Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
One D&D campaign has been running since 1982
Robert Wardhaugh's long-running game grew into a world supported by tens of thousands of miniatures. Players have returned over decades, and a new generation…
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Why Miyamoto rejected being called gaming’s Spielberg
Miyamoto objected to being called video games’ Spielberg, saying he was Miyamoto and that games are a different art form from movies.
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Vault Boy’s thumbs-up is an advertising smile for the apocalypse
Fallout’s mascot turns injury, danger, and survival into cheerful sales-pitch illustrations. His grin and upbeat poses borrow the language of reassuring…
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Why Mass Effect's elevators took so long
The long rides masked the Xbox's slow hard drive as it loaded new areas. BioWare used squad conversations instead of static loading screens to preserve…
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John Madden wouldn't endorse football with seven players
EA wanted a 7-on-7 game because 1980s computers struggled to handle 22 players, but Madden refused to endorse it as real football. The company spent years…
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Portal began as a student project called Narbacular Drop
The student game featured magical portals as a way to escape a dungeon. Valve hired the entire graduating team and developed the idea into Portal.
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Destiny's Loot Cave turned boredom into a game strategy
In the original Destiny, players discovered that standing outside a particular cave let them repeatedly shoot respawning enemies and collect loot. The reward…
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Mario’s hat and mustache solved a pixel problem
On a tiny pixel grid, a hat avoided the need to animate hair, while a mustache made Mario’s face easier to read. His overalls also helped make his moving arms…
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Barbie and Grand Theft Auto shared a software toolkit
Barbie Horse Adventures and GTA titles used RenderWare, middleware that helped developers build and display 3D worlds. An engine does not dictate the story,…
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Jenga simply means “build” in Swahili
Its British creator chose the Swahili verb as the game's name.
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Wii Bowling punishes you for throwing backward
If you release the B button on your backswing, the ball flies into the virtual crowd behind you. The Mii spectators gasp, shriek and spin around.
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D&D was funded by a shoe-repair shop
Brian Blume joined as a third partner and used money from his shoe-repair work to pay for the first 1,000 D&D manuals.
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Any legally scrambled Rubik's Cube is at most 20 moves from solved
The result covers positions reachable by turning a normal cube, counting a half-turn as one move. There are more than 43 quintillion such arrangements, but…
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Duck Hunt's second player can be the duck
Plug a standard controller into the NES’s second port, and another player can control the duck’s flight path.
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You can win Uno without saying Uno
The official rules require a player with one card to call “Uno,” but there’s no penalty if nobody catches the slip before the next player’s turn begins. An…
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The Nintendo 64 logo hides a perfect 64
The Nintendo 64's 3D “N” logo was modeled with exactly 64 vertices—the points where edges meet—and 64 faces.
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The world's tallest arcade machine is over 14 feet high
Jason Camberis spent two years building the functional Guinness-record cabinet, which plays more than 200 classic games.
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Poker was once played with animal bones
Early 19th-century gamblers used small objects to represent money because ordinary currency was cumbersome on the table. Some makeshift chips were pieces of…
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Playing cards were designed for pure gambling
The claim that playing cards were designed purely for gambling is too sweeping; the story that their suits represent social classes is also often repeated.
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Chess pieces weren't standardized for centuries
Before the Staunton design became standard, chess pieces varied by region, and unfamiliar carvings could make international matches confusing.
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Tossing sharp projectiles at walls
In pub darts, players throw pointed metal darts at a circular target—a sharp-edged pastime for a crowded drinking spot.
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Throwing heavy spheres at wooden pins
The game also comes with rental shoes that are hard to mistake for everyday footwear.
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Concealing facial twitches to win money
A steady expression helps hide tells—small facial reactions that can give away whether a player is bluffing.
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Pac-Man used eating to invite a different crowd into arcades
Toru Iwatani wanted to reach people beyond the young men dominating arcades. He built the game around a bright, simple character eating dots while avoiding…
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