You’d think that since the prizes are usually cheaper than the price you pay to play, that carnival games would be easy to win. Not at all. But if you have the right strategy, and some tips from those who have been there, you can raise your chances of winning. The Art of Manliness has tips on winning at Rope Ladder, High Striker, Shoot the Star, Flukey Ball, and Milk Can. Link -via Boing Boing

The king of hearts is called the suicide king because the king appears to be stabbing himself in the head. The jack of spades and jack of hearts are known as one-eyed jacks because their faces are in profile and only one eye is visible. But do you know why the nine of diamonds is called the curse of Scotland? Did you even know that it’s considered to be the most unlucky card in the deck? It is, though how it received its fearsome name is a source of wild speculation.

[Image credit: Flickr user feministjulie]

Here are eight leading theories on why the nine of diamonds is called the curse (or scourge) of Scotland. Some are more plausible than others, but all of them are highly intriguing.

1. British Commander William Augustus, the “Butcher Duke of Cumberland” was a lover of card games and always carried two packs on his person. After his decisive victory in the Battle of Culloden, he quickly scribbled an execution order for his Scottish prisoners on the closest paper he had at hand. The paper turned out to be—you guessed it—the nine of diamonds, a card that haunts the Scots to this day.

[Prince William, the “Butcher Duke” of Cumberland]

2. In the reign of Mary Queen of Scots, A notorious jewel thief by the name of George Campbell snuck into Edinburgh Castle and successfully heisted nine valuable diamonds. He then escaped to a neighboring country, never to be heard from again. Queen Mary responded by levying a heavy tax upon her kingdom to replace the gems. The hapless tax-payers have ever since had negative opinions about the nine missing diamonds and have vented their frustration by renaming the nine of diamonds playing card, the curse of Scotland.

[Image credit: Flickr user afternoon_sunlight]

3. Comete, a card game inspired by the discovery of Halley’s comet was introduced to Scotland by James II. To win the game, one needed to secure the nine of diamonds. It is said that the card was called the curse of Scotland on account of the large sums of money that Scottish gamers lost when first learning this new game.

The Cross (or Corse) of Scotland

4. Though the nine diamonds in today’s playing cards are arranged in an H pattern, early versions favoured an X shape. When viewed sideways, these cards look very similar to the Scottish flag—known as St. Andrew’s Cross or the Cross of Scotland. It’s very possible that the original name of the card was actually the Cross of Scotland.

5. Pope Joan was a popular card-based gambling game played as far back as 1732. In the game, special significance is paid to the nine of diamonds which is called the pope. Because the pope was a villain figure among Scotch reformers, the nine of diamonds was renamed the curse of Scotland in this game and—eventually—all games played in Scotland.

[An early political cartoon from 1745 uses the nine of diamonds to represent the pope. The card can be seen (just barely) on the ground between the legs of the central figure)]

6. Just as there’s a supposed curse involving U.S. presidents elected in years evenly divisible by twenty, so too is there an observation that every ninth English monarch reigns as a tyrant. Because diamonds represent royalty, the nine of diamonds is said to be a symbol of the English rulers that have been oppressing the Scottish people since the dark ages.

The Dalrymple shield

7. John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair was a Scottish lowland noble who had some beef with the Highland MacDonald clan. He successfully convinced King William to sign an order to extirpate (ie. “root out and destroy”) the clan in a heinous event known as the Massacre of Glencoe. The Scottish citizens were outraged, especially when King William absolved both himself and the Earl of any wrongdoing. The Dalrymple coat of arms features nine diamonds arranged like the playing card, so it is very likely that the nine of diamonds became associated with the much-hated Dalrymple.

8. Nine red diamonds (or lozenges gules presented saltire-wise as the arrangement is called in heraldry) are also said to be featured prominently on the crests of other detested figures in Scotland’s past. Among them are a colonel named Packer who was on the scaffold when Charles the First was beheaded, the Duke of Argyle who helped unite Scotland with England, and a member of the Scottish parliament who voted for the introduction of the malt tax. Bottom line: don’t go taxing a Scotsman’s malt.

