Doki Doki Panic and Hammerspace

I went from Slashdot to an article on similarities between Mario Bros. 2 and Doki Doki Panic. This made me laugh.

bom.PNG

BOM
You’ll recall that when a bomb explodes in Mario 2, the explosion reads “BOMB,” just so there isn’t any confusion as to what just exploded. In Doki Doki Panic, the explosion reads “BOM,” which is both more Japanese & more fun to say. BOM!

Then I read comments about how the characters pull stuff out of nowhere, and read Wikipedia’s funny article about Hammerspace (well, it’s a funny topic, so its humor can’t be easily avoided).

This [Hammerspace] explains why a game character wielding a sword bigger than himself does not appear to be carrying one until he actually enters combat, why Everquest characters can carry up to eight backpacks and have none of them visible, etc. In fact, Hammerspace is prevalent in First-person shooters, where protagonists often have implausible carrying capacities.

Oscar the Grouch’s garbage can on the television program Sesame Street holds seemingly impossible items like a swimming pool, Oscar’s pet elephant, a hippopotamus and the like.

In Charles Schultz’s Peanuts, Snoopy’s dog house is apparently significantly larger than it should be, given its appearance of around four feet wide. He is capable of storing televisions, pool tables, paintings, Christmas decorations, seemingly anything he wants.

It’s clear that the Hammerspace laws of physics are fairly peculiar. This can be observed in, for example, the way that many Final Fantasy heroes are able to carry 99 Potions and 99 Hi-Potions with no trouble, but have no room to carry a 100th Potion no matter how many other items they have.

One Response to “Doki Doki Panic and Hammerspace”

  1. katy says:

    Reminds me of what we were talking about, Agent 13 in my favorite show Get Smart. Agent 13 shows up everywhere – inside the mailbox, in the couch, inside a small safe, kitchen cabinet. I am laughing thinking about it!!

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