Smartphone manufacturer OnePlus has taken to Twitter to promote a mysterious new challenge created with help of Google which is set to start on September 18. Neither company is offering detailed information on what the challenge is, or why the partnership was necessary to put it forward. However, some clues may be derived from the Tweet itself, and the associated website that’s now live. For example, the challenge is referred to with the hashtag “Crackables” and that term is also used both on the website and in its URL. The Twitter post charges followers to visit the website starting on the above-mentioned date at 8am Eastern Standard Time to “play” Crackables and “crack the code.”
A video shared via the website shows a maze-like UI with various circles and bright focal points that can be aligned by rotating the maze itself. That’s topped by a row of circles and colored lines that light up, which appear to be drawn between the in-maze elements and those circles. The lines appear to be drawn when matches are formed in the maze below and a series of empty boxes is included just above those unfilled circles, although each element could be related in a completely different way in the challenge itself. While none of that necessarily provides a clear insight into what the challenge will actually consist of, what is immediately discernible, taking into consideration the language used in the tweet itself, is that the six-second long clip does point to Crackables being some sort of code-based puzzle or logic game.
Google’s role in the creation of the game is much less obvious at the moment. Speculation and guesses on Twitter have ranged from predictions that OnePlus will be involved in the Google Pixel smartphones to suggestions that the shape of the maze shown point to an in-display fingerprint sensor. The latter of those predictions may not be far from the truth since the company has still not revealed its OnePlus 6T and an in-display scanner is one of the features expected to be announced with the phone. Which, conveniently, is also expected to be announced within a month of the challenge’s start date, on October 17.
Think you have what it takes to crack the code? Play #Crackables to find out. Starting September 18.
— OnePlus (@oneplus) September 11, 2018