Which (if any) of the above explanations is the correct one? Nobody can say for certain, but what is known, if you’re playing Go Fish with a Scotsman you should do your best not to win the game by asking for his nine of diamonds—you don’t want to give the Scots any more reasons to view the card so unfavourably.

It’s been a while since we’ve posted a good Flash game, but Chuck the Sheep is certainly worth a play. You launch the sheep and move him up and down to land on the balloons. Don’t miss a chance to fly with Chuck.

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(YouTube Link)

Apparently the managers of FuncoLand, the equivalent of Gamestop in the 1990s, are crazy creeps from another dimension that delight in torturing new employees while acting like trailer park royalty. This 2 part training video probably made new hires wonder whether they’d just made a huge mistake, and watching these videos made me nostalgic for the goofiness of the 90s. I miss my Nintendo 64!

–via Joystiq

Did you know that there was a serious film produced about Karen Carpenter that used Barbie dolls instead of actors? That the first pressing of the Thriller LP was much longer than the finished product? That Quentin Tarantino’s first film was ruined by a fire at the film-processing lab? There are plenty of pop culture recordings that you might never get a chance to experience -or by luck, you just might. Read about a lot of lost art at Wired. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

By the way, the Carpenter biopic is available online.

Some movies just seem to naturally mesh with board games. See a collection of 14 such mashups rendered in movie posters gleaned from the Something Awful forums at Unreality magazine. Link

If you’ve ever played The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, then you know how much detail the developers put into creating the in-game books your character can read. That’s why it’s so darn amazing that Reddit user notadoctoreither put together all of the books from the game into one immense leather-bound book. While even the most die-hard fans might not want to flip through the pages when they could be out closing oblivion gates, you can now take time out of your non-gaming life to read the stories and history of the in-game world.

Link Via Geekosystem

(Video Link)

I’ve always fancied myself a pretty good Tetris player, but even at my prime I don’t think I could make art with the blocks while playing the game. This takes some major skills.

Via Geekosystem

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I can understand a writer making this mistake in the midst of writing dozens of questions a day, but shouldn’t an editor have caught this?

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If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of an Alternate Reality Game, essentially, it’s a viral marketing campaign mixed with a scavenger hunt. Users have to unlock clues to be able to move on to the next step of the puzzle, which almost always involves deciphering even more hints. Over at Cracked, you can learn about the 5 craziest alternate reality games ever played…and discover what Halo has to do with bees.

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Did you know the statue of liberty in GTA IV has a secret beating heart held up by chains on the inside? And that there’s apparently no reason for it? Cracked has all kinds of cool video game Easter eggs in this great article.

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For you young folks, an “arcade” was a place where people could go to play games on “arcade machines.” It was fun! You could socialize, hone your fine motor skills, and spend all your money! See a collection of classic arcade games from the 19th century through the space age at Dark Roasted Blend. Link

YouTube link.

Those who have tried their hand at Sim City 3000 will be interested in this video of what is claimed to be the maximum size city possible.  “Magnasanti” has 6 million residents, and required three years to construct.  Vincent Ocasia, the creator, notes that while it is a maximal size city, it is not a utopian paradise:

Technically, no one is leaving or coming into the city. Population growth is stagnant. Sims don’t need to travel long distances, because their workplace is just within walking distance. In fact they do not even need to leave their own block… Suffocating air pollution, high unemployment, no fire stations, schools, or hospitals, a regimented lifestyle – this is the price that these sims pay for living in the city with the highest population. It’s a sick and twisted goal to strive towards. The ironic thing about it is the sims in Magnasanti tolerate it. They don’t rebel, or cause revolutions and social chaos. No one considers challenging the system by physical means since a hyper-efficient police state keeps them in line. They have all been successfully dumbed down, sickened with poor health, enslaved and mind-controlled just enough to keep this system going for thousands of years…

In the video at 6:39, you can see that the population precipitously dies off after age 60.   And, in case you were wondering, the creator says “I am not autistic, or a savant, nor suffer from OCD, or suffer from any other form of clinical mental disease or illness for that matter.”

