Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Why endlessly switching weapons does nothing
The rhythmic clicking of cycling between a pistol and a rifle provides a strange, soothing comfort during long walks across empty landscapes. It serves…
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How a Resident Evil prototype became Devil May Cry
Sometimes you screw up the code so badly it launches an entirely new franchise. Hideki Kamiya was directing the next Resident Evil, but he gave the…
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Why jacks demand split-second reflexes
Scattering sharp, six-pronged metal caltrops on the floor is already hazardous, but trying to scoop them up while a rubber ball is suspended mid-bounce is…
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Nintendo Labo peripherals were literal cardboard
Charging premium prices for thick paper cutouts is perhaps the most audacious move in peripheral history. Players spent hours meticulously folding fragile…
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The bizarre vocabulary of competitive marbles
Flicking small spheres of glass on the dirt requires an entirely fabricated dialect. Serious players utilize aggressive jargon like 'plunking,' 'bombsies,'…
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Charades began as a written riddle game
Before it devolved into frantic flailing and screaming wrong answers in a living room, this was a highly intellectual written exercise. It only transitioned…
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The grim theory behind London Bridge Is Falling Down
Trapping children in a falling archway of arms is rooted in genuine architectural horror. The classic bridge-falling songs contain deeply dark undertones of…
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Uno wild cards bypass matching color restrictions
When you have entirely run out of valid options, dropping the chaotic four-color savior instantly bails you out. It requires zero justification or alignment…
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Genesis standard controller lacks top shoulder buttons
Relaying entirely on face inputs, severely limiting complex commands. While its sixteen-bit rival innovated with top bumpers, this pad remained stubbornly…
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Video games fake light beams with invisible dust
Making light beams visible requires simulating invisible atmospheric particulate. Volumetric lighting traces the path of a digital sunbeam and mathematically…
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Why repeated hopping can make you move faster
Walking normally is for absolute casuals when you can frantically hop your way across a landscape to shave three seconds off your commute. You look entirely…
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Baccarat strictly limits the highest possible hand to nine
Forget hitting twenty-one or building massive numbers. In this posh establishment favorite, any score hitting double digits instantly drops the first number,…
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Xehanort’s name hides “No Heart”
When crafting an ultimate villain, sometimes you just scramble letters and hope for the best. The primary antagonist of Kingdom Hearts features a name that is…
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When Barbie outsold some of gaming's biggest hits
Hardcore gamers love to boast about the immense popularity of their blood-soaked shooters, but the silent majority speaks with their wallets. 'Barbie Riding…
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Acrylic hobby paints dry entirely through water evaporation
Unlike oil paints that undergo complex chemical oxidation, your expensive hobby pigment is just colored plastic dust floating in water. Once the water hits…
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Why companies banned Doom from their networks
Who needs to do quarterly financial reports when you could be chainsawing demons on company time? The original Doom was distributed as shareware, leading to…
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Fruit Ninja turned fruit-slicing into an obsession
Finally, an answer to the age-old question: what if a ninja really hated cantaloupes? Fruit Ninja capitalized on early touchscreen technology by turning every…
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Why Portal turned GLaDOS into a potato
How do you humble an omnipotent, murderous AI that controls an entire facility? You shove her consciousness into a root vegetable. Portal 2 writers wanted…
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Tensile strength of Manila rope strictly prevents snapping
Woven from abaca leaves, this rope can withstand massive opposing friction forces. When placed under heavy bidirectional tension, the fibers refuse to snap,…
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The Saturn’s second processor became a developer headache
Two brains are supposedly better than one, unless they refuse to cooperate. The engineering was so needlessly complex that most developers struggled to…
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Official strategy guides printing terrible gameplay advice
Paying twenty dollars for a book that actively lies to you is a foundational experience. Because official guides were drafted using incomplete beta builds,…
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Why a flat penny toss keeps falling short
Tossing a flat metal disc toward a wall is less about aim and entirely about negotiating with air resistance. The flat surface area fights the ambient air,…
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Aggressively scratching a virtual turntable to techno beats
Why learn how to beatmatch when you can just violently flick a crossfader on a plastic peripheral? DJ Hero tried to capture the magic of the rhythm genre by…
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Those premium metal tokens may be cheap alloys in disguise
Paying fifty extra dollars for the illusion of wealth. Those weighty, satisfying coins are just cheap pot metal electroplated to look valuable, tarnishing…
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