All posts by Beth Anne Boyle

After 20 Years, Mortal Kombat’s Secret Menu Has Been Found

Back in the wild, early days of game programming, designers slipped secret levels, in-jokes and Easter eggs into their games without knowing if anyone would ever appreciate their effort. The controversial classic Mortal Kombat is particularly infamous for secret characters and hidden endings. But those games have been around over 20 years and it seemed like every secret had been found. Until the gang at Cutting Room Floor found a secret menu hidden in the several Mortal Kombat arcade games.
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Explore Philip K. Dick’s Psychedelic Nightmare in Californium

Californium, created by Darjeeling and Nova Productions, is a first-person downloadable game based on the complex, paranoid writings of sci-fi prophet Philip K. Dick. The game begins with you, the player, typing an eerie nursery rhyme to someone named Alice.

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Better Than Ever: 100 Atari Games Coming to Steam

Atari Vault, a bundle of 100 classic Atari games available on Steam for PC, was unveiled to play at PAX East this year. The download includes iconic games like Centipede, Warlords, Mission Control and Asteroids.
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12 Days of MAGFest: Q&A with Pete Rain (You Bred Raptors?)

Hi Pete! So, first of all, tell me about a little about how the band got together.

We’re a three-piece. I play a custom 8-sting bass, we have a cellist and a drummer. Sometimes there’s a glockenspiel. We started in 2010-so that six years now, that makes me feel old. We started out by auditioning for the Music Underground Project in NYC. It’s a program that chooses musicians to play in New York subways. So we play all over New York, in subway stations like Grand Central. Seven drummers and two cellists later, we’re still here.
What’s playing in the subway like?
It’s a big workload. You pack up fifteen pounds of equipment and schlep it up three flights of stairs in all weather. We used to play at Penn Station but that was a lot—no one stops and listens. People are in a hurry at Penn Station, I can’t blame them. But at other spots, people will just hang out with you and miss a few trains just to watch you play. And that’s such a great feeling.
After doing this for so many years I can really tell when performers are outside playing simply for the joy of performance, or when they’re just trying to make a quick buck. And I think the audience can too, on a subconscious level. For me, it’s all about making that connection. I live for it.
How often does You Bred Raptors? play?
We play about 150 shows a year. We’ve been touring a lot in addition to shows in the city. It’s a lot, honestly. We will sell out in a second. I am so ready to move to Japan and do Coke commercials. We’ll do a Tampax commercial, whatever.  Anything. Anytime. If any of your readers call hook it up, just call me!

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