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Believe it or not, some of us still play games with real cards at a table with family and friends. Playing cards have a rich history dating back to the 14th century. The oldest cards are rare and precious, and many not-so-old cards are works of art. You’ll find everything you ever wanted to know about playing cards and more at the World of Playing Cards. Link -via the Presurfer

Of course you enjoy board games, but there are so many you might have trouble identifying the game from just a card or a piece. Or maybe you know them so well you can ace today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I scored only 57%, because it’s been so long since I played some of these that the actual hardware has been updated. Link

Goals are scored by chucking a smaller ball (the Quaffle) through one of the opponents three goals without being knocked off your broom by a defense whose job it is to hit a large iron ball (the Bludger) into your body at bone-breaking speeds. The game only ends when a tiny, winged ball with a mind of its own (the Snitch) is captured by a member of either team. Catching the snitch is worth 150 points, regular goals are worth 10. Whoever has more points when the snitch is caught, wins.

Link -via Fark

Large mazes or labyrinths served different purposees at different times inhistory, but they are always fun! In the 16th century, garden mazes were features of many noble gardens. They enabled people to mix socially, to get some exercise, to have fun, and to participate in nature! Mazes have been built for other reasons as well.

In 1950 Canon Harry Cheales, parish priest of Wyck Rissington, a small village in the south of England, had a curious dream. In it, he was looking out of window of the rectory while below him, in the garden, he could see people walking around a maze. A shadowy figure behind him was describing the scene.

The dream was so vivid that, on walking, the rector felt compelled to build a real-life version of the maze he had seen. The newly constructed maze was modeled on a set of religious carvings in the village church and the design was symbolic. The winding pathways represented the journey of life. The wrong turnings and culs-de-sac symbolized the sins that people commit before death, obstacles on the way to paradise and heaven.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by MrGhaz.

I like GuineaPig567‘s interpretation of the average gameplay in Operation.  I would add that the sliver of white = children like me, that were too freaked out by the whole concept to even play.

Link (Cheezburger)

(YouTube Link)

It seems like everyone is getting in the farming mode these days.  Forget Modern Warfare 2, let Tobuscus show you where the true gaming action is!

My sister hosts a big game party every year, mostly non-video games (word games, board games etc.) This year she made 100 cupcakes, each with a decoration referring to a game, video and otherwise. Have a go at guessing them all! (keep your own score manually)

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by iandberg.

A Sport of Soldiers and Kings

The sport was referenced in writing for the first time when the English King Edward the III banned his troops from lawn bowling in order to prevent their being distracted from archery practice. While the game is now considered to be largely blue collar, Henry VIII is said to have been a fan of the game and used cannon balls in sport.

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Evolution of An American Classic

Meanwhile, Germans continued playing a traditional outdoor version of the sport known as skittles, which used heavy balls to knock down small pins called skittles. This game served as the inspiration for the more popular modern forms of bowling, starting with ninepin, which was introduced in America in the colonial era. Unfortunately, the sport began being associated with gambling, workplace truancy, and crime, leading to its illegalization in many cities.

In 1841, the entire state of Connecticut banned ninepin bowling, which some claim led to the invention of tenpin bowling by people who were circumventing the law. Others claim the game started earlier though and that it only gained popularity in the area due to the outlawing of the more common ninepin game. It is said that the wooden version of the modern bowling ball was invented on December 29, 1862, but it’s difficult to find more information on this claim than the date. Regardless, the first standardized rules for tenpin were undoubtedly established in New York City in September 9, 1895.

