wanted to get rid

of. Everyone who ever complained about encumbrance rules in like D & D needs to like, that's a real simulation of what's happening to me now. I'm very happily becoming over encumbered. I gotta trade some of this crap for smaller things. I'm so hot. Did we mention we're in the Mojave Desert? We're in the Mojave Desert. So, these are the caps we've earned today. You can see they're nice, they're customised, love and a sentiment to them. These are the caps we brought from England and I just had th

em rejected as currency because they're rubbish. - [Chris] That's just an actual beer. - That's just, yeah, well I was told to bring bottle caps, Chris! Don't be a dickhead. Anyway, I think when it gets dark and people aren't paying attention to the caps they're getting, I'm gonna be able to fold them into something I'm paying for something, so, shut the fuck up. (bluesy music) And on that note, it was time for the Wastelands newest recruits to head back to their hotel for a little bit of rest.

Yet another Wastelander had taken pity on me on the way back to the carpark and given my unprepared arse a parasol. And it was perhaps now that the reality of being a merchant was starting to set in. Back at the hotel, it was a relief to just relax for a while and think back on my first day, Muckraker, however, had a story to file. (futuristic music) - [Chris] We returned later that evening and the Wasteland had transformed into essentially a giant party in the desert. Drinks are now being serve

d at saloons, bars and even a casino, although you still don't pay for them with dollars, known here as Old World Money, instead you spend your bottle caps or you trade jokes or stories and you'll get some form of alcohol in return. Will you always know what type of alcohol that is? Absolutely not, just this evening we'd be told that we were drinking gasoline and something called (beep) juice. - [Quinns] I got the impression that, now wasn't really the time to try and offload a gigantic fucked u

p canister or a pair of novelty sunglasses. And so, I decided to take the evening off from trading and instead try to get a sense of what this place means to the people who come out here every year. What's up? If it's one word, what does Wasteland Weekend mean to you? - Family. - This is my family reunion with 4,000 other people that didn't necessarily know that we were related. - It's just a family, it's like a place where people could just kinda like, be who they aren't in the real world. - It

's about building a community after there's no more community and we're just sort of doing it in our own way. - All the screwed up people just go in one place and that's where we all feel comfortable. (laughing) - You can be a different persona and just have fun and get a escape from reality. (rock music) - [Chris] As we arrived for our second day, I was extremely eager, some might say desperate, to see if my article had made it into print. Oh, well thank you. (paper rustling) There it was, "No

I in team by Muckraker," I was absolutely chuffed with this, and so it was time to check in with my editor. - Let's get you compensated. - Excellent. - Remunerated. Ah, let's see, where do I keep my bankroll? Ah, here it is. - Oh, excellent. - No, somebody's been here alright. (Chris laughing) - Oh, that sounded good. That sounded good. - You grab as many as you can handle. - Okay. - I'm gonna look away. - Alright, I'll do one hand. - Yeah, one hand. - This was the first time since working@video

gamer.com that I'd been paid for an article by reaching into a giant sack and hoping for the best. - You got it? - I've got... - Oh, come on, you can do better than that. - No, no, that's good. - No, you can do better than that. There's a casino out there with your name on it. - There we go. - There you go. - Oh, thank you so much, Deadline. It was a pleasure to work with you. - Likewise. - Oh my gosh. - That's, that's... - Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh and they're spilling! - Those are mine! - [Journa

list] Also, for your payment. - Oh yeah? Oo! - Coyote Canyon Bucks. - Oh my gosh. This pay really well. This pay really, really well. - How much did you get? - I don't know. There's like, there's like, - What the fuck is this? There's, I don't, that's Coyote Canyon dollars, of which I have about 50 I think, and then maybe like, maybe like 20 bottle caps. - What the fuck? So what's your next article? We gotta get your ass back in there and more Coyote Canyon dollars. - I, you think, I actually ha

ve a thing at one? - Okay, that's, what kind of thing? (inquisitive music) - Hello. How's it going? Hello everyone. Will you still need life models for, at 1:00 PM? - Oh hey! - Is that okay? (orchestral music) - [Quinns] While Muckraker was busy posing, his haggard ghost-like body without even getting paid so much as a bottle cap, I returned to the merchant's path to better our place in this society. Step six of 10 on my journey to become an official licenced merchant, Tortuga Trading, my object

ive to get rid of all this shit. I'm here to barter. - Okay! - Very excited to barter, in fact, 'cause I have some fine items for you here today. - Looks like you got some stuff. - You ready for this? Look at that. See? Not a hole in it! Little did I know, I just met Tocker, the proprietor of Wastelands TickTock Chop Shop who offered me a wide variety of still silent time pieces from before the end times. Using my deft mercantile skills honed over the previous day, I was able to trade my hateful

