The Rolls-Royce of Jigsaw Puzzles
Nicolas Ricketts
America’s Favorite Game and Success Story: Uno!
Have you played Uno?
Scooby Doo as Colonel Mustard in the Graveyard: Licensed Clue Games
Today people find themselves bombarded with ideas, images, and characters from every kind of media.
What Makes a Game Classic? My Buddy Plays Mahjong
What makes a game classic? Part of the answer is longevity. Most people consider chess classic; we’ve played it for centuries. What about playing cards? Woodblock-printed cards appeared during China’s Tang dynasty (618–907), while written rules for card games were first seen in15th-century Europe. Another characteristic of classic games is continued popularity. Games such as Monopoly in the 1930s and Scrabble during the 1950s broke sales records at first. But they continued to sell in the years that followed and do so today.
Rare! Weird! Collectible! A Great Donation of Board Games
The Strong’s board game collection is unique in all the world. Unlike specialized collectors, the museum thinks broadly about what it acquires, striving to represent both ancient and modern examples, simple games and complex ones, and extremely typical editions and rare versions for the varieties of play they represent, as well as the cultures that inspired them. So I was delighted earlier this year when Don Lyon of Binghamton, New York, offered the museum the opportunity to select from his collection of board games dating from about 1950 to 2000.
Dungeons & Dragons: Innovative Role-playing Game Merits Hall of Fame Induction
In the 1970s, a group of gaming friends added the concept of role-playing to the previously straightforward play of war games. Gamers Gary Gygax and his associate Jeff Perrin published instructions for Chainmail, a medieval war game, in 1971. This game differed from all other published war games by including a fantasy supplement based in part on the increased cultural interest in the works of fantasy authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard, author of the Conan series.
Sid Sackson: Game Player and Designer
The Strong not only collects playthings, but also acquires significant material related to the invention, manufacture, and use of those playthings. One of the museum’s treasures is the collection of games, game prototypes, and archives from noted American game inventor and historian, Sid Sackson. Sackson (1920–2002) is revered among inventors, collectors, and serious players for his lifelong dedication to games and the gaming world.
