82
votes
Accepted
Unsold Atari videogames dumped in a desert?
Yes, this did in fact happen. The game E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was notoriously bad and highly criticized, and Atari sent the left over unsold games to a dump to be buried. They were buried in ...
- 55.4k
71
votes
How was it calculated that Dream cheated on his Minecraft v1.16 glitchless speedrun?
The Short Summarized Answer
These are the relevant facts.
These were drop rates for two items important to the speedrun attempts over the course of six livestreams.
Ender pearls are obtained 4.7% of ...
- 72.8k
63
votes
What was the first game to show toilets?
(1983) Manic Miner
In Manic Miner, the toilets appear not as fixtures in an actual bathroom but as animated enemies on level 5: Eugene's Lair. Its sequel, Jet Set Willy (1984), is probably the first ...
- 637
59
votes
Accepted
What was the first game to show toilets?
(1980) Mystery House
Mystery House is the earliest we've found so far, released by On-Line Systems; May 5th, 1980
playable archive.org link - IMDb
U, OPEN DOOR, GO DOOR, U, N, N, GO DOOR, E will get ...
- 666
56
votes
Accepted
How did Minecraft's Java/Bedrock split come to pass?
Originally Minecraft (built on Java) was released by Mojang in 2009, for computers that supported Java. In 2011 Minecraft Pocket Edition (PE) came out for mobile devices, which was built on Objective ...
- 757
38
votes
What's the longest speedrun world record?
There are also a special type of speed run where lower % (less items) takes precedent over time.
Twilight princess has a glitch where it involves looking at a rupee for 17 hours to bypass significant ...
- 14.5k
37
votes
What's the longest speedrun world record?
As @Diehe posted, the longest one for a 100% run is definitely this submission for Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon with 528h 16m 44s.
(It's worth noting that Snowfats is the only submitter of that ...
- 41.4k
35
votes
Where did 'Soon™' originate?
Soon™ almost certainly originated from the term "Real Soon Now" that was originally popularized by Jerry Pournelle to describe software with vague release dates in his articles in BYTE magazine. He ...
- 989
33
votes
What was the first game to show toilets?
(1984) Jet Set Willy
This is the first one I can think of. The first level in the game starts you in The Bathroom:
Image from World of Spectrum
- 7,055
31
votes
What tools were used to analyze & challenge the records for Dragster?
They're describing tool-assisted speedrunning, aka TASing. A TAS uses an emulator, allowing a player to make frame-perfect button inputs, simulating absolutely perfect play, and allowing any errors to ...
- 1,823
31
votes
Are there any non-fiction games?
On top of the genres others mentioned - simulators and historical strategies - I think another genre is worth mentioning; gamification of real-life problems.
Probably the most prominent example is ...
- 17.8k
30
votes
Accepted
What happened on September 24 1990 (or 1998) at 08:24?
Watching one video on the game discussing this, they believe that this was the day the Ubisoft Milan was founded, who helped to develop this game. However, they weren't able to track down an exact ...
- 55.4k
30
votes
Accepted
What is the record word size for a gaming system?
64-bit, really. All current-generation consoles are based on 64-bit processor architectures (AMD Zen x86-64 on the PS5 and Xbox; Nvidia Tegra AArch64 for the Nintendo Switch). Yes, they support SIMD ...
- 921
29
votes
Accepted
Which game first introduced the concept of weapon recoil?
The first shooter to display weapon recoil, that I have managed to find, is the Dirty Harry (1990) video game.
The game is a side-scroller in which players must guide Dirty Harry throughout San ...
- 520
27
votes
Accepted
What tools were used to analyze & challenge the records for Dragster?
The "tools" they mean is something that can be used to analyze the game. There are probably a few ways to do this, but one video here discusses using a RAM analyzer for the Atari 2600. What it does ...
- 55.4k
26
votes
What was the first game to show toilets?
(1981) Can of Worms: Royal Flush
The Can of Worms games compendium for the ZX81 by Mel Croucher (of Pimania fame) was released in 1981. It contained the game "Royal Flush" ("Unblock ...
- 351
24
votes
Which game first introduced the concept of weapon recoil?
More of an RPG with FPS elements than a pure FPS, but the original System Shock from 1994 had projectile weapon recoil.
This full-sized combat rifle is based on the 2064 Interlocutor KR-5.
It's ...
- 3,299
24
votes
Accepted
Was SSI's isometric RPG "M" ever released?
Was it released?
No. See felipepepe's post on 2015-01-21 with information from David Shelley of SSI:
Internally, we decided to wrap up the Gold Box games with Pools of Darkness (in-house), while we ...
- 641
21
votes
Accepted
When was the game mechanic of online invasion of single player mode first introduced?
The feature you're referring to is called invasion multiplayer.
The game that introduced this seems to be Demon's Souls from 2009 (lauded for introducing the core characteristics of the Souls game ...
- 21.6k
20
votes
What was the first rhythm game?
I have an answer, but I'm not very confident in it.
If you do the smallest amount of due diligence and read the contents of the Wikipedia article, well first of all it lists Simon (the 1978 electronic ...
- 481
20
votes
What was the first game to show toilets?
(1987) Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
Not the earliest of the 80s but pretty early on - Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards had a bathroom:
- 333
19
votes
What is the record word size for a gaming system?
The 6th generation of consoles is known as 128-bit era.
The Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2 were the last systems to use the term "128-bit" in their marketing to describe their capability.
...
- 41.4k
18
votes
Where does the colour-coded item rarity come from?
The Meaning of Colors
While doing research on why the color-coded system came to existence, I remembered that each color is perceived to have a few meanings.
Looking at this list, there could easily ...
- 14.2k
17
votes
Are there any non-fiction games?
One category that comes to mind are simulation games, for example Microsoft Flight Simulator. Although I have not played the game, I'd imagine the joystick controls, terrain and available aircraft ...
- 279
16
votes
What's the longest speedrun world record?
Slightly different type of game, but a strong mention for Runescape, specifically old school runescape as it takes longer to max.
A mod tweeted the record for fastest "Maxing" (highest level ...
- 161
15
votes
Accepted
Is there any truth to the myth of Polybius?
The game never existed. Both Wikipedia and Snopes state this definitively.
One theory for the creation of this urban legend is that is was started by Kurt Koller in an effort to get more visitors to ...
- 17.9k
15
votes
Accepted
Was "SD Art of Fighting" ever released?
This Super Famicom game was actually released as SD Hiryū no Ken, part of the Flying Dragon franchise. The header of the snippet confirms this with the name of the studio that produced it (Culture ...
- 361
13
votes
Accepted
What was the first console or handheld to have a user interface outside of games?
It's pretty hazy by what you define as a user interface. Judging by the criteria you laid out in the comments then the Sega Saturn (1994) is the first console to have a home dashboard with various ...
- 14.2k
13
votes
Are there any non-fiction games?
Most games contain a certain amount of fiction, but there are definitely games out there that are based on real world events. A lot of games set during WW2 cover real battles from the war, for example....
- 19.5k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible