Are you feeling a bit nostalgic for the days of Zork and other classic text adventure games? If so, then Google has you covered with an Easter egg embedded in its website. A Reddit user discovered that searching for a particular phrase on the site and then accessing the developer console in your browser presents an option to begin a text-based quest. Best of all, in true 1980s fashion, the console starts off by asking, “Would you like to play a game?”
To access the text-based adventure game, head to Google in your favorite web browser, and search for the phrase “text adventure.” Once the search results page is displayed, open your browser’s developer console. If you are using Google’s Chrome web browser, you can access the developer tool by heading to the View menu, selecting Developer, and then Javascript Console.
Once you have acknowledged that you would indeed like to play a game, you are thrown into a world of text-based fun. Your adventure begins with you playing as the Google logo, although you aren’t quite yourself as you are missing the majority of your letters. Finding yourself inside a building, you must navigate the world and seek out your missing letters.
If you never played a text adventure game before, take the time to enjoy Google’s blast from the past. From a time when graphics weren’t yet able to stand up to the challenge, gamers played interactive stories in text consoles, using their imaginations to dive deep into mystical worlds. With the latest gaming graphics being continuously touted as essential for complete immersion, text-adventure games are a fun way to remember that a game’s story is just as important.
The Google Easter egg itself doesn’t seem to be available on international sites, so if you want to give the text adventure a try, be sure to head to Google.com and not one of its global variations. Some speculation has lead players to guess that the setting the game is set within is Google’s Mountain View, California, campus and the surrounding area. Additionally, those who have completed the game say it takes anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes.
We’re not sure how long Google intends to keep the Easter egg in its site code, so be sure to head on over and have some fun, just in case time is limited.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.