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The excitement builds around the museum every autumn as we lead up to the induction of new toys into the National Toy Hall of Fame. This year, people from all over the country sent us hundreds of toy nominations, each one making the case that their favorite toy should earn a place of honor among the forty-one classics already inducted. No coordinated nomination campaigns emerged this year like 2008 when I heard from tens of thousands of Thomas the Tank […]

Continue Reading about Best in Class: Game Boy, Big Wheel, and the Ball Published on:
November 17, 2009

“You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded front door.” “There is a small mailbox here.”

These words introduced me to computer games, though I didn’t actually read the words on a computer screen—I read them in stacks of perforated, green-and-white-striped printouts that my older brother, Chris, brought home from school. The stacks of printouts came from an amazing game he and his friends had discovered on the high school’s computer system (a DEC […]

Continue Reading about New Interest in Old Text-Based Adventures Published on:
November 11, 2009

 

To everyone who came out to the inaugural TEDx Rochester—and especially to those who stopped by to play an arcade game or two in the lobby of host Geva Theater Center—I would like to send my deepest thanks. It was an honor to be part of this event and to speak about the rich history of electronic games and our current initiatives at NCHEG.
The “I remember when” stories many of you shared between games are a reminder of why we […]

Continue Reading about Thanks TEDx Published on:
November 6, 2009

In my last blog, I reminisced about spending summers with my mom’s parents, which led me to my career preserving cultural artifacts. And while my other grandparents didn’t shape my profession, my summers with them helped lead me to my love for baseball.
The relative isolation of another summer in the country wore on me as I grew older. I was ten now and ready to play organized baseball. Little League beckoned. My dad’s parents, who lived in the village of […]

Continue Reading about Preserving Memories: Baseball Published on:
November 3, 2009

 
As I took the field and prepared for battle, a tiny yellow flag with a double-headed eagle marked my kingdom, the Citadel of Durnin.
While this fantasy adventure took shape, my friend handed me a cardboard score chart and some tiny red plastic pegs to keep track of my men and supplies. Much of what my friends were setting up looked familiar: molded plastic warriors and dragons, cardboard tokens, and, of course, a colorful game board. And then they took it out—the […]

Continue Reading about Remembering the Dark Tower Published on:
October 30, 2009

I’ve got my Halloween candy ready for the trick-or-treaters and a plan for how I’m going to decorate my front door with construction paper bats, but it was still a bit of a surprise to arrive at the museum this morning and find half my colleagues dressed (tastefully, of course) for Halloween. I should have expected it—Halloween’s become a big deal for people of all ages.
When I was growing up, an unspoken rule said that you were supposed to drop […]

Continue Reading about Halloween Hoopla Published on:
October 30, 2009

Here’s a neat opportunity you might want to seize from 2D Boy Games.
Their World of Goo is a unique and quirky physics-based puzzle game that won both the Design Innovation Award and the Technical Excellence Award at the Independent Games Festival in 2008.
World of Goo’s success demonstrates not only the rise in popularity of independently-developed games, but also the emphasis on physics in several recent puzzle games. World of Goo is included in a survey of casual games guests can play […]

Continue Reading about Get Your Goo Published on:
October 27, 2009

Now that the special is over, I am curious to see what you paid for World of Goo.  Do you think the game is a worthy investment?

Continue Reading about Did You Get Your Goo? Published on:
October 27, 2009

Howdy Buckaroos!
If my greeting strikes a familiar chord with you then it is likely that:
1. You’re a native Rochestarian;
2. You’re my age, give or take a few years.
If you’re still clueless, let me help you out.
Ranger Bob
 

“Howdy Buckaroos!” was the catch phrase of Ranger Bob, host of the appropriately titled, Ranger Bob’s Buckaroo Club. The show aired on WUHF 31 in the late 1970s and early `80s.  This was before cable television (Ranger Bob only had a clear picture […]

Continue Reading about POW! – The Original Online Game? Published on:
October 22, 2009