10/11/2017 0 Comments Kill Shakespeare Board Game![]() Little- Known Game Facts and Trivia | Reader's Digest. Monopoly helped POWs escape. Alex Wong/Getty Images.
All about hunting, chess, tennis, and more in Shakespeare's time. During World War II, the Nazis did something un- Nazi- like: They let Allied prisoners of war play board games. The British government was even allowed to send its incarcerated soldiers a game or two. One of the games it sent? Monopoly. Inside the box? Tools for escape. Specifically, the British government, with the cooperation of the game’s publisher, hid real bank notes among the Monopoly money. Compasses, metal files, and a folded silk map—which was less likely to disintegrate than a paper one—were also concealed inside the box to help the POWs flee their captors. It worked; the soldiers escaped. Words With Friends saved a man’s life. Courtesy of Zynga. Had Georgie Fletcher never signed on to play the mobile game Words With Friends, her husband, Simon, might be dead. Georgie, who lives in Australia, struck up a friendship via the game’s chat feature with frequent opponent Beth Legler from Missouri. One day, Georgie told Beth that Simon hadn’t been feeling well. Beth relayed his symptoms to her husband, Larry—who is a doctor. ![]() Larry insisted that the Fletchers go to the hospital immediately. It was good advice: Simon’s doctors discovered a 9. ![]() It took Rubik a month to solve his cube. Joshua Scott for Reader's Digest. You’ve probably heard of Erno Rubik. But most people don’t know that he created the Rubik’s Cube by accident. A professor of architecture, Rubik built a twistable box with colorful rows of labels on each side to see if it was possible to design blocks that could move without causing the entire structure to collapse. After Rubik rotated a few rows and mixed up the colors, his challenge began: Realign the hues. It took him about a month to restore the cube to its pristine condition. Content continues below ad. Tetris reduces trauma. Oil Scarff/Getty Images. Tetris, the Nintendo Game Boy classic, might cure insomnia! In 2. 00. 9, researchers determined that Tetris inhibited painful flashbacks when they exposed three groups of people to a 2. Members of the group that played Tetris for ten minutes post- viewing had fewer flashbacks about the events in the video than those in the other groups who were asked to either do nothing or take a quiz. Why? Because playing the game engages a part of the brain responsible for storing memories. Try your hand at Tetris up to six hours after a traumatic event for fewer nightmares. Rock stars may make more money with Guitar Hero than through album sales. Joshua Scott for Reader's Digest. Aerosmith is a world- famous rock band and, apparently, a gamer’s guilty pleasure. In 2. 00. 8, the video- game publisher Activision created Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, which featured the band’s songs. By April 2. 01. 0, the game had sold well over three million copies worldwide. Following the game’s release, sales of the band’s music rose as much as 4. Billboard. Activision’s CEO went one step further when he purportedly said that Guitar Hero: Aerosmith brought in more revenue than any of the band’s albums—ever. World of Warcraft helped scientists predict plagues. Sean Gallup/Getty Images. The next time a scourge sweeps the nation, look no further than your Xbox. In 2. 00. 5, the makers of World of Warcraft released a new character for their top- selling online role- playing game—a bad guy named Hakkar. He controlled a dungeon and cast a spell that created a highly contagious disease in anyone who dared challenge him. Suddenly, the disease began to spread among players. Many died (may they rest in peace). The plus side? Real- world epidemiologists heard about this phenomenon and now have a set of observations that show exactly how people helped or inhibited the spread of the disease. Researchers are using that data to try to create models to limit the spread of actual diseases. Content continues below ad. Angry Birds poked fun at our fears of swine flu. Joshua Scott for Reader's Digest. When Rovio launched the Angry Birds app, consumers were empowered to take action (albeit subconsciously) against some scary news of the time. According to Ville Heijari, former SVP of brand marketing, the game’s villainous, sniveling pigs were inspired by the then- rampant swine flu epidemic, a health crisis that was causing great alarm in the United States. Nintendo made Mario by accident. Joshua Scott for Reader's Digest. Unable to get licensing rights to a Popeye game, Nintendo created a Bluto- like character named Donkey Kong, and Popeye turned into Jumpman. When the game hit America, the Nintendo team changed Jumpman’s name to Mario (as in Super Mario) after the company’s warehouse landlord at the time. Monopoly pieces helped a charity. Tim Boyle/Getty Images. For over 2. 5 years, Mc. Donald’s has run a Monopoly- branded promotion, in which each of its products has a game piece that corresponds to a square on the classic Monopoly board. Collect both Park Place and Boardwalk, and you’ll end up $1 million richer—like St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital did in 1. But that year, the winning pieces were actually stolen (possibly by a Mc. Donald’s marketing rep) and donated to the hospital—technically invalidating the game. When Mc. Donald’s found out years later, after already paying up, it let the hospital keep the money. Content continues below ad. A deck of cards can outdo outer space. Michael Blann/Thinkstock. The number of permutations within a deck of cards is mind- bogglingly large: 8 times 1. That means there are more card combinations than stars in the Milky Way, which amount to as many as 4. . Video games sharpen doctors’ skills.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.Doctors who perform laparoscopic surgery—which involves inserting a tiny camera into a patient’s body through a small incision—have better coordination if they play video games at least three hours per week.According to a 2. Mr. Potato Head forgot the potato!Joshua Scott for Reader's Digest.What we now know as the beloved Mr.Potato Head used to be a vegetable- agnostic dress- up toy.The original version consisted only of legs, arms, a few sets of eyes, a mustache (of course), and a corncob pipe. New Platinum Hide Ip 335 . A player, however, had to provide the potato, or, as the box said, “any fruit or vegetable.”Content continues below ad. Whodunnit? For British Clue, maybe the Reverend. It was Mr. Green, in the conservatory, with the lead pipe. But only in America! In the British version of the board game Clue, which made its U. K. debut in 1. 94. Mr. Green was Rev. Green. But when Parker Brothers produced the game for American consumers, it changed the reverend to a businessman. The concern: Americans would not take kindly to having a murderous man of the cloth. A businessman, the game makers reasoned, can’t be trusted! One board game foreshadowed a freak accident. Oil Scarff/Getty Images. This coincidence is a doozy: On April 2. BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 1. Bizarrely, in 1. 97. BP Offshore Oil Strike, in which players navigated the “thrills of drilling, the hazards, and the rewards” as each raced to be the first person to collect $1. And yes, the fantasy rig could explode, just like it did in real life some 3. Video games inspire curfews. Stockphoto/Thinkstock. Playtime became a bit more precious in South Korea after the “shutdown law” went into effect in 2. The law made it illegal for children 1. To enforce this rule, the country’s online gaming websites block children in that age group from accessing their sites during the blackout period. That’s one way to get your kids to bed on time! Content continues below ad.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |