Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Yahtzee boxes include a chance category as a final fallback
It lets you score the sum of any dice, salvaging a turn when you miss the combinations you wanted.
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GoldenEye once used handshakes to reload weapons
While testing the game's mechanics, Rare made a handshake temporarily reload Bond's weapon: walking up to a Russian guard refilled his ammunition. The team…
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Why Cooking Mama smiles while chopping meat
The game keeps its relentlessly cheerful tone even when Mama is grinding raw beef into paste, making her bright smile oddly unsettling beside the cleaver.
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Resident Evil makes a potted plant a survival decision
In the original games, green herbs restore health, blue herbs counter poison, and red herbs become useful when mixed. Combining them can give more value than…
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Skyrim's giants kept a bug that could launch you skyward
A killing blow can send the player's ragdoll hurtling into the air. Character artist Jonah Lobe described it as a bug the team decided never to fix. It turned…
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Double buffering hides messy rendering in invisible hardware
It draws the next frame in a back buffer, then swaps that completed image onto the screen. You see a finished frame instead of the scene being painted pixel…
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A publisher proposed putting game ads on gravestones
Acclaim announced the idea in 2002 while promoting Shadow Man: 2econd Coming. Families would be offered money for advertising space on memorials. The proposal…
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Mass Effect's Reapers borrowed their silhouette from a cuttlefish
The elongated body and trailing appendages give the giant machines an organic outline beneath their mechanical surfaces. That mixture makes them read as more…
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Rolling two ones in Craps is universally called snake eyes
In a pass-line bet, a total of two loses the round, so snake eyes can wipe out the wager.
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Blackjack lets you surrender half your bet
Where surrender is offered, you can give up after the deal and lose half your wager rather than risk playing a weak hand, such as 16 against an ace.
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League of Legends has a character who rolls a giant snowball
Instead of wielding a sword or casting a spell, the character pushes a snowball that grows large enough to bowl over opponents—turning a fantasy battle into a…
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Banjo-Kazooie changes its music by location
As the bear and bird move through different areas, the melody stays the same while the background instruments change—from tropical drums to spooky organs.
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Mass Effect 2 cut Jack's romance with female Shepard
Jack was originally written with a broader romantic history, but the released game allows a romance only with male Shepard. Writer Brian Kindregan said…
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Why video games put bottomless pits everywhere
Instead of building a believable mountain range, game creators can simply remove the floor and make the fall fatal.
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When gamers finally give in to fast travel
After half an hour of wandering through identical corridors and walking in circles, fast travel can start looking better than sightseeing.
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Why you can't win at three-card monte
The dealer uses sleight of hand to keep the target card from ending up where you expect, making the apparent tracking game a rigged hustle.
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Connect Four was solved decades ago
In 1988, researchers proved that Connect Four is a win for the first player if they start in the middle column and play perfectly.
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Kingdom Hearts gives its villain someone else's name
The antagonist called Ansem in the first game is later revealed as Xehanort's Heartless, using the name of Ansem the Wise. The apparent identity is part of…
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Sonic's shoes mixed pop-star style with Santa colors
Designer Naoto Ohshima linked their design to Michael Jackson's Bad and the contrasting red and white associated with Santa Claus. The bright footwear helped…
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Why you can't pause an online match
A live match keeps going while you step away; the other players can’t pause the game just because it’s dinner time.
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Half-Life protagonist Gordon Freeman has never spoken a word
Gordon Freeman never speaks, even while fighting an alien invasion. His signature red crowbar does the talking.
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Sega thirty-two expansion required heavy spacer plates
The add-on needed heavy spacer brackets to prevent electromagnetic interference, making installation feel more like a basement hardware project than…
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One explanation of “craps” starts with a crouching toad
A common etymology connects the dice game’s name with French “crapaud,” meaning toad, and players crouching to roll on the ground. The origin is not…
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Minecraft villagers trade raw emeralds for basic wheat
In Minecraft, farmers can trade emeralds for wheat, turning an ordinary crop into a source of the game’s prized currency.
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