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Stern Pinball’s recent announcement of a new line of KISS pinball machines “honoring one of the most influential and iconic rock bands of all time,” reminded me how frequently today’s coin-operated amusement games center on licensed brands, revered characters, and cultural icons.  Other recent examples include Stern’s The Avengers (2012) and Mustang (2014) and Raw Thrills’s Batman (2013). Yet arcade and pinball manufacturers have always produced games that capitalized on popular cultural trends and recognizable characters, even including Uncle Sam.

Continue Reading about I Want YOU (to Test Your Grip): Uncle Sam as Arcade Icon Published on:
May 20, 2015

I’m a huge fan of novelty items. Currently, my office is adorned with miniature rubber ducks, librarian action figures, small stuffed animals, and other cute-funny-quirky trinkets. These make great conversation pieces and delight others, as well as amuse me.
I’ve found that “novelty” is often used as a catch-all term for miscellaneous items that don’t fit into traditional categories of toys, games, and dolls. For example, practical jokes, magic tricks, souvenirs, and licensed products are considered novelty items. Some manufacturers, such […]

Continue Reading about Novelty Items: Amusements and More! Published on:
May 19, 2015

WARNING!!!!
Do not read this book straight through from beginning to end! These pages contain many different adventures you can go on….
The adventures you take are a result of your choice. You are responsible because you choose!

For 36 years these opening lines have beckoned booklovers and reluctant readers alike to become part of the story in the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) series. Written in the second person point-of-view, the novels make the reader the protagonist with the freedom to […]

Continue Reading about YOU and YOU ALONE: The Story of the Choose Your Own Adventure Generation Published on:
May 5, 2015

Video game design often involves sophisticated software and complex coding that results in a visual and auditory experience for the user. Several designers today incorporate tactical play into video game design. Plasticine, a non-drying, non-toxic, malleable clay, developed by art teacher William Harbutt in 1897, has become an experimental tool of the trade.

Filmmakers were the first to use plasticine to sculpt and mold objects for their animated films. The style, referred to as claymation, requires the animator to arrange the […]

Continue Reading about Claymation: From the Movie Screen to the Video Game Screen Published on:
April 30, 2015

I am a self-professed nerd. I blame (or should I say credit?) my parents, whose family vacation plans alternated visits to educational destinations such as Colonial Williamsburg, Gettysburg, and Washington, DC (No cruises to Aruba or trips to ski resorts for us, thanks. One spring break, my dad took my two brothers and me to a coal mine.) I devoured stacks of books from our town library each week—after completing my homework, of course. My school’s honors program generated plenty […]

Continue Reading about RPGs and D&D: Learning from the PlaGMaDA Papers Published on:
April 13, 2015

Last month, while attending the Game Developers Conference, I couldn’t help but notice the giant booths advertising Oculus Rift, Sony Morpheus, Steam VR, and other new virtual reality headsets that are the hottest trend in gaming. While I didn’t stand in any of the long lines to try these devices, like many people I’m curious about what impact these virtual reality devices will have on the future of gaming and entertainment. It got me thinking about earlier forms of virtual […]

Continue Reading about Lessons from the Past for the Future of Virtual Reality Published on:
April 6, 2015

Staff at The Strong passed around several emails this week noting the passing of Gary Dahl, inventor of the Pet Rock, a wildly popular fad from the mid-1970s.
In 1975 Dahl, a California advertising man, dreamed up the notion of a Pet Rock and shipped it to a San Francisco gift show that August. His idea was so absurd, everyone had to have one. A Pet Rock was nothing more than a smooth stone from San Rosarita Beach in Mexico that […]

Continue Reading about Rock On, Gary Dahl Published on:
April 2, 2015

Invented in the 1950s to simulate surfing on land, the skateboard enjoyed a second wave of popularity 20 years later as a West Coast drought obliged residents to drain their backyard swimming pools. The drought resulted in a wealth of vacant, dry, sloping, and gently-curved concrete surfaces that tempted skateboarders to sneak in and show their stuff.

Continue Reading about Will the Postmodern Skateboard Find the Sweet Spot? Published on:
April 1, 2015

ZA is a perfectly good word. You know, like PIZZA. While you probably wouldn’t use (or eat) ZA in a formal social setting, it’s a two-letter word that might help boost your next Scrabble game. Surprised that ZA is a legal word? Don’t be. The entire world of Scrabble terms can be pretty surprising. From the first word (AA) to the last (ZYZZYVAS), the Scrabble dictionary overflows with the uncommon and plain old bizarre words that high-level Scrabble champions apply […]

Continue Reading about Under Scrabble’s Spell Published on:
March 30, 2015