We’ve recently opened Skyline Climb, a high adventure ropes course that soars high in our cathedral-like glass atrium. Physical play like this is important, not only as part of the museum experience here at The Strong but as a contributor to well-being in general, especially for children. This attraction offers guests more than just the opportunity to test their agility and balance; it also is a playground for building resolve, courage, and confidence. Asking guests to navigate narrow beams at […]
Can a Computer Blunder?
“To err is human, to forgive divine” — Alexander Pope
Somebody had blundered. It’s a truism of most organizations and most human initiatives. It’s especially true in wartime. Alfred Lord Tennyson stamped the phrase indelibly into the English language in his poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”: Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and […]
Quack. Moo. Oink. Play.
All animals are funny, but some animals are funnier than others.
Aside from being a somewhat obvious riff (a polite way of saying “rip-off”) on George Orwell’s famously cynical line from Animal Farm, I do think there’s some truth to this statement.
In recent years, for example, there have been plenty of video games that have used animals as characters. Often, like in Sonic the Hedgehog or Animal Crossing, they’re somewhat anthropomorphized—animal characters doing typical human things like farming or running and […]
Play Adores a Vacuum
One of the great challenges for play scholars or anyone thinking seriously about play is discerning when something is playful and when it is not. As circumstances change, boundaries shift, or meanings alter, the same action may be playful or not be playful, the same object may be a plaything or not a plaything. Play can be an elusive quarry, just when we think we have it pinned down it escapes our grasp, and when we may not even […]
Reflections on the World Video Game Hall of Fame Class of 2021
Every year we induct new games into the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and in 2021 those games are Animal Crossing (2001), Microsoft Flight Simulator (1982), Starcraft (1998), and Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? (1985). These are all worthy games, ones that stand out from their peers because they have shaped the way we play. They are important.
But is there a connection between them, a commonality among a flying program, a simulation of a community […]
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The Play of Fortune
Is our destiny in our hands, in God’s hands, or are we merely tossed on the winds of chance?
Those deep questions of causality and chance have long preoccupied philosophers and thinkers, and I was reminded of them a while ago when reading a book about 17th-century Puritan belief. This followed a conversation I had with a researcher at The Strong who was interested in the links between popular understandings of quantum mechanics and thinking about play. “God doesn’t play dice,” […]
Hunting for Treasure
Who doesn’t love a good treasure hunt?
Whether we’re children or adults, there’s something irresistible about following a trail of clues (a map makes it easier and more fun) to some hidden cache that promises untold riches. Most often treasure hunts live only in the world of fiction—Treasure Island with its memorable characters Long John Silver, Jim Hawkins, Billy Bones, and Captain Flint—set the mold that has been imitated by countless books and movies such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, […]
Pickleball, Rules, and the Spirit of the Game
Recently I was engaged in a heated match of pickleball. For those not familiar with the game, imagine it as a cross between tennis and ping-pong, played on a court about half the size of a tennis court with solid wood rackets and a perforated ball sort of like a Wiffle ball but with holes all over the sphere. Pickleball itself was invented in Washington State in the 1960s and in recent years has gained enormously in popularity, evidenced by […]
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What was the first video game?
One of the most frequently asked questions about video game history is perhaps the simplest: what was the first video game? It’s a logical question to ask. After all, we’re always curious about these questions of primacy. Who was the first man on the moon? Neil Armstrong. Who was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic? Amelia Earhart. Who was the first person to climb Mount Everest? Well, in this case it was actually two people: Sir Edmund Hillary […]