canister, as well as the spider patch I'd acquired for a golden watch. - [Chris] Quinns fleeced this person. I feel it's important for me to say that on the record here. Can I please remind you all that he'd received that big hunk of junk for free from somebody who'd sold him a beer. Tocker's tent, we'd later find out, literally collapsed on the penultimate day of the event. They found us that night to say that the desert had reclaimed the canister as they weren't able to find it in the wreckag

e. This transaction was haunted. - [Quinns] Delighted with the day's first bit of business, I continued onto my next step on the trader's path. I was making trades like a pro, picking up all sorts of stuff. A second watch, a fetching bangle, this lovely necklace, I even picked up a patch that one of the Bolt Cutters had made for me, emblazoned with my Wasteland name. Huge shout out to Tibs for their work on that. It was very, very sweet. I probably wouldn't sell it. - [Chris] Meanwhile, I wonder

ed if it was about time to find a tribe of my own. The natural choice, given that I'd waxed my chest and covered myself in white paint, was the war boys. I found some on wall duty next to the main gates and asked them if I could hang out for a bit with them. Is that what I need? To be able to stand in front of you, I need to do some pushups? - [Warboy #4] Yeah. - How many? - What many? - How many pushups? - [Warboy #3] All of 'em! - [Warboy #4] How many can you do? - [Chris] 10? (Warboys yelling

over each other) I think... I think they might have been bullying me. War! - Meanwhile, I was feeling great! I'd completed my quest in just 24 hours, which I was sure was a record. And I headed back to The Faceless Merchants' encampments to collect my reward. I dunno if this has ever happened before, but you know we did that in what, 24 hours? That's, that's 10 signatures. I'm gonna point out we got the Black Market on there as well. I was informed that the record time for completing the quest

was in fact a little under two hours. - Current record is one hour and 45 minutes. - Yeah, that's pretty not real though. That's pretty not, that's... That's probably someone just like playing with you. - We checked that they did it. - [Quinns] And then, Thrist, the group's leader then took me outside to show me her own setup for trading across the wastes. I couldn't help but feel my own efforts were, perhaps, a little inadequate. I thought wearing five extra pockets had placed me in the big lea

gues. And in hindsight, all of my biggest trades started to look like a sympathy for a sweaty British man who was simply out of his depth. Oh, I hope that Muckraker was having more luck. - [Chris] I may not have been accepted by the Warboys, but I did at least sort of look like one, which is why later that afternoon I was approached by another Wastelander handing out pamphlets, encouraging the Warboys to form a union and demand better working conditions. Perhaps this could be my way into the gro

up. I rush back to the wall to tell my deeply intimidating colleagues all about it. Have you heard of Collective Action? Are you getting fair compensation for your labour, do you think? - We get blood bags. - Right. - [Warboy #4] Bloodbags and all the steering wheels we can eat. - Okay, well... Well if you change your mind, I think it'd be a good idea. Thank you. - Thank you. - That was a disaster. - Things soon got even worse for my pasty companion who started to look a bit unwell. At first we

suspected heat stroke, but it turned out to be something so much weirder. So, a form of disaster has struck. Chris behind me, has made himself tremendously ill through his makeup. Chris, would you like to talk about what happened? - So I've been using white body paint combined with zinc oxide to get my Warboy aesthetic and it turns out you're meant to mix the, the zinc oxide a little bit more than I did, rather than just like huff it straight into your face. - So what have you come down with Chr

is? - A mild case of metal fume fever. - Metal fume fever. Is that not the most post-apocalyptic illness. And what career path usually gets this illness, Chris? - Welders. - Welders! - As our third day began, I decided to hold off on using any more zinc oxide, you'll be pleased to hear, and stuck to just the body paint. I did, however, need to take things a little easier. I dunno where I'm going. - Whereas for me, the third day was about self-reflection. Having seen my friend succumb to what's k

nown more colloquially as the zinc shakes or the welding shivers, I started to wonder if, maybe, I'd got my priorities wrong. Instead of finding community warmth, family, I'd brought something with me from the outside world, something foul and all corrupting. I'd brought the attitude of gamers to the Wasteland. Today would be different. Today I'd look for my people out here in the sand, and so I explored the town with my eyes wide open for perhaps the first time since arriving here. I looked at

some fucked up cars, I joined in on a convoy, I met this other guy on his first year here with just the most unbelievably good costume. I peeked inside the orgy dome and I'm never going to tell anybody about what I saw inside. I lost a jewel and I took it well. Shoot! (yelling) You wanna kill me? - Sure. (Quinns groaning) (Victor screaming) (upbeat music) I lost at checkers and I took it worse. Muckraker, huffed another questionable substance. - Ah! Ugh! It does not taste that great. (Quinns lau

