Damien Monnier originally designed Gwent in secret. The competitive card game has long been a part of The Witcher's fiction — the RPG franchise is based on a series of Polish fantasy novels — and Monnier wanted to create a version of the game that would be playable as a side activity in the sprawling Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The problem was that he was already busy making the third installment of the video game.

So he created a prototype in his spare time, and then brought it to the CD Projekt Red office to show his colleagues. If someone enjoyed the game after playing a match, Monnier would try to recruit them to join his after-hours Gwent-making team; eventually the group included concept artists, marketing designers, and even a producer...

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Starting with iOS 10, Apple will be giving iPhone and iPad owners more control than over the software that's installed on iOS devices. For the first time ever, you'll be able to delete the company's built-in apps (Maps, Calculator, Music, Videos, Compass, Tips, Calculator, Music, etc.) and download them again later. All of the major iOS apps are now visible within the App Store, and they've each got fleshed out descriptions and screenshots.

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Advisor said it's up to him to make sure Reddit doesn't call them out

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The Thinking Machine, by Martin Wattenberg and Marek Walczak, shows you the thought process of a computer trying to win at chess. There have been several iterations that date back to 2002, but the most recent iteration was built for modern browsers and you can play against the computer.

Tags: chess, Martin Wattenberg

Since 2006, we’ve had enough horror remakes and sequels to last a century. But we’ve actually had some terrifying new entries into the genre, too. As we await the likes of Lights Out and The Woods—both rumored to be nightmare-inducing—later this year, there’s no better time than to look back at what’s scared us the most in the past decade.

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A fun one from Interactive Things that shows cover songs with a galaxy metaphor:

The panorama view shows the 50 top songs as individual planetary systems with the original work as the sun. Each planet represents a version of the song and it’s appearance indicates characteristics including genre, popularity, tempo, valence, energy, and speechiness. The radius of its orbit around the sun shows the years between the publication dates. This view allows you to compare the structure and density of the constellation of different songs from a high-level perspective.

Tags: Interactive Things, music