OnePlus, Google are hosting a trippy-looking puzzle competition

And the winner will get a $30K gaming setup.

Mike Sorrentino Senior Editor

Mike Sorrentino is a Senior Editor for Mobile, covering phones, texting apps and smartwatches -- obsessing about how we can make the most of them. Mike also keeps an eye out on the movie and toy industry, and outside of work enjoys biking and pizza making.

Expertise Phones, texting apps, iOS, Android, smartwatches, fitness trackers, mobile accessories, gaming phones, budget phones, toys, Star Wars, Marvel, Power Rangers, DC, mobile accessibility, iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, RCS

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Mike Sorrentino

Sept. 17, 2018 8:32 a.m. PT

OnePlus and Google are hosting a puzzle competition this week, and the winner will get a $30,000 gaming setup.

The game is called Crackables, and it looks a bit like anime crossed with the '90s CGI cartoon ReBoot. It will be free to play from your phone's browser from Tuesday. Players will complete a series of puzzles to progress toward the grand prize. The puzzles are described as "Android-based crypto-puzzles." That doesn't give us much to go on, but the trailer appears to show a player rotating shapes to solve sample puzzles.

Players will be eliminated as the game progresses, with the first 1,000 people to complete the first three challenges receiving a microcontroller for the final rounds. OnePlus says there are more prizes that haven't yet been announced.

Google Asia-Pacific Zoo team created the game, developed the Crackables concept and used Google's Dialogflow platform to create a virtual chatbot "host." The game was written by creative studio Sleep Deprivation Lab.