Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Shigeru Miyamoto drew the core inspiration for The Legend of Zelda from his childhood experiences of wandering around the countryside near his home in Kyoto and bravely exploring dark, unknown caves with a lantern.
Shigeru Miyamoto drew the core inspiration for The Legend of Zelda from his childhood experiences of wandering around the countryside near his home in Kyoto…
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Assassin's Creed Origins made animation give way to your commands.
Assassin's Creed Origins made animation give way to your commands. Ubisoft describes a shift from animation-driven movement to input-driven movement with…
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Barbie let players print clothes for a real doll.
Barbie let players print clothes for a real doll. The 1996 game Barbie Fashion Designer took an unusual route out of the computer: players designed outfits,…
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Super Mario actually breaks blocks with his fist and not his head, a detail hidden in plain sight since the original 1985 instruction manual. A tiny pixelated hand shoots upward to smash the bricks.
Super Mario actually breaks blocks with his fist and not his head, a detail hidden in plain sight since the original 1985 instruction manual. A tiny pixelated…
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Battleship did not need a plastic board to work.
Battleship did not need a plastic board to work. Players could draw grids on paper, hide their fleets and call coordinates to discover an opponent's ships.…
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Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. levels traveled from graph paper to programmers. The designers drew layouts by hand, then handed them over to be turned into playable…
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Pac-Man has a perfect score because the game eventually breaks.
Pac-Man has a perfect score because the game eventually breaks. A flawless arcade run collects every available point through the reachable stages, ending at…
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Boxer8 launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 for the Ouya, an open-source Android gaming console that raised over eight million dollars on the promise of revolutionizing the…
Boxer8 launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 for the Ouya, an open-source Android gaming console that raised over eight million dollars on the promise of…
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Shigeru Miyamoto and his team revolutionized 3D gaming with Super Mario 64, but navigating the new dimension required an entirely new mechanic, leading to the creation of Lakitu…
Shigeru Miyamoto and his team revolutionized 3D gaming with Super Mario 64, but navigating the new dimension required an entirely new mechanic, leading to the…
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The original N-Gage hid its game slot behind the battery.
The original N-Gage hid its game slot behind the battery. Changing a game on Nokia's 2003 phone-console meant opening the device and removing the battery.…
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Blizzard's release of StarCraft in 1998 triggered such a massive cultural phenomenon in South Korea that it basically birthed the entire concept of modern esports, complete with…
Blizzard's release of StarCraft in 1998 triggered such a massive cultural phenomenon in South Korea that it basically birthed the entire concept of modern…
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Skyrim players spent years spreading an elaborate internet rumor that the game's famous arrow in the knee quote was actually ancient Norse slang for getting married and settling down.
Skyrim players spent years spreading an elaborate internet rumor that the game's famous arrow in the knee quote was actually ancient Norse slang for getting…
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Resident Evil was originally conceived as a simple modern remake of a virtually unknown nineteen-eighty-nine psychological horror game called Sweet Home.
Resident Evil was originally conceived as a simple modern remake of a virtually unknown nineteen-eighty-nine psychological horror game called Sweet Home. The…
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Clue was invented in 1943 by an English musician named Anthony E.
Clue was invented in 1943 by an English musician named Anthony E. Pratt during the suffocating boredom of World War II air raid blackouts, serving as a grim…
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Barbie for the original Nintendo Entertainment System features a soundtrack composed by Mark Van Hecke, who inexplicably reused the intensely creepy music he had previously written for A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Barbie for the original Nintendo Entertainment System features a soundtrack composed by Mark Van Hecke, who inexplicably reused the intensely creepy music he…
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Running Doom on strange hardware became a challenge with many interpretations.
Running Doom on strange hardware became a challenge with many interpretations. Some projects really port the game; others replace a gadget's electronics or…
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Animal Crossing lets family members share a world even when they play at different times.
Animal Crossing lets family members share a world even when they play at different times. One player can leave a letter or gift that another finds hours…
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Nintendo’s D-pad design boxed out competitors
The cross-shaped design was legally protected, pushing competitors toward circular discs or segmented buttons instead.
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Realistic game water is a carefully managed illusion
A game can combine a moving surface, reflections, transparency, and splash effects without simulating every drop. Each layer supplies a clue your eyes expect,…
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High mouse DPI settings make cursors uncontrollable
DPI measures how far the cursor moves for a given physical movement of the mouse. At 20,000 DPI, a tiny wrist shift can send it racing across the screen.
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Why racing-style gaming chairs can hurt your back
Bucket seats are designed to hold racecar drivers in place through tight turns, not to support someone sitting still at a desk.
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The sky in video games may be a painted box
Developers can create distant scenery by wrapping a panoramic image around the inside of a digital box surrounding the level.
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Server tick rates dictate exact responsive precision
A low tick rate means the server checks the game state less often, so an attack may register even if it looked as though you dodged it.
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Movies sometimes imitate the flaws of a real lens
Lens flare happens when bright light scatters or reflects inside camera optics. Adding it to a digital shot can make a perfectly artificial scene feel…
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