Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Why the PS5 uses liquid metal
Liquid metal conducts heat from the PS5's processor, but it must be carefully contained because it can short-circuit electronics.
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The backyard game that turns washers into weapons
Players toss heavy metal washers through a pipe, turning basic plumbing hardware into a backyard target game.
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Animal Crossing gives you a mortgage with no interest—and no deadline
Tom Nook lets you pay off your home at your own pace. Clearing the balance unlocks another expansion, which creates another loan. The pressure comes from…
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The Stephen King story that inspired Half-Life
Valve initially codenamed the game “Quiver,” a nod to the military base in Stephen King’s story about a science experiment that unleashes interdimensional…
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Narrative writers tracking plots on massive paper charts
Branching dialogue can sprawl across enormous flowcharts on office walls, helping writers keep choices and later scenes consistent—even when a character’s…
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Instanced rendering mass-produces clones of single objects
Instead of sending a separate draw call for every tree, the graphics card can reuse one model and place copies at many coordinates with a single instanced…
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What's hiding under your keyboard keys
Lift the keycaps and you may find potato-chip fragments and human hair trapped around the switches.
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Boggle turns a shake into a new puzzle
Its covered tray lets letter dice tumble and settle into a grid without scattering across the table. Players then search the same arrangement for connected…
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Why Whac-A-Mole gets harder when you improve
The machines track your reaction time and adjust how long each mole stays up, so the game gets harder as you get faster. A winning streak can just mean the…
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Event staff forcibly resetting stations to cycle crowds
At timed game booths, staff may reset a station as soon as the timer expires, even if a player hasn’t finished exploring. The quick reset keeps the queue…
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Chutes and Ladders relies entirely on a numbered spinner
The spinner decides whether a player climbs a ladder or slides down a chute, leaving little room for strategy.
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Master Chief's armor is named after Thor's hammer
MJOLNIR is the Halo suit's designation, borrowing the name of the Norse god's weapon. In the game's fiction, the powered armor amplifies its wearer's movement…
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Xbox 360 wireless pad requires manual physical syncing
Pairing required pressing small sync buttons on both the controller and the console.
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A flushable toilet can make a game world feel less like a backdrop
Players test ordinary objects because using one suggests the room responds beyond the main objective. The interaction can be as small as a sound and an…
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Nintendo rumble paks drained batteries fast
The chunky gray add-on ran on AA batteries. When they died, your controller still worked—it just stopped rumbling when you took damage.
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Why film crews record silence
Sound engineers record the quiet hum of each space so the background noise doesn't suddenly vanish when characters stop talking.
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Jigsaw puzzles lacking edge pieces frustrate solvers
Without straight-edged pieces to build a border, solvers have no frame to anchor the puzzle and must start with the interior.
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Why healing potions fail during cutscenes
A cutscene follows its own script, so gameplay rules like healing items may not apply when an ally takes a scripted hit.
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Crash Team Racing boosts heavily rely on consecutive slides
Chaining drifts on straightaways lets players keep boosts going and maintain high speed, even if it means steering back and forth across an empty road.
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Skeeball lanes traditionally measure ten feet in length
The ten-foot ramp gives each roll a fixed run-up to the scoring rings, but the tiny center ring is still a tough target.
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Why runners replace meals with energy drinks
Some runners use energy drinks in place of meals, treating them as a substitute for food.
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Pinball flippers operate via electromagnetic coils
A sudden jolt of electricity turns the copper coil into an electromagnet, snapping the flipper upward to keep the ball in play.
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Wildly spinning foosball rods is against tournament rules
ITSF rules prohibit striking the ball with a rod rotated more than a full turn before or after contact. Controlled passes and shots are the intended skills.…
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A Pogs slammer wins by making a stack lose its balance
The heavy disc transfers momentum into a pile of lighter caps, sending them bouncing and rotating. Which ones flip depends on where and how the impact lands…
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