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Board games and serious politics usually don’t mix. But in 2011, a Polish government think tank known as The Institute of National Remembrance created an interesting board game called Kolejka that The Strong recently acquired for its collections. The Institute researches crimes committed by the Nazi and Communist parties in Poland and makes that information available to the public. Interestingly, part of its outreach includes the publication of board games, which provide historical context in an approachable format.

While working for […]

Continue Reading about Line Up for a Game, Comrades! Published on:
June 18, 2013

Traditional library and archival materials help flesh out the history of video games. In addition to the personal papers of famous game designers like Ralph Baer, Ken and Roberta Williams, Dan Bunten, and Bill Budge, The Strong collections include many items that shed light on the formative decades for the development of electronic games. 
Our many computer and other trade magazines offer abundant information about computer games during the 1960s and 1970s. No dedicated video game magazines existed until the 1980s, […]

Continue Reading about Finding Video Game History in the Archives Published on:
June 12, 2013

Life at The Strong provides me with access to wonderful historical resources. As cataloger for the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play, I typically deal with toy trade catalogs that date from the 1960s through the 1990s. Recently, however, I’ve dealt with some older catalogs from the 1930s through the 1950s. As I worked with a 1942 pamphlet from Holgate Brothers Company, a small slip of paper tucked in it caught my attention. It was a notice from the […]

Continue Reading about The Home Front: Toy Production during World War II Published on:
June 11, 2013

Most of us recall our first bike with great fondness. We remember how long we waited for it, how difficult it was to first master, and how much fun we had with it. The day we received that bike was one to be remembered—a milestone, whether it was Christmas, the first day of spring, a birthday, or just an average Thursday. No wonder the bicycle holds a place of honor in the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong.
Like […]

Continue Reading about A Boy and His Bike Published on:
June 6, 2013

During the 1970s and 1980s, Atari programmers and designers crafted hundreds of new video game play experiences for millions of people. This summer The Strong will open Atari by Design, a temporary exhibit (June 22 – September 8, 2013) that features one-of-a kind concept art and design documents and explores the designs behind some of Atari’s most significant arcade video games and video game consoles. There are few better examples of Atari’s cutting-edge game and industrial design work during the […]

Continue Reading about Gauntlet by Design: Creating the Four-Player-at-Once Arcade Game Experience Published on:
May 31, 2013

Have you ever heard anyone say “I think I have too many Star Wars action figures”? Of course not. Who would ever say such a thing?
So, you can understand my excitement last December when an opportunity arose to acquire a collection of Star Wars figures. After all, just the month before, The Strong had inducted the iconic action figures into the National Toy Hall of Fame, and we held a big celebration, complete with Darth Vader, Chewbacca, R2-D2, and several […]

Continue Reading about A Galaxy’s Worth of Star Wars Action Figures Published on:
May 28, 2013

Video game music is catchy and memorable. Iconic tunes such as the Super Mario Bros. theme, composed by Koji Kondo, and Tetris’ fast-paced background music, based on the Russian folk song “Korobeiniki,” sound familiar to many gamers and non-games, alike. Hauntingly beautiful songs such as “Scars of Time” by Yasunori Mitsuda, the title theme from Chrono Cross, send chills up my spine. And in Final Fantasy VII, the heart-pounding “One-Winged Angel” by world-renowned composer Nobuo Uematsu—dubbed the John Williams of the […]

Continue Reading about Electronic Baseball and the Nostalgia of Video Game Sounds Published on:
May 23, 2013

Renowned Scottish dramatist James M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, wrote, “The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” Taking the notion a step further, 19th-century art critic and social thinker John Ruskin proffered that “mixing enough play with the work” helps ensure that each of our workdays is a happy one.
I believe that the staff at The Strong follows these precepts. Most of us would characterize a good portion of […]

Continue Reading about Game Time! Play: Lighting the Way Published on:
May 21, 2013

Pretend play often helps us cope. When we’re sad, scared, or depressed, pretend play lets us escape our hurts and gather strength to face our fears and trials. As psychologists Dorothy and Jerome Singer and Sandra Russ explain, pretend play—“such as divergent thinking, the ability to transform one object into another, and the organization of narratives—demonstrate the relationship between play and coping.” Two recent video games, Papo & Yo and The Unfinished Swan, wrap their stories around ways children use […]

Continue Reading about Pretend Play in Video Game Worlds Published on:
May 20, 2013