Open 10 a.m.–5 p.m., Fri. 10 a.m.–8 p.m.I was a math kid, one who enjoyed solving simple problems of multiplication and division, arithmetic and subtraction. For many years my favorite toy was DataMan, a calculator themed as a space hero that was created in the late 1970s by Texas Instruments, the same company that introduced not only the portable calculator but also such electronic toys as the Little Professor and Speak n Spell. Still, none of these simple calculations captured my fancy the way prime numbers did.
I […]
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That Point and Click Puzzle Game from the 90s: Myst
When I get asked about my favorite video game, most people expect me to say Horizon Zero Dawn or BioShock Infinite based on my cosplays and the games I most frequently mention. My answer, however, is Myst. “That point and click puzzle game from the 90s?!” is the usual perplexed response. So let me explain why this game has remained a favorite for me and why it was such an important game.
Myst came out in 1993, and by 1995 it […]
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Japanese Games at The Strong,Part I
The Strong is home to thousands of video game related objects. Among them is a large collection of Japanese games, sourced from France in a purchase the museum made in 2013. That encompasses more than 6,000 Japanese video games, mostly in excellent and complete condition. When I knew I was joining the museum in December 2021, I felt particularly eager to see what Japanese exclusive games we had, especially for older systems such as the Super Famicom.
The collection didn’t disappoint—at […]
Looking for Labor, Listening to the Archive
The artist and photographer Taryn Simon once opened an exhibit with a now-widespread observation: “Archives exist because there’s something that can’t necessarily be articulated. Something is said in the gaps between all the information.” Simon gets at something important here, I think. We tend to think of the gaps in archives as, at best, markers of where we need to “fill in” the historical record in the pursuit of some absolute, final body of total knowledge. But gaps can also […]
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Heroines Just as Interesting as Heroes
The video game company Her Interactive adopted the slogan “For Girls Who Aren’t Afraid of a Mouse.” The firm’s fan letters and focus group collections informed my research on how video games are a technological construction of human expression. Her Interactive was a company focused on creating games based on the reception they received from their audience—girl gamers. They wanted to make video games based on the Nancy Drew series of novels more story driven so that girls would be […]
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How Does a Game Get into the World Video Game Hall of Fame?
We welcomed four new inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame class of 2022: Ms. Pac-Man, Dance Dance Revolution, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Sid Meier’s Civilization. They span almost a 20-year period in game history, with Ms. Pac-Man coming out in 1981, Civilization released ten years later, and DDR and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time debuting in 1998. Interestingly, that seventeen-year time span actually marks the most time-compressed period for any of our World […]
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Making Space for Play
This month we opened our new maker space, Play Lab. It’s a bright, busy place, filled with equipment for assembling, building, crafting, cutting, designing, fashioning, gluing, hammering, programing, soldering, and weaving. Our public programming team and guest services staff will hold facilitated sessions where kids (and adults) can create. It’s hands-on fun!
For kids, making things is an essential type of play, one that teaches as it engages. Scholars note the benefits of construction play. Construction play trains spatial skills. It […]
The Laserdisc Playland: Atari’s Lost Arcade Game
By Andrew Borman
When Ars Technica journalist Matt Paprocki discovered a lost Atari laserdisc title Playland, I decided to dive into the Atari Coin-Op Division corporate records at The Strong to see if we could learn more about the game, and who worked on it.
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I Wanna Hold Your Hand(held Game)
Finally, an area where Millennials and Gen Z have an advantage: both generations have consistently had access to gaming on the go. From the Nintendo Game Boy to Tamagotchis to smartphones, if you needed to kill some time before meeting your friends (or wanted to ignore your siblings on a long car trip with the family), you could grab a portable gaming device from your backpack and voilà—instant entertainment. Our Gen X comrades remember when this wasn’t always the case. […]