If you don’t have a good PC or a PS5 to play FromSoftware’s latest Souls game, Elden Ring, worry no longer– you can now play a section of the game for free on any kind of computer. 

The only downside (if you call it that), is that the widely-playable version is a Game Boy remake of Elden Ring. Made by Shin and posted on itch.io, the game is turned into a top-down adventure, kind of like playing an old Zelda title. 

Check out the game here!

Image screenshot via Shin /itch.io 

If you don’t have enough funds to build yourself a genuine bat cave in the middle of nowhere, worry not as you can still feel like the rich justice-driven vigilante of Gotham with a mobile version! 

Australian company Bruder has produced a camper trailer inspired by the bat cave featured in popular media. Called the Bruder EXP-4, it can be attached to a vehicle and can handle off-road terrain. It certainly isn’t as big as Batman’s cave, but it can definitely do its job! 

Read more about the camper trailer here. 

Image credit: Bruder 

Next thing we know, these insects will solve algebraic expressions or something. 

Experts have successfully trained bees to actually determine if a number is odd or even, although it’s not as straightforward as you think it will be. The act of identifying these numerals is under the concept of parity classification. Experts have taught these insects to actually associate odd numbers with sugar water until they learned how to categorize properly. 

Learn more about the bee-autiful experiment here! 

Image credit: Pixabay

Decades later after her late husband lost his ring, Ann Kendrick finally found the piece of jewelry while clearing the garden. The 90-year-old Cornwall resident shared that the piece of metal “popped out of the ground” as she pulled some grass. "It didn't look at all like a wedding ring - it looked like a dirty piece of bent metal," she said. "I looked at it and thought 'no, it couldn't be'.” 

Her late husband, who died 22 years ago, was working in the same garden back in 1987 when he lost the ring. Happy about her discovery, Mrs. Kendrick will get the ring repaired and wear it as a necklace in remembrance of her late husband. 

Image credit: Bob Kendrick 

We went from rickrolling a town to actual schools. While the scope definitely got smaller, we can all commend the effort done by a single teenager in hacking a school system. The 14-year-old white-hat hacker caused all schools in the Township Highschool District 214 to play Rick Astley’s 1980s hit “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

Every school projector played the music video. In addition, every speaker in the schools blasted the popular song. The hacker, who goes by the name WhiteHoodHacker explained in a post on their website how they managed to pull the prank. 

Check out more about what he did here!

Image credit:​​ Tom Tran

Meet the Infinity Bike, an award-winning bike designed by Stephen Henrich. The unique thing about this vehicle is that its wheels are missing, and surprisingly enough, can still run without them! The Germany-based designer, robotics engineer, and architect replaced the wheels with a chain element that is propelled by a crank over a short chain and a gearbox, which allows the bike to move. “It’s a bicycle with a frame and something like a fork. So, we have a handlebar, we have a saddle, we have pedals and all that. But apart from that, it’s something completely different,” Henrich explained.

Image courtesy of Stephen Henrich

Even if we are swamped with work and other issues in life, we still get hit with an occasional burst of loneliness. According to a study led by Penn State University, we can combat this feeling by doing something that uses your skills and concentration in your free time. Suggested activities include leisure activities such as painting, writing, and skiing. These will actually put us in a state called “flow,” where we become absorbed and focused. 

Learn more about combating loneliness here. 

Image credit: Sasha Freemind

This player is a legend. Weeks after the release of the latest FromSoftware hit, Elden Ring, players have complained over defeating one of the game’s hardest bosses named Malenia. 

One player has offered their services in helping others to defeat this character. Their presence in the gaming community started with a Reddit post that told of their encounter with a naked, jar-wearing crusader who just wants to slay Malenia by himself. Aptly named “Let Me Solo Her,” the player has garnered the attention of the Internet in just a few hours. 

The mythical-sounding player posted a thread, with a video of them beating Malenia as a summon. This person is now officially an icon, I tell you!

Image credit: FromSoftware 

Well, you’re definitely… contained. 

Meet the ootbox (you  read that right; that is its name), a rentable portable office made of an upcycled shipping container. An American entrepreneur designed and built a prototype of this contraption in his backyard when he had the urge to have a private but nearby place to conduct business. 

