Waipukurau is the largest town in the Central Hawke’s Bay District on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It’s my home town. In a notice in a 1878 issue of the Māori-language newspaper ‘Te Wānanga’ – passengers were warned against playing cards on the Napier–Waipukurau line, reminding them that it was […]
DID YOU KNOW Long before the days of Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or Commando a 1975 arcade-shooter game called ‘Gun Fight’ was the first video game to depict a human-on-human shoot ’em up. Known as ‘Western Gun’ in Japan, ‘Gun Fight’ featured two players facing off in an old-fashioned western-style duel.
The term ‘Joker’ has its origins in the germanic spelling of Euchre (Juker or Juckerspiel). Around 1860 the Joker card evolved in Euchre to replace the blank card being used as the ‘best bower’ or highest trump card.
Not only was it the first graphical adventure video game but Atari’s ‘Adventure‘ was also the first to feature an ‘Easter egg’ (a purposely hidden secret in a game) that could be discovered by players. The back story is that Atari wouldn’t give game designers public credit for their work.
DID YOU KNOW A wash aka the Corgi shuffle or a scramble is often made at the beginning of a card game when the deck is still in the order it was packaged in. Washing is done so everyone (players and dealer alike) are satisfied that they’re about to play in a fair game.
