Page 211 - Inventions - A Visual Encyclopedia (DK - Smithsonian)

Construction games

■ ■ What? LEGO® Bricks which allowed children to build models,
The bricks and ■ ■ Who? Godtfred Kirk Christiansen such as a space rocket, a medieval castle,
plates lock together ■ ■ Where and when? Denmark, 1958 or an entire town. With just a few LEGO
with studs. bricks, there are almost infinite building
In 1958, the Danish company, LEGO
Group, took out the patent for a new possibilities—six classic 2x4 LEGO bricks
type of interlocking plastic bricks— can be combined in more than 915
the now iconic LEGO® Brick. million different ways.
Twenty years later, the company
introduced themed building sets,

◀ RED DRAGON AT HOME
The bricks in this LEGO® Creator:
Red Animals set can be used not
only to build this fire-breathing
dragon but also to make a snake
or a scorpion.
Flame-shaped LEGO®
pieces are used for the
dragon’s fiery breath.

Role-playing games (RPGs) Playing against computers

■ ■ What? Dungeons & Dragons ■ ■ What? AlphaGo
■ ■ Who? Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson ■ ■ Who? Google DeepMind
■ ■ Where and when? US, 1974 ■ ■ Where and when? UK, 2014
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a fantasy- Computers that play complicated board
themed, role-playing game. During the games, such as chess, have been around
game, players take on the role of a since the 1960s. Over time, they have
character, such as a warrior or a wizard, become more powerful. In 2014, the British
for an adventure that can take days, or company DeepMind (owned by Google)
weeks, to complete. Each action is decided developed a program to play the ancient
by rolling a multisided die—from four- to Chinese game of Go. Called AlphaGo, the
20-sided. The release of D&D inspired program has defeated many of the world’s
a host of similar role-playing games. 3-D games top Go players.

■ ■ What? Rubik’s cube
Called D20, ■ ■ Who? Erno Rubik
this die has ■ Where and when? Hungary, 1974
20 sides. ■
Invented by a Hungarian professor of
architecture, this multicolored cube can
be twisted in an almost endless number
of variations. To be “solved,” the cube
must be untwisted so that each side
shows only one color. With more than
The seven 350 million sold, it is the best-selling AlphaGo beats the world’s top Go
D&D dice puzzle game of all time. player, Ke Jie, in China, 2017
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