For xkcd #1608, author Randall Munroe decided to do something a little different. Titled Hoverboard, readers are presented with someone on a hoverboard in a maze filled with coins. Words under them state that in celebration of Randall Munroe's book Thing Explainer getting a release, he decided to celebrate with a small game.
The objective of the game is to ride around the maze on a hoverboard and collect all the coins, then deposit them. The game grades you on how many coins you found and how fast you did it. But is that really all there is to it?
You can find it here.
Hoverboard contains examples of:
- Blatant Lies:
- This is a "small game".
- If you collect all of the coins in the area initially visible, which has walls further out on both sides and tells you not to “leave the game area” if you go too far up, it tells you that you've collected all of the coins. At that point, you haven't even come close...
- Call-Back: A couple of these here and there, such as one to comic #150 Grownups, with a man and a woman playing in a ball pit.
- The Cameo: A couple of characters make cameo appearances.
- Beret Guy is riding one of the torpedoes.
- The cast of Steven Universe stand around in one room in the ship firing the torpedoes. They appear to be standing on a Warp Pad.
- Double Jump: More like Infinite Jumps.
- Empty Room Psych: There are a few blank empty areas that you can find, without something happening in the background or a coin.
- Floating Platforms: Present throughout. Special mention goes to a platform that's clearly a piece of the ground having separated and started floating upwards, which otherwise serves no purpose.
- Funny Background Event: The "scenes" in the game are just parts of the background you can't interact with while you jump around collecting coins.
- Infinite Canvas: It's basically "Infinite Canvas: The Video Game".
- Mile-Long Ship: There's a spaceship so massive that one could compare it to the size of a large city.
- Minimalist Run: If you manage to make it to where you can deposit coins without a single one, the game assumes you did this and says "You've successfully avoided all the coins!"
- Not Quite Flight: How the Hoverboard is presented in the game, with Infinite Jumps.
- Riding the Bomb: The torpedoes attacking the Imperial Class Star Destroyer act as platforms. You can jump on them to the source.
- Shout-Out: Darth Vader can be seen explaining Steven Universe to one of his subordinates. Whether or not he knows The Crystal Gems are on the ship is unknown.
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Spiritual Successor: To xkcd #1110 Click And Drag. This time it's a game, and you're rewarded with exploring by finding coins. - Time Stands Still: There are no moving objects in the game except for the hoverboarder.
