Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Sonic was slowed down by the Sega Genesis
Sega's entire marketing campaign revolved around 'Blast Processing' and unrivaled speed, which was mostly a lie to hide their console's panic attacks. Yuji…
Discover more
How Metroid Prime's visor sees heat
Instead of applying a cheap red filter, the visor completely alters how the engine visualizes geometry. It relies on strictly assigned temperature values for…
Discover more
The bizarre phrase Victorians used to invite guests
Victorian hosting usually involved strict etiquette, except when playing this absurd hiding game. The host would hide a small item and invite guests back into…
Discover more
This video game gives characters realistic sunburn
While other studios focused on rendering realistic water or complex shadows, this team poured their budget into dermatological consequences. If your character…
Discover more
Duck Duck Goose has different rules around the world
Do not assume your local playground laws apply universally. Depending entirely on where you grew up, the tapping ritual might force the tapped individual to…
Discover more
Red rover was named after a river steamboat
Nothing builds character quite like sprinting full speed into a human clothesline. This deeply aggressive playground challenge was bizarrely named after a…
Discover more
STACKY FOR IPHONEA bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.
Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
Attempting to pause a live multiplayer match fails
Instinctively slamming the menu button when your doorbell rings only obscures your vision with a settings screen while the battle continues behind it. It is a…
Discover more
Pong's broken paddles became a game feature
In modern gaming, if your controls stop functioning before the edge of the screen, you demand a patch. In 1972, it was just brilliant game design. Atari…
Discover more
How Naughty Dog pushed the PlayStation to its limit
To bypass the PS1's pathetic 2MB of RAM, Naughty Dog programmers wrote custom code that constantly read data off the spinning disc in the background. It was…
Discover more
Defender makes you watch a map instead of the action
Why let the player see the whole screen when you can induce panic instead? The classic alien shooter requires you to constantly check a miniature scanner at…
Discover more
No Man's Sky has planets full of bouncing pineapples
Procedural generation occasionally results in entire ecosystems populated by happy, bouncing fruit with eyeballs. It is a completely surreal experience,…
Discover more
Why gelatinous cubes dissolve careless adventurers
Why populate a dungeon with complex predators when you can just use a massive block of angry jello? These perfectly square scavengers sweep the corridors…
Discover more
Why modern bullets appear on ancient ruins
You will frequently find clips of modern, high-caliber bullets resting atop altars built by ancient civilizations thousands of years before gunpowder existed.
Discover more
Tetherball restricts an object to a fixed orbital path
You are literally just smashing a volleyball that is permanently tied to a metal pole, forcing it to violently wrap around the center axis. It is a fantastic…
Discover more
Street Fighter features a master who specifically stretches
While other fighters train heavily in martial arts, Dhalsim literally just does incredibly aggressive yoga until his limbs pop out of their sockets. He can…
Discover more
Sweet Johnson refuses to abandon his ruined neighborhood
Loyalty is admirable, but staying in a cul-de-sac riddled with bullet holes is highly questionable. Despite his brother CJ acquiring vast wealth, government…
Discover more
Why Crazy Eights has such a strange name
Changing the suit by dropping an eight carries deeply intense military baggage. Returning World War II veterans specifically named the chaotic card activity…
Discover more
Tomb Raider features an aristocrat stealing old relics
Preservation of history apparently involves shooting everything that moves. A wealthy British noble travels the globe raiding ancient crypts, stuffing…
Discover more
Why a Sudoku puzzle needs at least 17 clues
If you remove just one number from a 17-clue grid, it suddenly has multiple valid solutions, rendering the entire logical exercise utterly pointless. It is…
Discover more
Xbox 360 storage drives require proprietary enclosures
Standard laptop drives masked inside incredibly restrictive shells. Users couldn't simply slide in a basic drive without cracking open the unique casing and…
Discover more
Dutch van der Linde lost his father in a brutal war
Because nothing justifies a lifetime of robbing trains quite like inherited historical trauma. The charismatic outlaw constantly preaches about loyalty and…
Discover more
When a PlayStation gave you just 1 MB for saves
A whole megabyte of limitless possibilities, assuming you only save three times. This infamous fifteen-block internal storage system forced constant,…
Discover more
Procedural animation blends moving joints
Manually animating every single footstep on a rocky mountain is impossible. Instead, inverse kinematics dynamically calculate how joints should bend in real…
Discover more
Bloodborne features intricately detailed Victorian buildings
Every single towering spire and cobblestone street was meticulously designed to look as oppressively gothic as humanly possible. It is a brilliant display of…
Discover more