Electronic Games Archive

On a snowy winter day in January 2024 at The Strong National Museum of Play, I read about the far-off land of Hyrule, inhabited by fiery dragons, rock-monster-people, and evil twin-sister witches. I pored over issues of Weekly Famitsu, the most popular Japanese gaming magazine, looking at their coverage of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. On page 89 of issue no. 507, I see the heading 謎の少年の正体が明らかにされる? (roughly: “Will the identity of the mysterious boy be revealed?”), with […]

Continue Reading about Contact Moments with Japanese Game Magazines at The Strong Museum Published on:
August 1, 2024

Game developer Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption (2010) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) introduced millions of people to an immersive digital world populated by Western gunfighters and outlaws. But these extraordinarily popular games are part of a longer history of video game Westerns that emerged in the 1970s, and drew on the mythic West portrayed in stories, films, television shows, and playthings. The evolution of the video game genre follows closely the development of the game industry itself from the […]

Continue Reading about Gunfighter Gaming: A History of the Video Game Western Part I (1971 to 1979) Published on:
July 3, 2024

What does it mean to preserve the history of video games? This is something I thought about a lot when I started this work at The Strong National Museum of Play in 2006. My training in fields such as the history of the book and history of science convinced me that among the materials that needed to be preserved were not just the games themselves but also the work of the creators who made them. To that end we began […]

Continue Reading about Bruce Shelley Papers at The Strong Published on:
June 7, 2024

On the exhibit floor of The Strong National Museum of Play, somewhere between the Pinball Playfield and Sesame Street exhibits, there is a quote by Diane Ackerman: “Play is our brain’s favorite way of learning.” This quote resonates deeply with me as a Cognitive Neuroscientist interested in the relationships between brain and behaviour, as well as the numerous ways in which games and science interact. For one very special week in October 2023, I was fortunate to visit The Strong […]

Continue Reading about Stimulus Correspondences and Game Design: The Complex Case of Simple Simon Published on:
May 23, 2024

While SEGA fans are likely familiar with the company’s arcade hit Galaxy Force, developer Tengen once had a game in development with a very similar name: Galactic Force. Despite being nearly complete, it would ultimately be cancelled. This episode of Game Saves looks at the game’s development timeline, from a very early test build to a version that is nearly finished, complete with a new name.

Continue Reading about Game Saves: Galactic Force Published on:
March 27, 2024

A proverb in the Bible states, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” 
There’s sound wisdom in this, as anyone knows who has felt better after laughing uproariously at a silly pet video. Play is not necessarily a panacea, but it is good medicine, a way of introducing fun into life and making it a little more bearable along the way. Because of these beneficial qualities of play, it is not surprising that over […]

Continue Reading about Play is the Best Medicine Published on:
February 23, 2024

Nature always strives for balance. While at times it may be fragile, there are ecosystems all around us that are evidence of this fact. Even in our own lives, we naturally strive for a state of equilibrium. We’re tired, so we sleep. We’re hungry, so we eat. We’re stressed . . . so we play.
The past few years have certainly had their share of stresses, from civil unrest to economic woes and, oh yeah, a global pandemic. It’s more important […]

Continue Reading about The More Things Change. . . Published on:
February 8, 2024

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee….
There was something particularly playful about Muhammad Ali, the boxer who rivaled Pele as the most famous worldwide sports celebrity of the 20th century. But whereas Pele was known for his quiet dignity and his sheer enthusiasm for the beautiful game of soccer, Ali was not only the greatest boxer of his era, he was also a genius of repartee, someone who played with the media like he played with his (usually) helpless […]

Continue Reading about Muhammad Ali, Champion of Play Published on:
October 6, 2023

In 1981, Commodore introduced the Vic 20 home computer, which sold for around $300. The first computer more easily afforded by average families, it revolutionized home computing. Scott Elder and his brother Gary were tinkering with games—and programming them—on their own simple computer, an Ohio Scientific 2P, which they bought secondhand. Scott admits he was not the best student in high school, but somehow, he had a talent for writing code. As soon as the Vic 20 came out, he […]

Continue Reading about Home Video Games from the Dawn of Time: Nüfekop for the Vic 20 Published on:
September 28, 2023