Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Segregating active playerbases due to corporate stubbornness
Some games once kept players apart based on which storefront they bought from, preventing friends on different platforms from playing together.
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Sneaking across tightropes as an unusually stealthy raccoon
In Sly Cooper, you could evade security lasers by balancing on the tip of a spire, turning a raccoon thief into a tightrope-walking stealth expert.
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Early jigsaws made geography something children assembled
Dissected maps divided a mounted map into pieces, often along national boundaries. Unlike many modern puzzles, the pieces did not need a standard pattern of…
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The PlayStation 2 logo can change its orientation
The small emblem on the disc tray rotates 90 degrees, so it can sit upright whether the console is horizontal or vertical.
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Diablo III hides a rainbow unicorn world
The hidden Whimsyshire level turns Diablo III's grim world into a candy-colored landscape of smiling clouds and ponies—a response to early complaints that the…
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Eating off the dirty floor is highly nutritious
A roasted turkey may be food, but one found on a dirty alley floor is not guaranteed safe to eat.
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Intergalactic hunters magically compress into tiny spheres
In the game, the suit lets a full-grown human curl into a metal ball to fit through tight spaces—a feat that would be impossible without ignoring ordinary…
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Failing to rap about baking a cake and crying in defeat
In PaRappa the Rapper, players learn life skills through rap battles, but the cooking stage is especially unforgiving: mistimed rhymes can end with the…
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Tetherball requires wrapping a rope completely around a pole
Players strike the suspended ball to wind its rope around the pole, while the opponent tries to wrap it the other way.
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World of Warcraft makes you discover the shortcut before you can use it
In Classic-style travel, visiting a flight master unlocks that destination for later flights. The first trip builds your transport network; subsequent visits…
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When video games were packaged like albums
In the 1980s, EA sold floppy disks in flat, square cardboard sleeves modeled on vinyl album covers, with artistic black-and-white photos of the programmers on…
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Microsoft bought a studio famous for Nintendo classics
The $375 million acquisition of Rare in 2002 brought the maker of Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark into Microsoft's gaming business. A team closely associated…
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Risk began as a French game called The Conquest of the World
Albert Lamorisse, who won an Oscar for writing the short film The Red Balloon, designed the original game as La Conquête du Monde (“The Conquest of the…
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The $6 box of bull feces that actually sold
Cards Against Humanity sold boxes of actual bull feces for Black Friday in 2014. About 30,000 buyers paid $6 apiece, making the anti-shopping stunt a shopping…
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Why you keep checking the map while going straight
Even on a straight, clearly marked road heading north, players may keep checking the map to make sure the compass hasn't shifted.
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Conker's Bad Fur Day starts with a hangover, not a heroic quest
Conker is a foul-mouthed squirrel trying to get home after drinking too much. The colorful platformer uses the look of a cheerful mascot game for adult jokes,…
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The PS3 lost rumble before Sony settled a vibration lawsuit
Its launch Sixaxis controller offered motion sensing without vibration. In 2007, Sony and Immersion settled their patent litigation and agreed to explore…
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Connect 4 grids contain exactly forty-two circular slots
Each token stays in place, gradually filling the board and narrowing the options for both players.
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The legal battle over Lara Croft’s nude patch
In the late 1990s, Eidos threatened legal action against websites sharing the fan-made “Nude Raider” patch, which altered Lara Croft’s appearance.
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Mario was almost armed with a laser rifle
An early Super Mario Bros. prototype had Mario firing a beam gun while riding a rocket ship. Designers eventually favored jumping over shooting, and the gun…
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Red Dead Redemption 2 hides a catalog you can read
The game includes a readable recreation of a 19th-century mail-order catalog, complete with vintage illustrations of suspenders—an easy rabbit hole when you…
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Final Fantasy menus pause time during intense moments
That lets you rummage through your inventory for a healing potion while a boss’s planet-shattering attack is charging.
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A stock sound sample put Islamic chants inside Zelda's Fire Temple
Ocarina of Time's original dungeon music used a vocal sample from a commercial sound library. Nintendo later said the religious content had gone unrecognized…
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Crash Bandicoot kept a wombat's name long after changing animals
Naughty Dog used 'Willie the Wombat' as a working title, even after deciding the hero was a bandicoot. Co-creator Andy Gavin says they kept the temporary name…
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