As a young child, I loved to climb the stairs of my aunt and uncle’s house to my cousin’s room filled with model airplanes he had assembled. Spitfires, Zeros, Messerchmitts, and B-17 Fighting Fortresses lined the shelves, parked on bureaus, and hung suspended from the ceiling. I still remember how I felt as I gazed in wonder at the formations of planes flying overhead.
Ever since the Wright Brothers first flight, the romance of aviation has entered our play. In the […]
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Bill Budge, Pinball Construction Set, and the Popularization of User-Customized Video Games
As a kid, I enjoyed racing my virtual dirt bike up 8-bit hill after 8-bit hill in designer Shigeru Miyamoto’s Excitebike (1984) for the Nintendo Entertainment System. What kept me riding was a design mode to create my own tracks. Designing a track on screen changed the way I saw video games. Suddenly, I wasn’t just playing; I was creating part of what I played. And a few well-placed speed bumps and mud puddles could trip up my computer opponent […]
Less is More in These Video Games
Designer Robert Morris once said that “simplicity of form is not necessarily simplicity of experience.” I found this especially pertinent to the simple, yet stunning game play of both PixelJunk Eden and NightSky.
In PixelJunk Eden, a player controls Grimp as he jumps and swings across plant life to activate seeds in the different gardens. Multi-media artist Baiyon’s (Tomohisa Kuramitsu) work inspired the game, and the visual aesthetics of the gardens remain relatively simple. The color-schemes of each present various shades […]
Research Fellowships at The Strong
Video games have fundamentally changed our patterns of play, learning, and social interaction, and researchers are increasingly examining the history of video games in order to explain this evolution.
This scholarly search is now bringing researchers to the comprehensive collections of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at The Strong with growing frequency. Some of these scholars want to experience how early games worked. Others access the large magazine collection or study the papers of particular individuals like Will […]
Steel Battalion and the Evolution of Video Game Controllers
Video games constantly evolve. Early on, graphics involved simple dots and now, they provide highly realistic, movie-quality images. Music originally consisted of bleeps and buzzes, while soundtracks now contain fully-orchestrated symphonies. My favorite evolution involves modifications to video game controllers, which began with simple joysticks, then morphed into complex control pads, and currently require nothing more than the player’s own movements. In my experience, no game displays this evolution more completely than Capcom’s Steel Battalion.
In 2002, video game console controllers […]
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Happily Ever After For These Video Game Heroines?
Fairy tales and other stories of magic lack a single author, and often writers, directors, and video game designers play with classic versions. Two recent video games, The Path and Alice: Madness Returns, deliver noteworthy heroines to a few traditional tales.
For centuries, various versions of Little Red Cap or Little Red Riding Hood presented a heroine as a device or symbol to spin a cautionary tale. A clever twist came from game developer Tale of Tales’ short horror game, The […]
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The Smile that Wins: From Infocom to Portal
Sometimes we play to compete, to engage in what the play scholar Johan Huizinga termed agon, or competition. That is why we love athletic contests. And yet many other types of play don’t prioritize competition. Instead they reward the silly and the nonsensical. Recently, watching two of my sons tussling reminded me that tickling contests, humorous ripostes, pun-making….all look for the reward of a smile rather than the thrill of victory.
Clever video game design often evokes laughter in players. Infocom […]
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Cataloging ICHEG’s Collections
Museum guests and donors often inquire about what exactly happens to materials that ICHEG acquires for its collections. As ICHEG’s Acquisitions Cataloger, I handle and research electronic game-related artifacts, and I’m always pleased to answer that question.
Before an artifact becomes an official part of The Strong’s collections, it must be researched thoroughly and entered into our database system, known as Argus. Take for example, Myst III: Exile, one of the many games recently donated by 1Up. I begin with the […]
A Video Game I Quit Playing
Modern Americans are constantly bombarded with choices—local markets sell up to 25 different brands of water, media sources overload us with reports from the campaign trail, and college freshman opening a course catalog can be overwhelmed with options. Some people believe that choice rationally reflects desires, traits, and situations, and if we’re grounded in our beliefs and values, then making a decision should prove relatively easy. Recently, I played a game—Shadow of the Colossus—that caused me to question both my […]