ghing) - [Quinns] We watched an actual wedding. As many folks who meet at Wasteland choose to tie the knot in front of their found family at the event. - [Officiant] Well with that, I'm going to pop a squat and let these guys profess their fucking love for each other! (Wastelanders cheer) - [Quinns] We attended a wine social and met the bar's proprietor, the amazing Auntie Virus. - [Chris] As the sun began to set that evening, we decided to take the caps we'd been hoarding and actually enjoy the

m. Carrion was lured into a bar where he was encouraged to bet on an unexpectedly violent series of knife fights. (Wastelanders cheer) - I got $40, 40 coyote dollars on Hot Ass, the guy with the ponytail. And then there's the topless dude who looks like he's killed a man. (rock music) (Quinns oos) (Wastelanders clapping) Yeah! ♪ I've seen ultra violence ♪ ♪ I'm gonna get my money ♪ - [Chris] Running high on actually winning his bets, Carrion got talking to a man who gifted him a 3D printed dice

that was also a replica of the exact bone he'd broken in the Thunderdome last year. What's the Thunderdome? We'll tell you about it later. It looks like this. It's frightening. - Later, we got stuck into the Last Chance Casino. After winning a dice game we didn't in any way understand and winning again on the world's ricketiest roulette wheel, Muckraker then threw it all away on exactly two hands of poker. But he and I quote, "had a really moving time" chatting to somebody about Liverpool Footba

ll Club. We'd been a bit slow on the uptake, but we were finally starting to realise what Wasteland Weekend was, and it was beautiful. (Quinns laughing) - Do the torso! Do the torso! Yeah! Whoo hoo! - Okay. - Okay. What can I do for you? - What is Wasteland Weekend to you? - So I'm old. I'm 52 years old. - No. - I've been doing renaissance festivals, I've owned a game store for 25 years. I do gaming conventions. I used to manage art galleries. I have never in my life as a second year tribe, met

so many wonderful, kind, loving, giving, cannibalistic, skull covered, angry motherfuckers in my life. This is all about peace and love and kindness. I've never seen it. I've never seen it before. This is our new dirt fam. We will be back every fuckin' year. - Wasteland Weekends is kind of the most beautiful gathering of neurodivergent queer friendly folks who have the same hyper interest and niche motivations as you and it's just a beautiful, creative mixing pot of wonderful people who I get to

see in the dirt for a week. And it's beautiful. (laughing) - It's a big family reunion. - I'm not really down, like with the movie, I don't know all that background, but for me, for everybody to go and be in like, a theme and for everybody to have a similar mindset and treat each other like shit while having fun. I mean, you know, you have a good time with talking shit. - I think it's also that we care a lot about fan family. - Absolutely. - Maybe more than other groups and we bring, you know,

our friends, every time we have a good time, we bring more. - Just kindness. We came last year, we didn't realise that the back of our camp, we were accepted into the theme zone our first year. We didn't realise the back of our camp had to be covered. Somebody gave us 150 foot by 30 foot parachute, - Wow. - To cover our camp. They never met us. They don't know us, but they just wanted us to feel welcomed and loved and that is Wasteland. Wasteland is all about this loving, kind, giving, accepting

, body positivity, like we're LBGTQ camp. Like all of it. It's everybody's accepted, everybody's loved. It's phenomenal. It's outstanding. - [Singer] And we need to fuckin' unify, regardless of what our differences are, we need to be sisters. (heavy rock music) - [Chris] Our last day on the Waste was spent catching up with everything that we'd missed because of our well fucked up capitalism autopilot, I guess. And so we began by hiking up to the memorial overlooking Wasteland Weekend dedicated t

o those members of the dirt fam who've passed away. It was an enormously touching thing to stand in front of and read through the many, many messages that have been squirrelled and scratched there by those who remember their friends. As we made our way down the hill and back into the town proper, Quinns fell in love with an RC car derby that was just happening there, we didn't realise. With its cute, tiny versions of Wastelands own monster vehicles, although in trying to get some decent footage,

he may have gotten a little bit too close to the action. - [Quinns] Whoa! Meanwhile, Chris was maybe the only Warboy taking advantage of his union benefits. - Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. That was an ice cold Capri Sun, by the way. You have no idea how much of a prize that is out here. Later on, we found a place where Carrion could finally atone for the frankly stunning number of sins committed in his free days as a Faceless Merchant. We found ourselves a preacher, actually, his name was P

