Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Ignored Nintendogs puppies can forget their names
Digital animals require constant validation to maintain their identity. Fail to speak directly into your device for a few weeks, and your virtual puppy will…
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Space Invaders did not cause Japan’s coin shortage
Never let the truth get in the way of a perfectly good story about nerdy teenagers ruining a national economy. The legend goes that Space Invaders was so…
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Capcom began by manufacturing electronic distribution units
Before creating massive fighting tournaments and defining childhoods, they were building entirely mundane machines for purely commercial use. It perfectly…
Discover moreSolid Snake heavily mimics a famous movie character
Originality is clearly optional when designing a gruff stealth operative. The bandanna-wearing soldier was heavily modeled after Kyle Reese from the…
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Rolling a seven is statistically inevitable in craps
Because standard dice naturally favor the number seven, the entire game of craps revolves around dodging statistical certainty. It is a beautiful metaphor for…
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Nintendo bought an adult Mario parody to bury it
Protecting a family-friendly brand sometimes requires dipping your toes into the darkest corners of copyright law. In 1993, the adult entertainment industry…
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Halo Infinite's Grunt birthday party skull pops confetti
Because nothing says 'galactic hero' quite like encountering an alien only to be rewarded with the joyous sound of children cheering. It completely ruins the…
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Tomb Raider features a protagonist raiding endangered ruins
Lara Croft is heavily praised as a brilliant archaeologist, but her actual job consists entirely of aggressively breaking into pristine ancient sites and…
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Inverted controls divide humanity into two factions
Choosing to push up on a stick to look down is a bizarre psychological anomaly that ruins taking turns on the couch. Passing the controller to a friend…
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Spin the bottle uses simple rotational inertia
This staple of awkward teenage parties completely weaponizes basic angular momentum to dictate romantic fates. A single flick imparts enough kinetic energy to…
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Namco is named after its founding president
Ego is a powerful tool when establishing an international entertainment empire. Masaya Nakamura founded Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company,…
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Why games make you press Start before the menu
The title screen demanding an arbitrary button press before showing the actual main menu is a completely useless speed bump. It exists solely to verify that…
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Why game currencies leave you with useless change
If people knew how much a digital skin cost in real money, they would never buy it. The entire industry adopted intermediate premium currencies—like gems or…
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Why game tables are covered in felt
The fuzzy fibers act as tiny brakes, dragging against objects to prevent them from sliding endlessly off the edge. Without it, every slight bump would send…
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Battleship began with pencils and scrap paper
Before the noisy electronic versions and plastic grids, bored soldiers in muddy trenches played the exact same guessing grid on cheap scrap paper. It was a…
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Crossnumber grids rely strictly on integer equations
For those who look at a grid of blank squares and think it needs more arithmetic, this format replaces letters with pure numerical equations. It perfectly…
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Left 4 Dead began with developers fighting bots
Sometimes million-dollar game ideas just organically spawn from employees aggressively refusing to do their actual assigned work. While at Turtle Rock…
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Sonic runs fast but cannot swim in shallow open water
The fastest creature alive is utterly defeated by a small puddle. Despite effortlessly running up sheer walls and through loops, dropping this heroic hedgehog…
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Bowling balls were once made of wood
Because hurling a heavy lump of splintering timber down a waxed wooden lane sounds perfectly safe and structurally sound. Before the invention of modern hard…
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Pinball replay systems grant extra rounds to experts
Instead of dispensing worthless paper tickets, classic machines reward high scores by violently popping a loud internal knocker. It instantly adds a free…
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Turn timers induce panic by giving exactly thirty seconds
There is no anxiety quite like watching a digital rope slowly burn across the screen while you try to calculate advanced math. By strictly limiting the time…
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Your game may render a whole 3D world before it starts
Staring at an interactive title screen usually requires rendering a massive, invisible universe. Main menu backgrounds frequently load an entire 3D level…
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Why Warhammer Orks can make beliefs come true
In a grim future full of hyper-advanced weapons, an entire alien race gets by purely on aggressive optimism. If enough of them firmly believe painting a…
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Why video game sidekicks can survive anything
While you take massive damage from a minor scrape, your poorly equipped companion can absorb thirty grenades and simply take a brief knee to recover.
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