Meet Cardle, the Newest Way to Waste Time Online

You’re no doubt familiar by now with Wordle, the easy to learn yet often challenging to win word game that caught fire online, figuratively speaking, a while back.

Or maybe you’ve played a game that’s based on Wordle but focuses on one topic, like Gordle (hockey players) or Canada (Canuckle).

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QOTD: The Games People Play?

There was a minor flap on the internet (Twitter — where else?) the other day in which a few racing drivers were slagging online racing for some reason or another. It is true that there have been several examples of someone making the jump from PlayStation to an actual car … but it is also true that one does not feel the heat, G forces, and barrage of noise like one would in a real race.

This debate will not be solved any time soon, and will likely still be raging after the coronavirus consumes us all. Our question of the day is simply this: what title was your first experience with a racing game?

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QOTD: Road Trip Games?

This past May long weekend was the unofficial start of summer for a good many gearheads. With cold temperatures and misery falling from the sky (mostly) behind us, it’s time for car shows, warm breezes, and — of course — road trips.

Kids and families have no shortage of attention diverting options these days, what with various tablets and devices approaching commodity-grade prices. But come on — surely someone out there still plays traditional road trip games, right? Right? Hello?

Where’d everyone go?

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Revisiting Lake Wakatonka: Looking Back at Ford's Driving Simulation Software

In 1987, Ford Motor Company published a game for the long-defunct disk operating system universally known as “DOS.” In reality, the software was less of a game and more of a digital showroom that allowed you to demo the company’s 1988 lineup from the comfort of your personal computer. As marketing materials go, you couldn’t have done much better than this for the era, and now it’s a top-rate piece of automotive nostalgia.

Ford Simulator was essentially the car-based equivalent to the CDs distributed by America Online, but before such a thing even existed. The software just had a way of casually showing up and finding its way into your computer room. This was an era when promotional materials were physical and technology had reached a point where the industry could experiment a little.

Tragically, the internet has eliminated this phenomenon like a dog with rabies. You don’t see much physical media at automotive trade shows anymore and any games that include branded models come through publishers that are able to work out a deal with automakers.

However, for almost 10 years, Ford produced a series of computer programs many of us remember fondly — despite being objectively terrible to play.

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Bored On a Long Road Trip? Bad Car Bingo!

I’ve played many a game of Buzzword Bingo with equally bored coworkers while stuck in 19-hour PowerPoint presentations, back when I slaved as a tech writer in the software biz. Why not apply this concept to a bingo game for car freaks trapped in a boring rental car on a road trip across one of those states that’s nothing but cornfields?

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  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.