The other day, web comic genius Randall Munroe of xkcd unleashed a comic that was a different sort of amazing from his usual dose of amazing. Called “Click and Drag,” the comic was able to be explored manually using the titular action of clicking and dragging, and hid many jokes, fun references, and emotional moments. The Internet quickly took to the comic, creating various maps and methods of interaction, so users could more freely explore and see everything Munroe shoved into the enormous, sliding panel. Now, with the help of GitHub user n01se, “Click and Drag” has been turned into an MMO.
Now, the comic has been turned into an MMO in the sense of the definition, not the genre of grinding out levels by killing some amount of goblins in a forest that has become synonymous with the term. Thanks to a collaboration between n01se and Randall Munroe, you can either explore “Click and Drag” with other people online over on PubNub, or run your own server of the multiplayer comic using some instructions from n01se listed on GitHub.
The comic is simple, and there isn’t some kind of goal — though to be fair, there really isn’t a solid goal in most MMOs either. You simply log in as one of xkcd’s iconic stick figures strapped to a balloon, and fly around the world. You click the mouse to move your stick figure, you can type to talk to other people and press enter to clear your line of text, and you can set your name by typing “I am [name]” where “[name]” is the name you wish to be displayed. If you happen to get stuck, or want to traverse some terrain more easily, you can click on your stick figure and it’ll turn into a ghost, so you can pass through solid objects and explore more easily.
I also think this is a good time to note how amazing the Internet can be, and how it’s not all pictures of gore and videos of cats fitting into things. The comic only released about a week ago, and now it’s a free, playable, online multiplayer experience. Go check it out.
(via PubNub)
- The original comic, and everything you need to know about it
- All of the known exoplanets, to scale
- The relative popularity of phrases based on the days of the week
