Games: Kern and Shape Type

via very short list
Here are super-simple, totally addictive design-minded web games called Kern Type and Shape Type. Shape Type shows you ten letters per game, and you adjust each one, trying to get the curves to match up as neatly as possible with the ones the original font-maker designed. It takes just a few seconds (a minute or two at most) to play each individual letter. But don’t be surprised if an hour goes by…
Play Shape Type here, Kern Type here. 

Connecting the Dots

via savage chickens
This just makes me smile!

New York Public Library’s ‘Find The Future’

via the morning news
“As some Christians prepared for the Apocalypse, Elizabeth Kiem and 499 questers spent Friday night locked inside the New York Public Library with game designer Jane McGonigal…”
Read the rest here.

Rock-Paper-Scissors: You vs. the Computer

My results playing 13 rounds this morning

via nytimes

“Computers mimic human reasoning by building on simple rules and statistical averages. Test your strategy against the computer in this rock-paper-scissors game illustrating basic artificial intelligence. Choose from two different modes: novice, where the computer learns to play from scratch, and veteran, where the computer pits over 200,000 rounds of previous experience against you.”


Play it here.  Now I wonder how the computer would do playing Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock?

Original patents for famous toys

via retronaut


Patent for Etch-A-Sketch, September 1962. Go to this link to see the patents for Monopoly, Slinky, Lego, Barbie, and others.