Sources #1, #2 Image Via John McNab [Flickr]

Innovations Galore

In 1914, Brunswick improved the game switching out wooden balls with hard rubber balls. In 1936, bowling became a lot quicker and less expensive because the pinboys were replaced with semi-automatic pinsetters. In 1946, AMF created the first completely automatic pinsetter, which was soon replaced by a 1955 Brunswick model. The later versions of this machine are in operation in the majority of alleys today.

The game’s popularity exploded in the U.S. in the 1970s after automatic scorer became commonplace in bowling alleys across the country. Because the scoring for bowling is somewhat complicated, bowlers before this invention came out had to have a somewhat detailed understanding of the game. Nowadays, casual bowlers, professionals and kids can all share the same lanes and not have to worry about the difficulties of keeping score.

Source #1, #2 Image Via Hryck. [Flickr]

Scoring Is Harder Than It Sounds

I’m sure most of you know that in bowling, when you knock down a pin, you get a point for that pin. The confusion about scoring comes into play when the bowler gets a strike or a spare. When you get a strike, you get 10 points, plus the points for the next two balls thrown. When you get a spare, you get 10 points and the points for the next ball thrown. So, if you got a strike and then you get four pins and then six pins (a spare) and on your next frame you get one gutter ball and then one pin, you would get 20 points (10+4+6) for the strike, 10 points (4+6+0) for the spare and then 1 point for the open frame, for a total of 31 points for all three frames. In the last frame, if you get a strike, you get more balls.

One reason the experts will still count their games by hand sometimes is that the pinsetter will occasionally knock down a pin that moved positions during play. The automatic scorer will often count these pins, but according to the official rules of the game, only pins that fall over on their own are supposed to be counted.

If you happen to make strikes the entire game, you get 300 points for the twelve roll game. This is known as a perfect game.

Source Image Via Roadsidepictures [Flickr]

Bowling Celebrities

While you may have laughed at the pathetic professionals in the movie King Pin, bowling celebrities, particularly in the 60’s were actually a big deal. In fact, the first athlete of any kind to receive a million dollar endorsement deal wasn’t a basketball or football player, but instead a bowler. Don Carter received this extraordinary deal in 1964 when he signed a multi-year deal with Ebonite International.

In more modern times, there are still some notable celebrities in the sport, like Jeremy Sonnenfeld, who, in 1997, became the first person to ever roll three perfect games in a row in a three-game series. Also impressive was 2006’s 10 year-old star Chaz Dennis who was the youngest person in history to bowl a perfect game.

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Controversy

With 1024 possible outcomes in a game of bowling, it is easy to see just how hard it is to achieve the perfect game. Still, a number of bowling purists claim that technology has been making this feat increasingly easy to accomplish. Changing materials in balls, synthetic lane materials, oiling machines that lay out the oiling patterns in ways that make it easier to hit the pins, have all made bowling increasingly easy. Reports of perfect scores have increased by several thousand percentage points between the 80s and today. As a result, these dedicated bowlers have developed a specific set of rules for what they call “sport bowling,” that makes the game more challenging, as it was in the 1970s.

Source Image Via Johnathan Cohen [Flickr]

Terminology

Like all sports, bowling has its own jargon that can be difficult for non-bowlers to understand. In case you want to hold a conversation with some league players, here’s a few terms you may want to know (note the number of food-related terms, should bowling replace American football as the national Thanksgiving Day sport?):

-Bedposts: A 7-10 split

-Dutch 200: A game where the player consistently alternates between strikes and spares, resulting in a score of exactly 200

-Goal posts: A 7-10 split

-Golden turkey: Nine strikes in a row

-Ham bone: Four strikes in a row

-Six pack: Six strikes in a row

-Thanksgiving turkey: A perfect game

-Turkey: Three strikes in a row

-Turkey sandwich: When someone gets a spare and then a turkey, followed by another spare

-Wild turkey: Six strikes in a row

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The Healthy Side of Bowling

While most people have a less-than-athletic image of bowlers, the sport can actually be a good form of exercise and may help improve social relationships. Studies have shown it helps burn calories, regulates blood pressure and prevents osteoporosis and works muscle groups that are not normally exercised.