The ootbox was a result of his collaboration with business development specialist Allison Zofan. The portable office measures 10 feet long by 8.5 ft high by 8 ft wide (3 by 2.6 by 2.4 m). It also sports a fiberglass door, along with large windows and signage panels. The interior is simple and beautiful, equipped with finished/insulated plywood ceiling and walls, carpeted flooring, motion-activated lighting, and a smart thermostat.

 The ootbox is actually available for rent, with rates starting at $1,000 a month.

Image credit: ootbox

This user has single-handedly saved most of us through his walkthrough maps. StarFighters76 is still creating maps to this day– overall, he has made over 3,700 maps , and helped a lot of people get out of many roadblocks during their playthroughs. 

Creating maps since the early 2000s, this user has made them just in Microsoft Paint, as can be seen by the bright, basic color palettes and thin visible black lines. As to how his creations have helped players, his simple-looking images actually contain legends, arrows, and other instructions that guide players through different games. Learn more about his work here!

Image credit: StarFighters76

This 19-year-old is so cool. Tristan Dare is a bladesmith who has been creating knives for five years. The teenager is known for adding ancient materials to his blades. 

Dare’s latest work, called Nebula, was made from a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite– and it’s exquisite. The bladesmith already has experience with working with this kind of space object, so handling one of the oldest ones ever recorded was a breeze for him. The resulting blade also has opal, gold, and an ancient wooly mammoth tooth as a handle. It’s like a legendary loot you can get from a video game!

Image credit: Tristan Dare 

New game plus (NG+), is a game mechanic that encourages players to replay a game they’ve finished all over again. The plus part is allowing players to retain different things they’ve gained from a previous playthrough, such as levels, stats, items, and more.  

While this sounds easy for developers, it turns out that some games that actually provide a new and fun NG+ experience consider more things in the actual game itself. According to Graeme Lennon, a senior designer at Spearhead Game, aspects of gameplay need to be tested. "It’s rarely as simple as tweaking some numbers for a harder NG+. Wave timings, hit counts, heal rates, etc, all interact and all need to be tested."

Read more about how this mechanic is implemented here!

Image credit: Intelligent Systems/Nintendo via GameWith

Games usually do their best to fully immerse their players into the worlds they’ve built to encourage further gameplay. Some do this by allowing players to make significant choices and allow them to change a few aspects of the narrative. 

Now, this kind of “your choices matter” mechanic is usually hit or miss. Some games just put choices for the sake of mechanically allowing players to pick, but do not actually fully implement the weight of their choices during playtime. Which is sad. 

This horror game, however, makes sure to show the consequences of their choices. Meet Weird West, a top-down immersive sim developed by WolfEye Studios. A simple example of this is how the game gives you expiration dates on quests. But quest deadlines aren’t a new thing, right? 

Well, this game shows you how your choices to fulfill a quest or not affect your traversal in the fictional world of Weird West, as Kotaku’s Sisi Jiang describes, “Sure, I could restore my health by sleeping in a bed, but then I would be off-schedule by eight hours. Or if I took the easy way out of a quest, my reputation could take a hit for unscrupulous behavior, and life-saving supplies would cost more as a result.”

Image credit: Devolver Digital

Experts have uncovered new fossils that suggest a different explanation as to how Neanderthals were wiped off the Earth. Initial theories suggested that it was the Homo sapiens who drove them away, which led to their extinction. 

Thanks to a child’s tooth and some stone tools unearthed in southern France, scientists have discovered that Homo sapiens was in western Europe about 54,000 years ago.

But what does this mean for the Neanderthals? Well, the discovery actually suggests that the two prehistoric species could actually have coexisted for a long period of time.

Read more about the discovery here. 

Image credit: Rob Hope Films

Before the rise of smartphones, people had their own neat little ways to take note of the supplies they needed to replenish their groceries. 

Note-taking is a staple already, of course– but some actually use a grocery list out of metal! Now, how does that work if it can’t be erased? 

Well, the mechanism has an etching of various produce items and other household items on it. Bendable metal tabs are next to each engraving, where one can bend them the other way if they run out of that particular item. 

This is cool, but this list isn’t customizable at all. It’s cute and cool, sure, but I think I prefer taking down my grocery list on my phone!

Image credit: U/DE_ASSET/REDDIT.COM