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Fairy tales and other stories of magic lack a single author, and often writers, directors, and video game designers play with classic versions. Two recent video games, The Path and Alice: Madness Returns, deliver noteworthy heroines to a few traditional tales.
For centuries, various versions of Little Red Cap or Little Red Riding Hood presented a heroine as a device or symbol to spin a cautionary tale. A clever twist came from game developer Tale of Tales’ short horror game, The […]

Continue Reading about Happily Ever After For These Video Game Heroines? Published on:
August 3, 2012

I can’t pretend to care much about genteel Victorian pastimes. Bar skittles? Not a fan. Shove halfpenny? The game won’t get me going. Quoits? Shuffleboard? Zzzzzzzzzz…. But I will admit to amazement when watching Olympic badminton, resurrected from that bygone era, but startlingly athletic in its modern materialization. Engineers describe the shuttlecock, the feathered conical object that players bat about, as a “high-drag” projectile. It starts out fast when furiously swatted, but quickly slows and hangs excruciatingly—the hang time allowing […]

Continue Reading about Tanking the Game: Scheming and Disgrace at the Olympics Published on:
August 2, 2012

Psychologists tell us that by age four, children are very good at differentiating playing from fighting. But, what about those events that fall in the middle, play-fighting and rough-and-tumble play? Can fighting be playful?
Here we have an instinctive sense of the answer to the question—one that most of us boys honed by experience. We know the difference. The culture informally discouraged fisticuffs (but not verbal rough-and-tumble) for girls of course. And legal strictures discouraged it, too. For most of the 20th […]

Continue Reading about Is Boxing Play? Published on:
July 31, 2012

Sometimes we play to compete, to engage in what the play scholar Johan Huizinga termed agon, or competition. That is why we love athletic contests. And yet many other types of play don’t prioritize competition. Instead they reward the silly and the nonsensical. Recently, watching two of my sons tussling reminded me that tickling contests, humorous ripostes, pun-making….all look for the reward of a smile rather than the thrill of victory.
 Clever video game design often evokes laughter in players. Infocom […]

Continue Reading about The Smile that Wins: From Infocom to Portal Published on:
July 27, 2012

Summer seemed endless when I was a kid. After school let out, the days passed slowly and the month of September felt like a long, long distance away. Now, as an adult, summer days feel short and precious, slipping through my fingers like sand until suddenly it’s autumn. And the sands of time aren’t the only things slipping out of my grasp. As a curator at the National Museum of Play at The Strong, sometimes it’s actual sand that slips […]

Continue Reading about Sandcastles Published on:
July 25, 2012

Museum guests and donors often inquire about what exactly happens to materials that ICHEG acquires for its collections. As ICHEG’s Acquisitions Cataloger, I handle and research electronic game-related artifacts, and I’m always pleased to answer that question.
Before an artifact becomes an official part of The Strong’s collections, it must be researched thoroughly and entered into our database system, known as Argus. Take for example, Myst III: Exile, one of the many games recently donated by 1Up. I begin with the […]

Continue Reading about Cataloging ICHEG’s Collections Published on:
July 20, 2012

I love to throw things and always have. Softballs, paper airplanes, Frisbees, water balloons, you name it—if it can be thrown, tossed, or side-armed, I’m there. Sometimes I like to throw for distance and speed, other times for accuracy. Trajectory, body mechanics, kinetic energy, and velocity are part of the formula. Those factors (combined with other variables) determine how far you can throw something, what direction it will take, and how fast it will go. Sometimes I just like to […]

Continue Reading about Outdoor Fun: Toys You Throw Published on:
July 17, 2012

Modern Americans are constantly bombarded with choices—local markets sell up to 25 different brands of water, media sources overload us with reports from the campaign trail, and college freshman opening a course catalog can be overwhelmed with options. Some people believe that choice rationally reflects desires, traits, and situations, and if we’re grounded in our beliefs and values, then making a decision should prove relatively easy. Recently, I played a game—Shadow of the Colossus—that caused me to question both my […]

Continue Reading about A Video Game I Quit Playing Published on:
July 13, 2012

I gave Droopy his name when he first appeared outside my office window at the National Institute for Play headquarters nearly ten years ago. He’s old for a wild crow. An injured wing made him easy to pick out as a youngster but has not seemed to hinder him since. He’s raised a brood each year with a crow version of aggressive mentoring and attentive tough love. Crows brood cooperatively and for long periods, and so crow young get plenty […]

Continue Reading about Droopy the Crow, the Surprising Bird Brain, and Play Published on:
July 12, 2012