Source Image Via calaggie [Flickr]

Lest you think that was the highlight of the suit, just wait until you hear the witnesses he is calling on his behalf: Winona Ryder and Martin Lee Gore, the founder of Depeche Mode. He thinks Winona’s interest in Catcher In The Rye makes her qualified to discuss alienation and that Gore’s songs make him an expert in alienation because he is “sad, lonely and alienated, as can be seen in the songs he writes.”

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1. Toe Wrestling. Yup – there’s arm wrestling, thumb wrestling… and now toe wrestling. As you might imagine, it’s a lot like thumb wrestling – competitors just use different digits. It apparently started when a group of men at a pub decided to find or invent a game that “the British could actually win,” and after a few beverages, they came up with just the thing. Ironically, the first-ever World Toe Wrestling Championships ended with a Canadian victor. Competitors have their own phalange-related nicknames: two of the most accomplished athletes are called the Itatoelion Stallion and the Toeminator. The face of the sport would probably be Alan “Nasty” Nash, a five-time champion who has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to show off his technique. “I don’t think the size of your toe has anything to do with it as I have short, stumpy toes,” he has said. Picture from Metro.

2. Cheese Rolling. You’ve likely heard of this one, but it’s too weird to leave out of the article. Every year at Cooper’s Hill in England’s Cotswolds, a large wheel of cheese is sent tumbling from the top of the hill (pictured)… and a bunch of Cheese Rollers come tumbling after. The first person to reach the bottom of the hill wins the cheese. This may not seem like an outstanding prize, but be assured that the race for the Double Gloucester round is a heated one: injuries have included concussions, broken bones and sprained ankles. Injuries are usually incurred by the Cheese Rollers themselves, but on at least one occasion the cheese (which usually weighs seven or eight pounds) took a wicked bounce at the bottom of the hill and careened into a spectator. Picture from Cheese Rolling.

3. Poohsticks. Children’s lit fans (or Disney fans) will be familiar with Poohsticks from The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne’s 1928 book. Milne actually played the game with his son, although we’re not sure if the game was invented for the book and then played by Milne and his son Christopher Robin or vice versa. Fans started actually playing the game, which involves dropping sticks in a stream or river to see which one crosses the designated finish line first, in 1984. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution needed some money and the lock keeper thought a Poohsticks competition – donations accepted – might help their cash flow. His hunch was correct – since its inception, the World Poohsticks Competition has raised more than £30,000. Every winner receives a gold medal and a Winnie the Pooh teddy bear.

4. Extreme Ironing. There are a lot of us out there that probably dread the tedium of pressing wrinkles out of clothes, but there are others who look at it as the opportunity for an adrenaline rush – namely, Extreme Ironers. It started out as just a fun, quirky hobby, but for the past several years an actual competition sponsored by Rowenta has taken place. EIs send in a photo of themselves ironing in strange and extreme places and points are given for place and style (just standing there with an iron will get you minimal points; striking a graceful pose while ironing underwater will get you more). Bonus: the sport has inspired cellists to do the same thing. Photo from OneInchPunch.

5. Buzkashi sounds like something made up for Borat, but it’s a real sport in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, among others. It’s kind of like polo, except the focus of the game revolves around a decapitated goat or calf instead of a ball. If you’re a Rambo fan, you might remember seeing the game depicted in Rambo III. Photo from AfghanNetwork.

