What is your game? There seem to be an infinite number of games to play with one simple deck of playing cards. What game did you learn, perched on your parents’ or grandparents’ knees? What game brings you feelings of home and belonging?
My family’s game was Rummy. After we had mastered Go Fish, we were armed with egg carton card holders (30 years before the collective creativity of Pinterest) and introduced to the game, “according to Hoyle.” My sister and […]
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The Lasting Appeal of Chase Games
Frequently my two-year-old daughter Sidney greets me with two words: “chase, Daddy.” It’s a request that usually leads to lots of laughter and me circling around tables and chairs as I chase her throughout our house. In psychologist Peter Gray’s book Free to Learn, he notes that young mammals of nearly all species play chase games.
A Family of Meticulous Puzzle Cutters: Fiss Puzzles at The Strong
Today gamers often seem immersed in their favorite games. But serious, focused gaming is nothing new. Just after the turn of the 20th century, many Americans concentrated and deliberated in a similar manner trying to assemble the latest plaything for adults and families—jigsaw puzzles.
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Lionel for Ladies?
Many baby boomers and their children (and maybe their grandchildren too) admire the toy trains of the Lionel Corporation in The Strong’s collections. The toy company, founded in the early 1900s by Joshua Lionel Cowen, reigned as the premier maker of electric train sets for much of the 20th century. In the early 1950s, Lionel outsold its competitors two to one, even though its train sets and accessories were more expensive than the competition. The company aggressively marketed its trains […]
Study or Visit Space with this Video Game Series
Physicists and astronomers tend to maintain two schools of thoughts on space exploration. The first school focuses on cost management and quick results and concludes that robotic, unmanned missions prove the best approach to space exploration. The second school advocates for humans to travel to space. “It’s our prerogative as an intelligent species, our cosmic mandate, children love it, and love science for it,” physicists and astronomer Marcelo Gleiser pronounced in a NPR article. Yet few individuals meet the requirements […]
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Hunting for Easter Eggs
I recently read Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One. The story captivated me and likely appeals to other gaming fans, especially those who—like me—happen to love 1980s pop-culture. Although the book takes place in the future, the plot encouraged me to think more about games from the past.
In Ready Player One, America becomes a wasteland. To escape the onset of depression, the vast majority of citizens flee into Oasis, a virtual video game world. When the creator (James Halliday) of […]
Screen-Play: Games Only Fictional Characters Could Invent
Pendulous grey clouds loom ominously to the west. Today is not an outdoor day. Salvation is in the closet, where colorful boxes of boards, cards, and tokens beckon us into other worlds. Games pass the time, make us laugh, and strengthen bonds among loved ones. The Strong is proud to preserve the history of games and inventors. As I tend to do, I turn to television and find characters having a grand old time creating their own games, too. I […]
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Screen-Play: Video Game Mania on Television
“Finish him!” “Save the princess!” “Time is running out!” Video game designers excel at creating high-stakes environments. And television has earned some laughs depicting the obsessive players who heed these calls to action. Here are some of the memorable ways television shows have turned video games into life-or-death situations.
Seinfeld: “The Frogger”
George holds the high score on the video arcade machine at a pizzeria that’s going out of business. “I’m never gonna have a child,” he tells Kramer. “If I lose […]
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Can the Dictionary be a Toy?
While on vacation and passing through a park recently, a Scrabble game in progress at a picnic table caught my eye and then my ear.