reacher. We found Preacher. - [Quinns] Preacher and his merry band of mud covered cultist at the Church of Restoration, had offered to give me something called a dirt baptism. - Praise Dation, my child! You are reborn in filth. - He assured me that my various transgressions over the last few days would be washed away and I'd be made clean once again by the application of loads and loads of filthy dirt. (reverent music) - That afternoon we caught the costume competition, which made us feel so rel

ieved that we'd spent an entire day back home trying to distress our outfits before this event and not just totally half-assed it. If you've not yourself at some point needed to artfully attack an outfit that belongs to you, you may be under the impression that this is a quick process. It is not. It takes time and it takes commitment to look this grubby. Also, our boy Cola won the competition despite being a first year. You absolutely love to see it. - [Host] Come on, let's hear it. (audience wh

oops) - [Quinns] It had taken us four days, a case of the zinc shakes, drinking some (beep) juice, sticking our noses in 100 weird buildings and being sworn at 1000 times, but all of a sudden it felt like we were home. The whole post-apocalyptic aesthetic was like a smokescreen for what this event really is. Wasteland Weekend isn't about some Hollywood brand. Instead, the theming is more like a scaffolding for 4,000 creative, friendly and pleasingly unhinged people to build a coherent world toge

ther. And then to have a big weird party there where they can play games and drink and hit each other. - [Chris] Speaking of hitting each other, the Thunderdome is maybe one of Wastelands most iconic set pieces, and on our final night, we were able to join the crowd who'd formed around it, and on top of it, to watch people slug away at each other with bats while strapped to the world's most intense looking baby bouncer. It is a wild spectator sport to watch and one of Wasteland Weekend's most au

thentically Mad Max moments. We had, however, missed the signup window to compete, which is probably for the best. Otherwise Quinns would be dead now. - Woo! - Woo hoo! - [Announcer] Out for blood. - [Quinns] The organisers now run a different event each year. Neotropolis, which again, sees attendees building a whole town in exactly the same location, but it's cyberpunk. The point isn't celebrating the movies and games these events are based on, half as much as it's about proving what this big,

gorgeous family can do when it works together and the towns they build are so immersive, so detailed, and so tactile, they make Disneyland look plastic, crowded and sterile. But for Chris and me, our time here was almost over. So in one last attempt to do something right, I headed to a meeting with a merchant who offered a very special service. (bluesy music) - What if I told you by using this process of time, the power of time, I could deliver a message to you written by yourself from the past,

by slinging it into the future? - Could you? - I think I could. The only condition about these letters is that this message needs to be kind. Our journeys are too short to be rude to oneself. They're too, too dangerous as it is. It's only by being kind to yourself, you can truly find happiness out in this wasted land. - Okay, I can do that. - Right on. (jazz music) - [Quinns] Hey Quinns, if this works, you are reading this in the future. I hope that it's true because I paid a lot for this. But

in the year I'm writing, the games industry has just seen its biggest ever acquisition and it feels like more and more of play is falling under the control of giant corporations. And so future Quinns, I just hope events like Wasteland Weekend still exist. I hope communities are still creating things together and caring for one another in such a stridently, anti-corporate fashion. The entire time we were here, nobody spoke to us about Mad Max, but everybody spoke to us about family and that feels

like such a special version of what a fandom can be. In a time of enormous mergers in the video game space, and God, almost every other space too, it feels like an act of resistance. So wherever you're reading this, I hope that resistance is still burning bright, love Quinns. - Hello! Oh my God, it's good to not be covered in paint anymore. Also, my chest hair is growing back, albeit very, very slowly. Nature is healing. Anyway, we had an absolute blast making this video. It was outside of our

comfort zone for a whole bunch of reasons, but a big part of PMG has always been about shining our tiny spotlight on communities you may not have heard about before now, and doing our best to unpack what makes them tick. Hopefully, this has been a really good example of just that. As most of you all know already, People Make Games is almost entirely funded by you, our audience, which means we get to take some exciting, some may say foolish, risks with what we publish here on the channel. To put

it super bluntly, we've no idea how many of you will end up watching this video, but we do know that some of you are gonna be really into it, and because of the way we're funded, we're able to make this video for those people without worrying about whether it'll go viral or whether it earns enough money in the end for YouTube advertising to pay for the zinc oxide that I've slowly been poisoning myself with. Roughly three and a half thousand people are the sole reason we're able to do the work we

do here in the way we want to do it. That's the secret to People Make Games. That's the whole thing. And so, if you would like to help fund more ridiculous videos like this one, and also receive some extra goodies, like a newsletter behind the scene videos and beautiful bespoke art prints, then head over to patreon.com/people make games. We would be very happy to have you with us. Thanks for watching. (upbeat funky music) (funky music continues)