6. Cell Phone Throwing. Fed up with your cell phone? Join the club. But now you can do something legal to vent your frustrations (as opposed to going Naomi Campbell on someone). Since 2001, the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships have been held in Finland. Categories include the traditional toss, freestyle (points for creativity!), team, and junior. If you’re not near Finland and don’t care to travel there just to chuck a phone, never fear: the U.S. held its first event in Massachusetts in 2008. And if you love your cell phone but hate outdated technology, you can join in the Rotary Phone Throw at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.

7. International Regatta of Bathtubs. La Regate des Baignoires was created to boost tourism in Dinant, Belgium. As you can imagine, bathtubs don’t float very well, so it’s a pretty entertaining “race.” In fact, speed really doesn’t matter at all when it comes to winning this thing. It’s more about the creativity of your tub and whether your tub actually makes it across the finish line or not. Photo from P&O Ferries.

8. Chess Boxing. The old stereotype of chess being for skinny, geeky guys with no athletic ability to speak of is totally out the window with this extreme sport. The game started out as kind of a joke in a graphic novel, but people eventually picked up on it and thought it had merit in reality. The first world championship was held in 2003 and regulated by the World Chess Boxing Organization. I like to think that when you call a checkmate, you get to punch your opponent in the face… but it doesn’t work like that. Boxing rounds are alternated with chess-playing rounds; the winner can be determined by knockout, checkmate, or a decision made by the referee. Photo from Time magazine.

9. Unicycle Hockey. It would seem to me that unicycling and hockey each have enough opportunity for injury all on their own, but combine them and you’re almost guaranteed to get a cool scar at some point. There are a few extra fouls, such as “sibbing,” which is poking your hockey stick in an opponent’s spokes to trip him or her up, but for the most part, the unusual mode of transportation is the biggest difference from regular hockey. Oh, yeah, and the lack of ice. Really, ice + unicycle = asking for a shattered femur. Here’s a group playing unicycle hockey in Telluride:

10. Rock Paper Scissors League. Yes, there’s a Rock Paper Scissors League (to be known as RPSL from now on), and yes, it’s serious. The world competitions take place every year in Las Vegas with Bud Light sponsoring. There’s skill to the game, for sure, but it’s more mental than anything else. For example, statistics have shown that women tend to start off a game with scissors and men tend to start with rock. Know your opponent and you could be a $50,000 winner like Sean Sears, who beat more than 300 contestants at Mandalay Bay last year. If that’s not your cup of tea, there are plenty of other tournaments to participate in: there’s the National Xtreme RPS Competition, the UK RPS Championship and the World Series of RPS.

People using Search the Collections… will find images of more than 100,000 objects… The online records vary from detailed studies written by curators to more basic inventory information which might include the maker, provenance, production technique and style… Users explore the site by clicking on images that scroll across the screen or by accessing the powerful search engine that identifies objects by type, maker, date, material or location in the V&A. Google maps show places of origin. Text mining technologies also allow searching of all the text associated with an object so for the first time researchers are able to move from one theme to another.

The example shown above is a board game from 1804 – “The New Game of Emulation Designed for The Amusement of Youth of both Sexes and calculated to inspire their Minds with an abhorrence of vice and a love of virtue.”  It was marketed as a morality game designed to lead children “to admire and adopt the virtues of Obedience, Truth, Honesty, Gentleness, Industry, Frugality, Forgiveness, Carefulness, Mercy, and Humility; and to view in their real colours the opposite vices of Obstinacy, Falsehood, Robbery, Passion, Sloth, Intemperance, Malice, Neglect, Cruelty and Pride.”  It is one of hundreds of games in the “games” category of the online collection.

Link, via.

You may have to lose once to figure out how the game Drench works, but then it’s a lot of fun! Select your next color to make your paint splotch bigger, and try to cover the entire floor in paint. You only have a certain number of moves for each level. Link -via Metafilter

People often blanche at the thought of playing a board game, but that’s because they have only been exposed to the old "classics" that really aren’t worthy of the title due to poor rulesets that promote luck over skill. Here are 15 games that are probably superior to the old standbys like Monopoly, including Last Night on Earth, a zombie thriller:

Last Night on Earth is essentially a survival game. Participants can play as either the “Hero” team or the “Zombie” team. The objective is for one team to complete their “scenario objective”, thus defeating the opposite team. The game is designed to have a horror movie feel, and even comes with it’s own soundtrack!

