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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 […]

Continue Reading about Single Ladies: The History of Old Maid Published on:
August 30, 2011

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? […]

Continue Reading about Standing Up for Sidekicks: An Appeal to Heroes Published on:
August 23, 2011

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 […]

Continue Reading about New at the Museum: Video Kiosks! Published on:
August 16, 2011

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 […]

Continue Reading about Gaming Television Published on:
August 15, 2011

What do Cinderella, Lady Gaga, and Kate Middleton all have in common? Distinctive style. For Cinderella the right dress and the perfect pair of shoes proved to be life changing. Today, little girls everywhere own replicas of the shimmering, blue ball gown. Lady Gaga makes bold statements with outrageous ensembles constructed from atypical materials such as yellow caution tape, plush Kermit the Frog toys, or even a dress made of raw meat (now on display at the Rock and Roll […]

Continue Reading about Change of Dress: The Transformative Power of Dress Up Published on:
August 9, 2011

Although vector technology in gaming lasted less than a decade, some of the designers from the industry’s Golden Era utilized this revolutionary display technology to create classics. Bright, crisp graphics gave vector games a distinctive look and their fast-moving game play mesmerized arcade-goers who lined up to drop quarters for titles such as Space Wars, Battlezone, and Tempest.

Vector games burst onto the arcade scene during a time of rapid innovation and creativity within the industry. In 1977, pioneering game designer […]

Continue Reading about Gone, But Not Forgotten: Vector Games Published on:
August 5, 2011

Kids play with the law all the time. This summer, countless backyard games of Cops ‘n’ Robbers will end with a cornered cousin or felonious friend being dragged off—temporarily—to the hoosegow. Normally that happens without a trial—Defendants ‘n’ District Attorneys has never caught on with the small set. Even when kids do stage trials, the outcome is never in doubt: you always get a hanging judge and a dire sentence.
Adults have their own versions of legal games too. Although games […]

Continue Reading about Trial by Board Game Published on:
August 2, 2011

I spent a large portion of my youth playing outside. Whether it was hide-and-seek in the neighborhood, running through the sprinkler in the backyard, or riding my bicycle around town, I enjoyed just about any activity that involved being outdoors. So it should come as no surprise that I liked playing softball too.
However, softball differed from my usual activities because it required participating in an actual organization and becoming part of an official team. I started playing youth softball in […]

Continue Reading about Softball Summers and Left Field Lessons Published on:
July 26, 2011

I’m a Phillip Seymour Hoffman fan, which led me to his performance in Adam Elliot’s stop-motion film Mary and Max, which in turn caused me to think about how video games incorporate this marvelous animation technique. Typically, stop-motion involves a designer moving an inanimate object in small increments and then photographing each separate frame. When the creator plays the series of photographs in a continuous sequence, this creates the illusion of movement. Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Black first […]

Continue Reading about Three Degrees of Stop-Motion in Video Games Published on:
July 22, 2011