Like many folks born into musical families, I grew up around people always playing and making music. My family takes seriously the learning benefits of strumming guitars and drumming on pots and pans. But developing an ear for rhythm also helped us create our own fun almost anywhere. Playing with music might be my family’s favorite thing to do; we dive into song parodies, genre trivia, impromptu karaoke battles, operatic renditions of Billboard hits, and more. Our music […]
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Musical Chairs
Mary Valentine
The Strong Museum Trustee
I’ve had a love of music since I was a kid—singing, dancing, listening, playing while listening. Playing while listening? Absolutely. I’m talking about musical chairs. I first played this game at my August birthday party when I was about eight or nine years old. Since I was born in the summer, the parties were held in our backyard, with my dad cooking up hot dogs and hamburgers on a round grill from Sears, Roebuck & Co, […]
Digging for GEM icons in an Atari ST Floppy Disk
In 2018, The Strong embarked on a project to digitize floppy disks using a device called the Kryoflux to capture the data stored on 3.5- and 5.25-inch floppy disks. Reading a floppy disk in the 21st century was the first step necessary to preserve hundreds of floppy disks in The Strong’s archival collections. In some cases, the Kryoflux was a useful tool to capture old games and development materials but, with more than 1,500 floppy disk images in […]
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Michigan in New York
Mary Valentine
The Strong Museum Trustee
When I was a kid, Sundays were my favorite day of the week, because my dad was home (he worked Monday through Saturday) and we got to play the card game Michigan.
Growing up in a small town in New York State’s Hudson Valley, we didn’t have a lot of money for toys and games. My brother and I would amuse ourselves with playing dodge ball in front of our house on Lafayette Avenue or […]
Playing with Almost Nothing
In these days of lockdowns and social distancing, resourcefulness has become a watchword in so many facets of our lives. All of us are working to become a little more adept at making the most of what’s immediately at hand in our homes. Fortunately, when it comes to play, sometimes the primary raw material turns out to be ingenuity—something that doesn’t require a trip to the store or an online purchase.
Thinking back to activities from my childhood, it’s kind of […]
Building a Settlement: German-style Games in North America
January brought the start of a new year and also the start of a new project. I began to inventory and process the Mayfair Games archival materials that were donated to The Strong museum in 2017. In an effort to learn more about the company, I started reading about the board games, card games, and role-playing games it produced. I quickly learned that Settlers of Catan, one of Mayfair Games’ most recognizable titles, not only ranks as an awesome game, […]
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Family Aggravation
However much you care for them, there’s no denying that families can be aggravating. That said, in my experience growing up, aggravation wasn’t an emotional response to stresses in our household—it meant Aggravation, my family’s favorite board game.
But before Aggravation—both in my family and the world of games—there was Parcheesi or, in its original name, Pachisi. About the time that the global calendar transitioned from B.C. to A.D, Pachisi established itself as a classic board game in India. […]
Game Saves: Unreleased Gremlins The Arcade Game by Atari
Digital Games Curator Andrew Borman uncovers the history of Atari’s Gremlins The Arcade Game, from its initial conception in 1983 to its cancellation in 1985.
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Masculine Discourse, Role Playing Games, & Help Seeking—Taming Dragon Magazine
Steven Dashiell, 2019 Mary Valentine-Andrew Cosman Research Fellow
PhD candidate, University of Maryland Baltimore County
My dissertation concerns the discourses of male student veterans, examining their discourses concerning their perceptions of marginalization on campus. However, I have always had an interest in research surrounding gaming, specifically the newer games of strategy that fall into the categories of role-playing games (RPGs) and collectible card games. I am fascinated by how players interact and interface with each other while they are engaged in the […]