Gaming: More Than 800 Gamers Took An Exam To Prove They Could Complete An...

Only .25% of players completed the AGAT, the Adventure Game Aptitude Test, designed by fiendish developer Woe Industries.

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There's a good feeling when you earn an achievement in a game and see that fewer than 1% of players have also earned it. It makes you feel like you've got some real gamer cred, like you're made of sterner stuff than almost everyone else playing.

A couple of gamers—and only a couple—are basking in that type of pride after last Saturday, when the first ever "Adventure Game Aptitude Test" was administered. Designed by developer Woe Industries, the AGAT challenged players to complete an '80s adventure game without using a walkthrough. Players weren't told what adventure game they'd be playing in advance, and they were monitored via webcam and microphone by a legitimate online proctoring software to determine if they were looking up hints on a second window, using their phones to cheat, or getting help from someone off-screen.

Over 800 participants had four hours to complete Lucasfilm Games 1987 graphic adventure Maniac Mansion, and… it was an absolute bloodbath. According to Woe Industries, there were 831 attempts (plus an additional 168 who began the test too late and were thus disqualified) and only two people actually passed the exam.

"A 0.24% pass rate makes the AGAT one of the most prestigious and rigorous exams in the world," said Woe Industries proudly on Bluesky. "The SAT, MCAT and most forklift operator certifications lie prostrate at our feet."

I asked Woe Industries for more statistics about the test, which began between 1 and 2 pm EST on Saturday. Hey, it's a standardized test, you can't just take it whenever the heck you want—but that rigid start time meant a lot of players weren't free to spend four hours on a Saturday playing an old adventure game.

"While we had 831 attempts we also had about 4,500 people sign up for a reminder of the test date. We lost a few of those people due to the exam time," Woe Industries said in an email. "This project was always going to be a push and pull between fun and restriction. Asking people to play this game under very unconventional and ridiculous circumstances to see what kind of gameplay that elicited from them. Maintaining a fixed start time was a big part of that. But if we ever do it again, maybe we’ll try to find a more universally accessible time."

There were a few oddities repo

Source: PC Gamer