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Question 60 from The Impossible Quiz Book is the tenth question of the Book's second Chapter, and the tenth and final one inspired by the Monochrome video game era. It's the game's first boss question, featuring a mini-game based on one of the most popular games of that time: "Pong"! This question is unskippable, even though there are no Skips available in this Chapter to begin with.

Upon entering the question, you are greeted with the game's title screen, which says as follows:

It's time for...
PHLOVOPONG!!
(C) 2010 Phlovos Intense-Gameplay Manufacturers.
Use up and down keys to be big superstar winrar!
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ BEGIN ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪
TIQB - 060 (2)

Screenshot of the mini-game.

There is nothing else to do but to press the "Begin" button then, and as you do, the game will then cut to the mini-game's screen. Your name ("Impossible Chris") is listed on the top left-corner of the screen, while your opponent's name ("Extremely Intelligent Phlovomite Programming") is written in the top-right corner, a "-VS-" written in-between. The area of the game is divided in two halves by a green line, both of the players' "bats" located on opposite ends. The pixel-ball in the middle will immediately begin to move to the right, marking the beginning of the game as your opponent bounces it back to you.

To complete this question, you simply have to beat your rival in a highly-intensive game of "Pong". Always keep in mind that if the ball gets past you, you will lose a life.

Truth be told, though, the ball will always follow the same pattern when travelling back and forth between you and your opponent: it will move towards the lower side of the arena, before bouncing on it and heading for the vertical middle of each players' side. This means that the trick to assure you'll always hit the ball is that you keep your bat in the middle of the screen.

The match will last for less than a minute, before eventually your rival (who's been moving up and down blocking the ball this whole time) fails to intercept the ball, exploding in the process. A message will then pop up in the screen, acknowledging your mighty mad skills:

TIQB - 060 (3)

Screenshot of winning the mini-game.

CONGLATURATIONS!
YOU'RE WINNER!
BASTUD.
▪ ▪ ▪ ▪ CONTINUE ▪ ▪ ▪ ▪

The text "Continue" is the only interactable object here, so press it, and you will be sent to a screen which will ask you to update the Guide's firmware.

Firmware Update #1[]

TIQB - 060 Update1

You're required to update the firmware after winning.

After clicking "Continue", a window with the heading "TPGTTG: >ALERT" will pop up on screen, saying that a new firmware version for The Phlovomite's Guide to the Galaxy has been found, numbered 1.10.

The window also tells you that you must update to continue. The only clickable buttons here are "Cancel" and "OK"; you obviously need to press "OK" here, otherwise you will be sent to Question 51.

The update will start running, and after it's done, the screen will turn completely white, with the number 5 briefly appearing on screen written in big black video game-styled font.

TIQB - 060 ZXSplapptrum

The opening of the ZX Spectrum era.

A casette player called "Cassette-o-matic 4000" will then appear on the top right corner of the screen, with the word "LOAD" written on the opposite end. This officially marks the beginning of the ZX Spectrum-inspired section of the game, which will last for the next 10 questions; however, to actually get to these questions, you must first make the console load them for you by using the cassette player.

Alluding to Question 53, to load the ZX Spectrum (or rather, the "ZX Splapptrum"), you must type two quotation marks next to the Word LOAD, and then press the Play button on the cassette player. By doing so, the ZX Splapptrum will then start to load the introductory screens of "Questions 61-70", and you will then be sent to the first question of the ZX Spectrum-inspired era: Question 61.

TIQB - 060 ZXSplapptrum2

Pre-Question 61 screen loaded.

Before leaving, you should know that the game's only Lifebuoy (the only one in the entire Book) is obtainable in this question; you must simply type "lifebuoy" next to LOAD, and then press the Play button. You'll receive it instantly.

Trivia[]

  • "Congratulations" and "bastard" were intentionally misspelled as "conglaturations" and "bastud" in the mini-game's victory screen. The "conglaturations" message is a reference to the ending message of the NES game "Ghostbusters", where this and many other misspellings were present.
  • By typing "easteregg" in the Cassete-o-matic 4000 and pressing Play, the screen will display a blue chocolate egg and the words "Happy Easter!" on it, as well as a message below that says "Oh U". It will then disappear shortly afterwards.
  • This is the only one of the four mini-games of this Chapter where the Tab key prohibition isn't temporatily lifted during the mini-game itself. The rest of them allow you to press it at will during their gameplay.
    • Pressing the Tab key while the Guide is updating or while it's loading "Questions 61-70" will not do anything to you; however, if you press it during the Cassette-o-matic section, not only will you get a Game Over, but also the game will glitch entirely, forcing you to restart it.
  • Since you can also obtain the Lifebuoy by simply getting a Game Over, if you do it and then use it before getting to this question, you can obtain another one without replacing the one protecting your lives.
  • There is an occasional glitch where hitting the ball with the edge of your paddle will make it move slightly awkwardly, significantly either making victory more quicker or delaying the victory or even making it impossible, forcing the player to lose a life.

The trailer for Chapter 2[]

TIQB Chapter 2 trailer

On 31 March 2010, Splapp uploaded the trailer for this Chapter to his deviantArt page. Said trailer is an interactive one, also based around the ZX Spectrum: you're greeted with the Cassette-o-matic 4000 and the word "LOAD", just like in the post-update screen.

Typing the two quotation marks and pressing Play would make the Spectrum print some title screens, before starting to print a pixelated image that would take a handful of minutes to fully load. Eventually, the image will be revealed to contain Chris showing both of his middle fingers to the screen, with the text "April Fools" below him. Once the image is fully revealed, a Russian anthem starts playing.

Typing the "easteregg" command into the cassette player will have the exact same effect as the one in the post-update screen of the game, printing a pixelated blue egg. Typing "lifebuoy", however, won't give you anything, since it's just the game's trailer.

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