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by redsfaithful.

As Tetris turns 25 this week, the Geeks are sexy blog compiled a list of ten interesting facts you probably didn’t know about the game.

1- The game was completed on June 6th 1984 by Alexander Pajitnov, a programmer at the Moscow Academy of Sciences who worked on the game in his spare time [...]

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geeksaresexy.

Link via JayIsGames

Link via JayIsGames

It usually works out for the best, but on the days it doesn’t, you can always vent your frustration with the Ultimate Vending Machine Challenge from Adult Swim.

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Here's a playable Guitar Hero Textadventure where you write about pressing red and blue buttons when you read about falling red and blue circles. Hilarious and based on this fun image at b3ta. When you fail at writing "press red button" when reading "red circle falling" you will be trampled to death by the crowd.

Your utter failure to mimic a series of colored circles enrages the crowd, who storm the stage. Chaos ensues as someone grabs the guitar out of your hands and beats you over the head with it, knocking you unconscious. Your prone body is trampled to death by the enraged audience.

Link - via nerdcore

From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by Nerdcore.

Every inch of Marvins Marvelous Mechanical Museum's 5500 square feet of floor space with 40 foot ceilings containing an array of buzzing and clattering new and vintage mechanical devices and oddities. Overhead dangle signs, animatronic dummies, over 50 airplane models gliding along a steel rail, vintage fans of all types, and classic sideshow posters. Marvin himself travels the world looking for odd coin operated devices, both new and old. Some of his machines are custom made just for him, and can not be seen in operation anywhere else. Marvin's is also listed in the World Almanac's 100 most unusual museums in the U.S.

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From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by Luci.

Link via Jayisgames (with a walkthrough in case you get stuck)

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If you’ve ever wanted to make your own adorable character from Little Big Planet, here’s your chance to knit your own. If you’re really good, you can even customize them like you do in the game.

Link Via Craftzine

Link via Jayisgames (Hint: the Jayisgames link has a walkthrough if you get really stuck)

Monopoly

• For some reason, I always thought the Monopoly guy was Uncle Moneybags. Nope. But “proper” names for him include Rich Uncle Pennybags, Milburn Pennybags and Mr. Monopoly (his most recent name). Some sources say he’s loosely based on J.P. Morgan.
• Marvin Gardens is actually a misspelling of Marven Gardens, a housing area in Margate City, N.J. In fact, all of the properties on the “classic” Monopoly board are named after places or streets near or in Atlantic City, N.J.
• In the London version of the game, Trafalgar Square is a red property, Piccadilly is yellow, Regent, Oxford and Bond Streets are green and the blue properties are Mayfair and Park Lane. The railroads are replaced by Underground stops (King’s Cross, Marylebone, Fenchurch Street Station and Liverpool Street Station).
• Neiman Marcus once sold an all-chocolate edition. The whole set, including dice, money, hotels and board, was edible.
• F.A.O. Schwarz in NYC sold a $100,000 version, which included 18-carat game pieces, a rosewood board, real money, street names written in gold leaf and various gems scattered across the board.
• The most expensive board even made is a set worth $2 million It’s made of 23-carat gold and has rubies and sapphires embedded in the top of each house and hotel.
• Various versions of Monopoly include Batman, ESPN, Family Guy, American Idol, Nintendo, Sephora, and, honestly, just about any other version you can possibly think of.

Clue

What we in North America know as Clue, the rest of the world knows as Cluedo. Would you believe that it was invented by a part-time clown? Totally true. Anthony E. Pratt invented the game in England and it was published for the first time in 1949 by a British company. Bought by Parker Brothers, the U.S. version came out the same year.

