Dubai Has Its Own Game Now. And I Spent the Entire Saturday Playing It

by Alexandra Mansilla

Dubai Has Its Own Game Now. And I Spent the Entire Saturday Playing It

2 Oct 2024

I don’t remember what I was looking for on the internet, but somewhere on the search results, a site popped up with the name Dubai, Always. The description read, “Play daily to improve your score. Players with the most points can win a trip to Dubai for two, a flight voucher, and more amazing prizes.” Normally, I would never click on something like that — first, why would I? I am too busy to get caught up in games. And second, you never know what is hiding behind links on the internet, right?

But this time, I clicked. And what happened next became quite the story.

The first page asks if you have ever been to Dubai. I clicked “no” (yes, I have never been to Dubai; there are still people like me). You can also choose one of three languages — English, Arabic, or Hindi. I went with English.

So what happened next? A mini-map of Dubai appeared on my screen, with its main landmarks, aeroplanes and birds flying around (I got hooked just watching them move), clouds, and little people! There were pins on some of the buildings that you are supposed to click on.

Naturally, I clicked the pin for the Dubai Mall. It turns out that in this world I was already immersed in, there was another world — packed with even more little characters. Honestly, major respect for the illustrator(s) who designed the game. I wonder how many of these little characters they had to create and how much time it took.

Back to Dubai Mall. The crowd of people isn’t just for show — you will need to dig through it to find specific characters. Pop-up banners will help guide you (seriously, read them; they make the search a lot easier), and you earn points for each character you find. You can share your results on Facebook — although I think the game creators should have displayed the score on the shared image, not in the tiny text below.

Once you have found all the characters in one location, you can either repeat the search (but with the same characters) or head to a new spot. But if you repeat this, you only get three attempts before the location is marked as completed, and no further searches can be done there. But don’t worry, you will get new attempts the next day.

After realising I couldn’t get more tries, I went to check out Ain Dubai. Having gotten used to the game a bit, I decided to figure out how many points you get per character. Turns out it depends on how fast you find them. If you spot someone right away, you get 100 points (the moment you receive the task, if you are super quick; I managed 98 or 99 a few times). But if you take your time or click on the wrong people, you get way fewer points — like when I spent forever looking for “two friends taking a photo of Ain Dubai” and only scored 49.

Two observations I made while searching for characters at Ain Dubai: Games like this often have a “hints” button — you know, that one you only use as a last resort, and then it needs time to recharge before you can use it again. Honestly, this game could really use that. Or maybe it doesn’t need it at all?

And another thing — I spotted repeat illustrations! Two identical girls at Ain Dubai!

After exploring Ain Dubai, I started wondering — what is the point of earning all these points? When I first found the game, it mentioned prizes. That is how I ended up on the Prizes tab. It said you could win “an unforgettable trip for two to Dubai,” including a flydubai voucher, tickets to Real Madrid World, Green Planet, IMG Worlds, and MOTIONGATE™ Dubai. But how do you actually win them? Where do you click to participate?

All the info is in the Leaderboard section. It turns out that not everyone can enter — only the top 10 players on the leaderboard get a chance to participate in the raffles, which are held on specific dates: August 20, October 15, and November 29.

Who wins? It depends on your ranking. According to the detailed rules, there are Grand Prizes and Additional Prizes. The difference is that the Grand Prizes are awarded to winners ranked from 1st to 4th place, while the Additional Prizes go to winners ranked from 5th to 64th place. The current Grand Prize is a trip for two to Dubai! Okay, challenge accepted.

You can also earn points in other ways besides finding characters. For example, you can share your score on social media (+300 points, wow!), invite friends (200 points more), or use offers from partners (+100 points). All this info is in your personal profile.

I got so hooked on this game that I wanted to see what would happen if I clicked “I’ve been to Dubai.” Would anything change? It would! The characters are different (though some repeat), and it seemed like they were harder to find. I also thought I could hack the system by selecting “I’ve been to Dubai,” thinking it would unlock new attempts for the locations I had already completed.

But nope, once you finish, it is finished. Dear game creators, I need more than three tries per day...

by Alexandra Mansilla