Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Mahjong factories bought cattle shinbones for tiles
To meet worldwide demand for mahjong tiles, factories bought up huge supplies of cattle shinbones to carve into pieces.
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Checkers: chess for people in a hurry
With little setup and simpler moves than chess, checkers is a quicker game built around jumping pieces.
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Tethering brightly colored paper to a long piece of string
Flying a kite depends on the wind cooperating while you hold the string and keep the fabric aloft.
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Flipping silver spheres away from a dark drain hole
The goal is to keep each ball in play with the flippers; let one fall through the drain and you’ll need another quarter to keep playing.
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Concealing your body behind curtains while someone counts
Concealing your entire body behind a living room curtain while someone loudly counts to ten is the pinnacle of childhood stealth operations.
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Hide-and-seek turns patience into a competitive skill
The seeker must decide where to look, while the hidden player has to resist the urge to move or make a sound. One person searches; the other manages the…
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Glassmakers can turn controlled cracking into decoration
A sudden temperature change makes different parts of hot glass contract unevenly, creating a network of cracks. In traditional crackle-glass work, reheating…
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Tag features universally understood base rules
The game needs no equipment: one player tags another, then runs, making the simple rules easy to adapt across cultures.
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Quicksave turns a dangerous choice into an experiment
Save just before a risky move, try it, then reload to explore a different outcome. The character returns to the old situation while the player keeps what they…
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Video game guards are paid to overlook you
A stealth game's guard usually detects a player through programmed checks, such as distance, line of sight, and a field of view. Designers can narrow that…
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Why game achievements keep you doing pointless tasks
Game achievements reward small actions with pings and progress markers, encouraging players to keep completing tasks—even repetitive ones—to fill an imaginary…
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Pixel art only exists because early screens were terrible
Early games used blocky pixel art because limited screens and hardware could display only small, simple images. Developers made those squares recognizable…
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Bowling pins were standardly measured to ensure fairness
Rules eventually standardized the height and width of all ten pins, so bowlers weren't aiming at mismatched chunks of wood.
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What playground swings teach your body
Pumping your legs shifts your body’s timing relative to the swing, adding energy to the pendulum and sending you higher.
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A medieval die gave its owner no chance of rolling a one
Archaeologists in Bergen found a die with two fours and two fives in place of the usual one and two. They considered cheating a likely explanation. Instead of…
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Early jigsaw puzzles taught children where countries belonged
Eighteenth-century dissected maps were mounted on wood and cut along geographical boundaries. To put the picture back together, a child had to reconstruct the…
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Why legendary warriors cannot survive shallow water
Even legendary warriors can drown in shallow water; training doesn't make them buoyant.
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Why red barrels always explode in video games
In games, a red barrel signals an explosive hazard, so even a tap can set it off.
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Why defeated enemies sometimes fly into space
A physics glitch can make a defeated enemy stretch out and shoot into the sky.
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Your video-game backpack can hold an entire arsenal
A game character can sprint around carrying forty broadswords, nine armor sets, and countless health potions.
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Why game heroes can't step over tiny fences
A game may let its hero slay a mythical dragon yet treat a tiny garden fence as an impassable wall.
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The boss fight that comes back with a second health bar
After you spend your resources defeating the boss, it may glow and get back up, forcing you to fight through another stage.
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Gamepad drift makes virtual walking completely unbearable
Dust under an analog stick can make a character move without any input, turning a tiny controller problem into an unwanted march toward the nearest cliff.
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UNO's Wild Draw Four can put its own player on trial
The standard rules allow it only when you have no card matching the current color. The next player can challenge and inspect your hand: an illegal play makes…
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