Get your game on

by Sara Distin

Make

Infinite Arcade is ready to play!

Inspired by classic games we love, our 10th app lets kids make and play their own video games (download it on the App Store.)

Kids can pick a classic game to build on and just start creating and playing (according to WIRED, “Infinite Arcade makes it dead simple to make your own video games”) with disco bricks, zombies, trampoline tiles, and so many more components.

But for everyone who wants to know exactly what a disco brick is or why you might choose a trampoline tile instead of an oil slick, or how you can win a pinball game or lose a platformer game, we created the Infinite Arcade Manual.

Infinite Arcade Manual Cover Tinybop

Download it in your app or here for free in English, Deutsch, Español, Français, 日本語, and 简体中文. The manual is full of hints and tips about basic game structure, uses for components, controls, and different terrain types, and behaviors of characters and enemies. And more! But there are no spoilers! The manual only covers the basics of one game world, so there's lots more for you to discover as you create and play. Hop to it!

Related:
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Bonus curios: a friendship blooms between bloodroots & ants

by Tina Lee

Plants need to spread their seeds to reproduce. To get the job done on the forest floor, the bloodroot wildflower—which oozes toxic, blood-red sap—has a novel partner: ants. A bloodroot seed’s outer coat comes with a fleshy nub called an elaiosome, which attracts ants. Worker ants cart seeds back to their nest, gorge on the flesh, and pile the still-intact seeds in the colony’s “trash room,” aka rich dirt prime for new bloodroots come spring.

This process, in which ants eat and disperse seeds, even has a name. It’s a mouthful: myrmecochory, based on the Greek word for ants, myrmeco.

An interactive diorama of the earth’s biomes, Plants brims with secrets and surprises—we’ve even made a handbook of hints and fun facts for you and your kids. In these posts, we’ll peer into the sometimes-strange truths behind the worlds in our apps.

Read more…
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