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Few people today know that Rochester, New York, was once home to a football team that became part of the American Professional Football Association (APFA), eventually known as the National Football League. The story starts in the early years of the 20th century when the Rochester Jeffersons took their name from their practice field’s location on Jefferson Avenue. The Jeffersons enjoyed about 10 years of competition with other small-town teams and provided plenty of entertainment for Rochester’s avid sports fans. […]

Continue Reading about Rochester’s NFL Football Team and a Hometown Sports Hero Published on:
October 30, 2012

It’s almost Halloween. My neighborhood is filled with decorative plastic ghosts, goblins, and skeletons. Advertisements for scary movie marathons inundate television channels, and bookstores carry special displays of Dracula and Frankenstein. As a gamer, this is the best time to play chilling classics like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or Left 4 Dead. But not all Halloween games fall into the traditional survival horror genre. I recently discovered a game that calls attention to my favorite part of this holiday: costumes.
Costume […]

Continue Reading about Costume Quest: Nostalgic Halloween Gaming Published on:
October 26, 2012

For almost a quarter century, I’ve divided my time between Rochester and Buffalo. This gave me the opportunity to observe the contrasts of two cities so close together yet so different culturally. If Rochester is the East Coast of the Midwest as some have joked, then Buffalo surely must be the West Coast of the East. Rochester could be transported to Rochester Minnesota and feel at home. Buffalo could move closer to New York and still feel comfortable. Rochester’s history […]

Continue Reading about A New Stadium and a New Museum Can Co-Anchor the Toronto-Buffalo-Rochester Mega-Region Published on:
October 25, 2012

What will your life look like a year from now? Most of us are intrigued—just a bit—to know what the future holds for us, curious about how our careers, relationships, or finances will go.  We’re certainly not the first to wonder about such things, nor will we be the last. For centuries, people of all cultures have pondered the same questions and devised a variety of ways to predict the answers. Some scholars believe the origins of fortune telling can […]

Continue Reading about Gypsies, Cards, and Tea Leaves: Foretelling the Future Published on:
October 23, 2012

ICHEG has acquired a collection of more than 250 drawings that document how designers at Atari created some of the most important games of the arcade era. Sketches show the development of games such as Gran Trak 10, the first cabinet to use a steering wheel, shifter, and gas and brake pedals; Touch Me, which inspired Ralph Baer’s Simon; the pioneering 3D dogfight simulator Red Baron; and the legendary dungeon crawler Gauntlet.
The artists who designed these cabinets made magic by […]

Continue Reading about A Fabulous Collection of Atari Concept Art Published on:
October 18, 2012

Watching the Emmy Awards recently turned my thoughts to the upcoming 2012 induction of new toys into the National Toy Hall of Fame on November 15. Although our induction ceremony doesn’t boast television stars, glittery evening gowns, or tearful acceptance speeches, it nevertheless offers suspense leading up to bestowing a significant honor on two (or sometimes three) deserving winners. No one goes away with an impressive trophy for their mantel, but classic toys receive their moment in the spotlight.

This year’s […]

Continue Reading about And the Winner Is… Published on:
October 16, 2012

Not that long ago, critics debated whether video games qualified as art. Now, thanks in large part to artist and microphotographer Thomas Shahan, Colin Northway’s forthcoming game Icredipede, available for preview, many put the question to rest.
Shahan specializes in capturing the personalities of countless insects and spiders in his arthropod portraiture. His muses—Tabanus Horse flies, Damselflies, and Phidippus jumping spiders, to name a few—have been featured in National Geographic and Popular Photography, among others. Northway, an independent game designer and programmer, saw […]

Continue Reading about Using Woodblocks to Reshape Video Game Art: An Interview with Incredipede’s Thomas Shahan Published on:
October 11, 2012

The Strong’s vast and varied holdings include several hundred artifacts in the museum’s KAR-MI Collection: magician’s props, throwing knives, swords to swallow, theater posters, satiny banners and table covers, and a tattoo set (tattoo set? yes!). But we have few documents or records to explain this interesting mass of materials. So, of course, I have wondered for years: Who was KAR-MI?
The short answer goes something like this: KAR-MI was the stage name of performer Joseph Hallworth (1872–1956), an itinerant entertainer […]

Continue Reading about The Magic and Mystery of KAR-MI Published on:
October 10, 2012

How do people use games, toys, and other playthings? It’s a question play scholars and historians must grapple with. A blanket, for instance, serves as a warm companion on a cold night, but it may also act as, among other things, a superhero’s cape or a princess’s gown. One needs only to scan ICHEG’s online collections to get a sense of the variety of ways in which video games might be used to entertain and educate. However, as media theorist […]

Continue Reading about From Training, to Toy, to Treatment: The Many Lives of Full Spectrum Warrior Published on:
October 5, 2012