#2765: Escape Speed explain

[This transcript only covers the starting page as shown on {{xkcd|2765|xkcd.com}}. A full transcript of the entire comic can be found [[2765: Escape Speed/Transcript|here]].]

[What is shown on xkcd it what is known as the Starting planet. It is a small planet. On top of it is a small spaceship standing on two legs. It has a circular shape on top of the legs with a round window. Next to it is a small tree which is higher than the spaceship. This is the spaceship to be controlled by the user. The planet has grass all around, and the entire planet is visible. But the ship is in the center, so most of the planet is in the lover part of the panel. The background around the planet is a star-studded black backdrop. Going around the planet to clockwise from the small tree, there are two more trees with some small bushes between the first small tree and the two next trees. A larger tree is on the opposite part of the planet. Between the two trees and this there is a small bush and the Beret Guy who looks and point up from his point of view (down as seen in the image as he is on the opposite side). He is exclaiming a word. After the largest tree next to him, come a small tree. Before that Cueball and Megan stand together. On the last part back to the spaceship there is another small bush. There are also four gray dots. One above the spaceship. One between the first three and the two. One above the largest of the two trees together. And the final near the bush to the left of the spaceship. Those four dots are part of the game and can be removed if the ship touches them. In the bottom right corner of the panel there is a small white square with a black house drawn upon it. There are two small black dots beneath it. A curved arrow goes below the house from the right to the left dot. This is the home button that will always take the player back to this starting window. To the very right of the panel on height with the spaceship there is a white bar about three times the height of the spaceship. This bar indicates how much energy the spaceship has. It always refuels immediately after landing anywhere.]

Beret Guy: Wow!

[As Beret Guy is upside down, so is his words. They can thus easily be read as MOM as they are written, as always, in all caps.]

[As part of the game there are messages appearing the first time you enter the comic, and every time you return to home of to the comic from another comic. Although they are not part of the image, they do appear on the home image. These messages appear as black text in a rectangular white panel with a black border. The messages are only on screen for a short time. On a mobile phone browser “Use the arrow keys” is “Tap the sides of your screen”. The three situations follow here:]

[First time opening the game in a new browser there are two messages one appearing after the other:]

Greetings!

Use the arrow keys, pilot.

[When pressing the home button only one message appears:]

Welcome back, pilot.

[When reloading or going to the page after having been in another page or having shut down the program and opening again, there will be two messages:]

Welcome back! We saved your progress.

Use the arrow keys, pilot.

[When moving past the grey dots text is revealed in a similar manner to the greetings text. If it is items, then they are collected and listed beneath the panel under the heading “You’ve found:” A bulleted list will then start to grow beneath this as you play the game and collect items.]

[For more transcripts from the rest of the game go to the [[2765: Escape Speed/Transcript|full transcript page]].]