Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Sic Bo requires players to bet on three shaking dice
Instead of the typical pair used in Western casinos, this ancient classic drops three distinct cubes into a covered shaker. The addition of just one extra die…
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Sprite scaling stretches tiny pixel grids to massive sizes
Taking a tiny piece of two-dimensional art and making it massive requires brutal interpolation. Sprite scaling mathematically multiplies the digital grid,…
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Slippery ice floors appear in every winter level
Friction is merely a polite suggestion once snowflakes start falling on the screen. The moment your boots touch anything resembling a frozen puddle, you lose…
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Crash Bandicoot rides adorable polar bears into walls
Animal cruelty is technically an extreme sport. Our frantic orange hero routinely hops onto the back of a tiny, terrified polar bear cub, forcing it to sprint…
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Scrabble double word multipliers stack cumulatively
If your obscure vocabulary stretches far enough to bridge two separate multiplier squares, you don't just add them up. The point value doubles, and then…
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Ticket to Ride began as a beachside sketch
Alan Moon was taking a casual stroll along a quiet beach when he suddenly pictured a complex map of interlocking train routes. He rushed home and rapidly…
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Why Smash Bros pros still use giant old TVs
Because modern flat screens introduce microscopically minor input delay, professional competitors utterly refuse to use them. They instead lug around massive,…
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Paintball began with a fight over survival skills
Shooting your friends with colored capsules was entirely born out of male ego. Invented in 1981 by two friends, they aggressively repurposed agricultural…
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Kirby inhales entire cakes to restore his stolen health
The most powerful entity in the universe is basically a pink vacuum cleaner. To recover from severe trauma, this cheerful blob simply opens his mouth and…
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Save states literally dump active memory
Forget naturally saving your progress at designated checkpoints. Emulators give you the god-like power to freeze time by dumping the entire state of the…
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Left 4 Dead lets you destroy the exact body part you hit
If you shoot an infected creature in the knee, the engine strictly ensures that exactly that specific knee violently explodes. The creators mapped out…
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Adding dedicated comedy reaction buttons to review platforms
Because actual critical analysis of a product is largely dead. Steam realized users were treating their consumer review sections purely as a stand-up comedy…
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Flipping gravity repeatedly to navigate a spiky room
Jumping is for cowards; true heroes simply alter the gravitational pull of the universe. VVVVVV is a platformer where you cannot leap. Instead, you press a…
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The video game that makes you clock in to drive a forklift
In the middle of an intense quest to violently avenge your murdered father, you must stop to earn a completely mundane hourly wage. You literally have to wake…
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Rolling five identical Yahtzee dice yields maximum points
Achieving the titular roll is basically catching lightning in a plastic cup. It requires an absurd combination of sheer luck and stubborn rerolling, but the…
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Microsoft requires every Xbox game to pass the exact same hardware tests regardless of budget
The console certification process shows absolutely zero mercy to shovelware. Every single game that launches on an Xbox, from a multi-million dollar Halo…
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The city-building game where you can summon aliens
Carefully balancing budgets and managing sewage pipes gets incredibly dull after a few hours. To spice things up, you are given a massive god-like button that…
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Skyrim's artists painted rocks players couldn't see
Ah, the sweet smell of wasted developer hours. Bethesda's massive open-world RPG is famous for its intricate details, but some artists took it to absolute…
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What happens to your game library when you die
Your digital legacy strictly dies with your physical body. According to the intricate terms of service for most major digital storefronts, your account is…
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The Triforce was based on a samurai clan crest
The ultimate icon of courage, wisdom, and power in the gaming universe is literally just a medieval family logo. The three glowing triangles were ripped…
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Why drowning music feels so terrifying
Staying underwater too long starts a countdown ticker that speeds up relentlessly. It is universally agreed to be the most anxiety-inducing experience in…
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Navi's most annoying sound was a placeholder
Sometimes the most annoying sounds are entirely accidental. The iconic fairy screaming for your attention was meant to be a temporary audio file during…
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Plinking exploits input windows to link impossible combos
If your fingers are too slow, just trick the processing logic into giving you a second chance. By hitting two buttons one tiny fraction of a second apart, you…
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Why game heroes can't step over tiny rubble
The protagonist who recently conquered an entire army will aggressively refuse to bypass a tiny pile of rubble blocking a hallway. Without a dedicated jump…
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