What are your thoughts about amphibians? Maybe that segment of the animal world hasn’t crossed your mind recently, but I’ve been noticing a surprising number of frogs around The Strong museum’s collection. Frogs have been cropping up in children’s stories for centuries now, from “The Frog Prince,” a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 to more recent books, such as Arnold Lobel’s story Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970), which offers readers a couple […]
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Steve Epstein and The Broadway Arcade
The history of coin-operated games often focuses on the stories of big companies, savvy executives, talented game designers, and iconic games. But that is hardly the full story. As my colleague JP Dyson reminds us, where we play matters. That’s one reason why I was so delighted to work with the family of Steve Epstein (1948–2020) to preserve a collection of materials related to his career, including his work to turn The Broadway Arcade in New York City into a […]
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All Work and No Play? Fun in the Workplace
Employees at The Strong are fortunate to work in a place that encourages a fun and playful environment. It’s in our mission statement: “Through play, we encourage learning, nurture creativity, promote discovery, and transform the lives of people of all ages.” This applies not only to our approach to the visitor experience, but also to ourselves as we work.
As a member of the Collections team, I get to test games in the Infinity Arcade exhibit once a month before the […]
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The Same Game, Twice
If you were to replace the original raster monitor on a vintage Pac-Man arcade game with a modern LCD display, would it still be the same game?
That’s the sort of choice we often must consider as we care for the hundreds of coin-operated games in our collection at The Strong, and while the answer is rarely straightforward, the process of thinking it through is instructive as to the larger question of how you preserve a video game, especially arcade games.
A […]
Game Show Gifts
By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History
This month’s column isn’t so much for game show lovers as it is for the people who shop for them. Because of their love of game shows, fans of the genre have impossibly high expectations when it comes to “fabulous merchandise,” and that makes holiday shopping difficult. So, for those of you who have a game show fan on your gift-buying list, here’s a handy little guide to […]
Family Ties: A Short Story of Brøderbund
By Justin Schofield, Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow at The Strong National Museum of Play
Growing up, my brother and I played a computer game called Just Grandma and Me, a virtual book that reads to you and allows you to interact with the illustrations. I used to scramble off the bus to boot it up after school, and my brother and I listened to it together countless times.
At the time, I didn’t think of Just Grandma and Me as educational nor did […]
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Just Like a Nudge: My Hands-On Experience
By: Yan Liu, Collections and Conservation Intern at The Strong National Museum of Play
What does it feel like to intern with the Collections and Conservation Teams at The Strong Museum? For me, it feels like learning how to nudge a pinball machine. In pinball, nudge refers to the subtle bump you give the table to influence the ball’s movement. Before I ever played on a real machine, nudge, in my hazy childhood memories of 3D Pinball Space Cadet, meant tapping […]
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It’s a Hit! Battleship Cruises into the National Toy Hall of Fame
We used to play a lot of Battleship when I’d babysit my little cousin after school. In the game, two players hide ships of various sizes on a grid then take turns announcing coordinates to attack. Since the players begin with no knowledge of their opponent’s formation, most early shots are launched into the open sea. But players mark each missed shot with a white peg, slowly deducing the positions of their targets. It’s only a matter of time until […]
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Nothing Trivial about It
Many of us feel that we have a particular superpower in our everyday lives. For some, it might be detecting the gas station with best price without using an app. For others, it’s finding the prime clothing item on a markdown rack that’s just your size. Back in the 1980s, my special skill was my ability to retain and retrieve all sorts of factual flotsam and jetsam—perfect for excelling at Trivial Pursuit. For a time, Trivial Pursuit became a standard […]