Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Why Wario eats whole cloves of raw garlic
While other heroes consume magical glowing flowers or invincibility stars, this absolute menace prefers horrific halitosis. He forcefully shoves whole,…
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Kano surgically replaced half his face with a metal plate
Instead of getting a simple eye patch after a brutal injury, this arrogant mercenary opted for heavy facial machinery. He permanently bolted a glaring red…
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Shao Kahn swings a giant hammer with zero finesse
As the supreme ruler of an entire dimension, he could rely on incredibly dark magic or vast armies. Instead, he simply summons a ridiculously oversized mallet…
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Blaze the Cat is a fiery princess from another dimension
She possesses total control over fire and protects her dimension's mystical jewels with absolute deadly force. Why a literal princess is tasked with fighting…
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Rouge the Bat is an active government spy and thief
When she isn't busy aggressively kicking people in the face, she is officially employed by the military as an undercover agent. Why the government hired a…
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Espio the Chameleon operates as a ninja detective
As if being a brightly colored chameleon wasn't enough, he decided to double down on stealth by becoming a fully trained ninja. He throws razor-sharp…
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Computer math put a cap on WoW gold
Gamers are beholden to the arbitrary rules of 32-bit math. In early World of Warcraft, the maximum currency you could hold was exactly 214,748 gold, 36…
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Trivial Pursuit began when a game of Scrabble went wrong
The ultimate test of useless knowledge began with a missing piece. In 1979, two journalists wanted to play Scrabble but realized parts of their set were gone.…
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Why the Atari joystick had only one button
The sleek minimalism of the iconic Atari 2600 joystick wasn't driven by elegant design philosophy; it was peak corporate cheapness. Nolan Bushnell wanted…
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When World of Warcraft had 12 million subscribers
At the height of the Lich King expansion in 2010, World of Warcraft boasted 12 million monthly subscribers. To put that absurd number in perspective, if…
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The ant salesman who invented Boggle
The creative mind behind frantic letter-shaking is perfectly eccentric. Milton Levine, who became a millionaire trapping live ants in plastic to sell to…
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The 5,000-year-old game that outlived empires
Your grandparents' favorite tavern game has witnessed the rise and fall of literal civilizations. Originating in ancient Mesopotamia, it is functionally 5,000…
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Call of Duty lets players fight zombies as Fidel Castro
The peak of historical accuracy was achieved in Black Ops. The game genuinely features a zombie mode where Richard Nixon, JFK, Robert McNamara, and Fidel…
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Super Mario Brothers two is just a rebranded Japanese game
The west couldn't handle the real sequel. Nintendo deemed the authentic Mario 2 far too punishing for American players, so they took a completely unrelated…
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South Korea can send game hackers to prison
While the US just bans your account for cheating, South Korea doesn't play around with digital integrity. Creating aimbots or hacks for games is a criminal…
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Batman’s cape took two years to animate
When your superhero's entire aesthetic relies on looking incredibly dramatic in the wind, developers have to suffer. A single programmer at Rocksteady Studios…
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How Nintendo smuggled the NES into toy stores
Following the 1983 video game crash, American retailers refused to sell gaming consoles. Nintendo circumvented this by packing the NES with a useless plastic…
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The board game that sent children racing to heaven
Back in 1843, games weren't supposed to be fun; they were strict religious conditioning. The very first published American board game forced kids to race…
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D&D-style 20-sided dice existed in ancient Egypt
Rolling for initiative predates Dungeons and Dragons by a few millennia. Archaeologists have unearthed perfect 20-sided dice made of glass and serpentine…
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Daggerfall's map was almost as big as Britain
Bigger isn't always better, especially when it's just procedural emptiness. The 1996 title 'The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall' boasts a map size roughly the…
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Halo's ring world came from a 1970 sci-fi novel
Bungie didn't invent the concept of a massive habitable ring floating in space. They shamelessly lifted it from Larry Niven's 1970 sci-fi novel 'Ringworld.'…
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Why Monopoly takes forever under house rules
The reason you hate Monopoly is entirely your own fault. People complain that it takes six hours, but that's because nobody reads the manual. The official…
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Final Fantasy was originally given its dramatic title in 1987 simply because its creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, was planning to quit the video game industry and go back to university if the game flopped.
Final Fantasy was originally given its dramatic title in 1987 simply because its creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, was planning to quit the video game industry and…
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Shigeru Miyamoto designed the protagonist of the 1981 arcade hit Donkey Kong as a middle-aged, overweight carpenter desperately trying to save his girlfriend from an angry ape.
Shigeru Miyamoto designed the protagonist of the 1981 arcade hit Donkey Kong as a middle-aged, overweight carpenter desperately trying to save his girlfriend…
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