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Microsoft’s Retro Windows 1.11 App is a ‘Stranger Things 3’ Tie-In Complete With Puzzles and Mini-Games
There’s been plenty of appropriate marketing for Stranger Things 3 from New Coke, to a retro-inspired video game, but this is perhaps the best one yet.
Microsoft teased something to do with Windows 1.0 before Stranger Things 3 arrived (and was a resounding triumph), and it turns out that it became a special free Windows 1.11 app that surprisingly is actually a Stranger Things Upside-Down version of the 1985 operating system, which is the year Stranger Things 3 is set.
In it, you must solve puzzles and beat mini-games (including one where you must keep a station wagon ahead of a looming monster) in order to save the town from the shadowy Upside-Down. Each time you win you’re rewarded with a little clip from the show (which are fairly general, so not too spoilery if you haven’t caught up yet) and Easter Eggs.
As Windows OS back then was mouse-operated, this particular trip to the past is a pretty painless experience for modern users, although there’s no scroll function. Who truly cares when you can play a mini-game as a diddy Steve Harrington, wielding hairspray against Russian spies?
You can download the app for free and save Hawkins, Indiana for yourself by heading to the Microsoft app store. Though please note it only works with Windows 10.
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, but it was a cheerful illustrator from England who helped to define the terrifying war-torn imagery that inspired what we now know as Grimdark (a hybrid genre combining horror with sci-fi/fantasy).
Unfortunately for fans of Warhammer 40,000, Trench Crusade and countless other sources of Grimdark thrills, veteran artist John Blanche passed away this week after struggling with health issues for the past few years.
While the artist retired back in 2023, he leaves us with an enormous legacy of iconic artwork that continues to inspire gamers and storytellers around the world to this very day.
The news is especially gloomy as it was only last year that Daniel Lowman and Napoleon Dynamite himself Jon Heder released The Grim & the Dark: The Search for John Blanche, a documentary following Heder’s exploration of the Grimdark genre culminating in a heartwarming encounter with Blanche in his own home.
Below is one of my favorite pieces by Blanche, his highly influential depiction of Warhammer 40k’s God-Emperor of Mankind on his Golden Throne.
We send our deepest condolences to John Blanche’s family, friends, and fans.
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