While cleaning out my parents’ basement before moving into my first-ever apartment, I came across two treasured “artifacts” of my past: a poster of Johnny Depp in his Pirates of the Caribbean get-up and my childhood dollhouse. As it turns out, the two items are not as unrelated as you might think.
As I prepared (five years ago now—yikes) for my freshman year of college, I faced a quandary: how to decorate my first-ever dorm room, a space I would share […]
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Been Here Before: Same Landscapes, Different Stories in Video Games
In college, I spent much of Critical Reading loathing the professor’s love of American Romanticism and wallowing in my disdain for his assigned texts. Many of my classmates held similar sentiments, but we kept quiet during discussions of titles such as “Bodily Harm: Keats’ Figures in the ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’” However, I will never forget the rapid-fire conversation about how individual experience shapes varying degrees of reality. We all had encountered many of the same things—holidays, historical events, […]
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Ten Good Books on Video Game History
This summer three students provided important assistance to ICHEG. Two Rochester Institute of Technology game design majors, Ned Blakely and Matt Fico, upgraded equipment in our research lab, captured game footage for archival purposes, and created multimedia experiences to include in our eGameRevolution exhibit opening this November. Josh Keaton, a student from the State University of New York at Brockport, assisted with background research for the exhibit. Here, in no particular order, are ten books Josh found helpful:
#1. Replay: The […]
Happiness Is a Good Vacation
Vacationing has a long tradition for working folks the world over. Most of us look forward each year to taking any break(s) we may have earned from the routines of everyday living. We all anticipate and welcome regular periods of relaxation during which we say to ourselves, “I’m on vacation now, and I will do only things that make me happy. Besides, I need a break.”
As I started looking into this topic, I learned that a formal concept called the […]
Happy Birthday Home Video Games!
Home video games turn 45 this week. That’s right, on August 31, 1966, Ralph Baer originated the idea of playing a video game on a television. An electrical engineer and employee of defense contractor Sanders Associates, Inc., Ralph had toyed with the idea of using a television to play some sort of game before, but, now, the thoughts crystallized into a definite concept.
As Ralph records in his memoir, Videogames in the Beginning:
During a business trip for Sanders to New York […]
Single Ladies: The History of Old Maid
Did you play card games as a child? If so, you probably played a version of Old Maid. The term “old maid” is English and means an unmarried childless woman or spinster. Used as early as 1761 for the title of a play by Irishman Arthur Murphy, it also means an unpopped kernel in a pot of popcorn. And most dictionaries carry one more meaning for it: “A child’s card game.”
If we ignore, for a moment, the stereotypical and sexist […]
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Standing Up for Sidekicks: An Appeal to Heroes
Holy relationship crisis! Batman, is Robin your sidekick or your partner? Think you can get away with calling him just a chum? Empty words for a guy who’s always had your back. Heroes fighting for justice and peace should defend a new cause: equal rights for so-called sidekicks.
As Batman looms over the National Museum of Play’s American Comic Book Heroes exhibit here at The Strong, I can’t help but think of poor Robin—surely you’ve noticed that he wears no pants? […]
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New at the Museum: Video Kiosks!
Before I joined the Collections Team at The Strong, I worked as a host on the Guest Services Team. I cannot begin to count the number of times I overheard a museum visitor point at a Barbie Dream House, a Lionel train set, or any of the thousands of artifacts on display, and exclaim, “I had that exact toy growing up!” This proved to me, time and again, that adults and children alike have meaningful experiences at the museum. Though […]
Gaming Television
Some fans of video games today don’t necessarily play the games before they get caught up in the gaming culture. Movies based on video games abound, t-shirts featuring video game characters hang from store windows, and action figures from popular games line store shelves. While growing up, I watched game-related programming before I even picked up a controller. And of all the ways to immerse myself in gaming without hooking up a console, such shows remain top on my list.
My […]