• The dead dude is known as Mr. Boddy in North America, but he’s Dr. Black everywhere else. Also, Mr. Green is apparently alias Reverend Green in some parts of the world.
• Also, some of the Clue characters have little-known first names. They are: Colonel Michael Mustard, Miss Josephine Scarlet, Professor Peter Plum, Reverend/Mr. John Green, Mrs. Blanche White and Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock.
• Characters used in other or deluxe versions of Clue include Miss Peach (not to be confused with Princess Peach), Lady Lavender, Prince Azure, Rusty Naylor and Captain Brown.
• The original nine weapons were axe, shillelagh, bomb, rope, dagger, pistol, syringe, poison and poker.

The Game of Life

Life has been around since 1861… not in the format we recognize today, of course. Milton Bradley himself invented “The Checkered Game of Life” when his lithography business started to go down the tubes (his major product was a portrait of clean-shaven Lincoln… when Lincoln grew the beard, Bradley went out of business).
He had actually been circulating the game on a smaller scale before his clean-shaven Lincoln lithograph took off, but he abandoned it once demand for his lithograph increased. After that plummeted, he focused more attention on marketing and ended up selling more than 40,000 games in 1861 alone – no small feat for that time period!

• Milton Bradley used a spinner to count the number of spaces people could move because dice were associated with gambing.
• In the original Checkered Game of Life, landing on the “Suicide” square put people out of the game completely. Obviously.
• Other squares on the original game board included Prison, Infancy, Ruin, Gambling, Disgrace, Honesty, Truth, Cupid, Industry and “Happy Old Age” (the goal of the game).
• One interesting variant (among many) is The Game of Redneck Life. Careers include Mullet Salon Operator and Monster Truck Announcer. The goal of the game is to get out with as many teeth as you can – through the various fights and brawls you get into over the course of the game, this can prove to be pretty challenging. I’m dead serious.

Scrabble

Scrabble came about in 1939 when architect Alfred Mosher Butts modified a game he had been working on earlier – Lexiko. At first he called it Criss-Crosswords and based the values of the letters on based on letter usages from the New York Times (and other reputable sources). In 1948, he allowed James Brunot to manufacture the game as long as he got a cut of each board sold… which wasn’t much, at first. They actually lost money the first year they produced it. Legend goes, though, that the President of Macy’s played the game while on vacation and, upon his return to work, was shocked that his store didn’t carry it. When they did start to carry it, sales skyrocketed.

• There are 96 two-letter words that are “legal” in Scrabble… including 10 that are spelled with vowels only. I’m so learning those.
• A typical Scrabble board has 225 squares.
• The highest known score for a single word in competition Scrabble is 392. In 1982, Dr. Saladin Khoshnaw achieved this score for the word “caziques,” which means “Indian chief.”
• The highest possible score a player can get in Scrabble on a first turn is for the word MUZJIKS (128 points).

I realize there’s tons of beloved board games I’ve missed, so maybe I’ll turn this into a series… a three-parter, or something. Sorry!, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Risk, Trivial Pursuit. Lots of options. Have one you’d like to read about? Leave it in the comments and maybe I’ll add it to the list!

“Zwing” your ball around using the mouse, smashing all the black balls of screen. The aim is to protect the white ball in the centre at all times. If the white ball leaves the boundary, the game’s over. Every 10 levels, you’ll face a boss that you have to continually hit until he runs out of health and goes off screen.

As you hit each ball out of the screen, you gain experience points (xp). The harder you hit the ball, the more xp you collect.

Source: Kabomb

For fans of point’n'click puzzle games, “Guest House” has a different twist to it with strange contraptions, Egyptian hieroglyphics and interesting music. More games of the genre can also be found at Lazylaces with “Rental House” and “Terminal House”.

Source: Lazylaces