Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Jenga towers rely on loose middle blocks for height
The outer edges bear almost all the structural weight, leaving the center piece surprisingly free to slide out. Harvesting the guts of the building is the…
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Why drinking from a waterfall becomes a group decision
It is a beautiful sociological experiment where your ability to breathe is entirely dictated by the person standing next to you. In a waterfall, no one can…
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Domino double-twelve sets contain exactly 91 tiles
When the standard twenty-eight piece set isn't enough to satisfy your urge to slam heavy rectangles on a folding table, the expanded version exists. Managing…
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Why distant game objects suddenly turn into blobs
Squinting at the horizon won't help because everything far away is actually made of digital garbage. To prevent hardware from melting, engines swap…
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In WoW, you can fish in a tavern
In a world full of massive dragons and world-ending threats, there is a basement where people just sit around in chairs casting lines into a tiny pool of…
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Chances of rolling a Yahtzee immediately are 1 in 1296
The odds of all five dice perfectly aligning on your very first shake are so mathematically bleak that you should probably quit while you are ahead. When it…
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A Sudoku needs 17 clues for one solution
For everyone who insists they can solve anything with sheer brainpower, mathematics violently disagrees. Grids require at least seventeen starting digits to…
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Checkers strictly forces players to take any available jumps
If you think you can craft a subtle, defensive strategy, think again. The official mandate states that if a capture is possible, you are absolutely required…
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Dire warnings can be interrupted by walking away
Important figures will deliver critical information about the end of the world, and you can just walk away mid-sentence to go check a trash can.
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Go is currently the oldest continuously played board game
Emperors were heavily placing these black and white stones on grids centuries before Rome was even a functioning empire. It easily holds the crown for the…
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Bully makes you attend class before causing trouble
Instead of just running wild and aggressively tormenting nerds all day, you are heavily penalized for skipping homeroom. The title literally forces you to sit…
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Why Garry's Mod needed other games installed
Why include your own visual assets when you can just parasitically leech off another purchase? Garry's Mod famously required users to own and install…
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Static electricity causes un-sleeved cards to clump
Friction between dry paper layers generates an irritating electrostatic charge. Instead of sliding gracefully, the pieces magnetically adhere to one another,…
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Destiny 2 features a purple ball that players bounce around
Amidst an interstellar crisis, heavily armored guardians spend their downtime endlessly kicking a brightly colored sphere off a balcony. It perfectly…
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Why Enix is named after a phoenix and a computer
A majestic bird of fire crossed with a giant computer, naturally. The legendary studio combined 'phoenix', symbolizing rebirth and immortality, with 'ENIAC',…
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Swing chains implement heavy plastisol coating for grip
The thick rubbery coating is applied strictly to stop the metal links from aggressively pinching human skin. It is an engineering concession admitting that…
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In Catan, the robber can shut down a sheep pasture
A lone bandit terrorizing a growing island colony has wildly inconsistent priorities. Moving him onto a fertile pasture allows him to completely halt wool…
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Video games let you insult kings to their faces
You can walk up to a ruthless, absolute monarch and call him a fool to his face, and his royal guard will just stand there and watch.
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A perfect faro shuffle starts with exactly 26 cards
A faro shuffle is entirely useless if you are off by even a single piece of paper. Achieving mathematical perfection requires separating exactly twenty-six…
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Why Yandere Simulator is still unfinished after a decade
Scope creep is a silent killer, but sometimes it operates in broad daylight. Yandere Simulator has been under active development for a decade, slowly adding…
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Why crowned pieces still crawl in American checkers
Unlike international versions where crowned pieces zip across the board like fighter jets, standard American rules keep them heavily restricted. They can…
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A Gearbox executive became Claptrap's voice
Instead of hiring a professional voice actor, they just shoved a corporate higher-up into a booth and told him to yell in a highly annoying, digitized tone.…
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Why early billiard balls came from elephants
Victorian gentlemen loved billiards so much they nearly wiped out entire species. Early balls were carved directly from high-grade ivory, meaning a single…
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This puzzle folds into a perfect sphere
Turning a long rigid stick into a dog requires immense spatial imagination. The lesser-known twistable puzzle created by a famous Hungarian inventor features…
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