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As a video game researcher, I love talking about all sorts of games with all kinds of gamers. Obviously my job at ICHEG affords me many such opportunities to do so. Yet, I often talk gaming with acquaintances who don’t consider themselves gamers. There’s actually a lot of gaming buzz among them—and it isn’t just about playing Zynga’s Farmville on Facebook.
Here is what they are talking about: mobile gaming apps. While games for mobile devices certainly aren’t new, the touch […]

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February 11, 2011

“Hey, Mom, quick! Look at me swimming with my legs and feet together! Who am I?”
 If you were a filmgoer in the 1980s, you probably paddled like a mermaid at least once. Perhaps you were channeling Daryl Hannah in Splash (1984). Likelier still—and I suspect this is the case for most of my contemporaries—you wanted to be part of Ariel’s world.
Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989) retold Hans Christian Andersen’s 19th-century fairy tale of the sea king’s daughter who exchanges her […]

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February 8, 2011

I bet most gamers don’t expect to have an educational experience while playing, unless they pick up Math Blasters or Carmen Sandiego. After all, the word “game” often implies something done for fun and relaxation. But learning in game play is not restricted to Edutainment video games marketed at young children and their parents. From blasting monsters in Halo to helping Mario rescue Princess Peach, gamers learn many useful skills for everyday life.
Of all the concepts learned from games, the […]

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February 4, 2011

How does a fictional game become real on college campuses?
 It starts with J. K. Rowling’s fabulously successful Harry Potter series (1997–2007), which has sold more than 400 million books in 67 languages and has accounted almost on its own for a revival of reading in a generation of otherwise distracted kids. Of course, adults have read Harry Potter novels in almost equal numbers. In fact, at our home we own duplicate copies of the set. (I was one of those […]

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February 1, 2011

Sunny day 
Sweepin’ the clouds away
On my way to where the air is sweet
Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street?
Come and play
Everything’s A-OK
Friendly neighbors there
That’s where we meet
Can you tell me how to get
How to get to Sesame Street?
I still love that theme song and all the Sesame Street characters, Muppet and human alike. In fact, Sesame Street and I grew up together. More than 40 years ago—November 10, 1969, to be exact—Children’s Television Workshop (now […]

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January 25, 2011

When Will Wright donated some of his design notebooks to ICHEG, I couldn’t wait to get a glimpse into his creative process. Examining this acquisition made me more aware of how fundamentally different his games are from those of many other designers. The notebooks—nine  graph paper pads filled with sketches, doodles, thoughts, and code—document not only his development of SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCopter (1996), The Sims (2000), and Spore (2008) but also illustrate how he generates his ideas. Genius has […]

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January 21, 2011

When I was a kid, I used to dream about running away to join the circus to be a clown.  I loved the idea of being a clown—especially when my mother had come up with some particularly irksome chore. I found myself longing for the mystery and the majesty, the fun and the freedom of life under the big top. And still, every once in a while, for reasons that are not clear to me, I think about the circus.
 In […]

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January 18, 2011

A new year is upon us, and that means it’s time to think about what video games might dominate in 2011. Here is a list of the games I’m most looking forward to.

Game #1: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Publication Info: Developed by BioWare and published by EA Games
Genre: MMORPG
Platform: PC
Star Wars games have a great track record, as The Force Unleashed I and II most recently proved, and now players can once again experience the saga in MMO format. Gamers […]

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January 14, 2011

The year 2010 saw numerous important donations to the collections of the National Museum of Play at The Strong. I had the pleasure of examining and transporting one special collection—toys and toy prototypes made by toy and theme park designer Arto Monaco.
Monaco (1913–2003) is most famous for his theme park designs, especially Santa’s Workshop in North Pole, New York. He also worked on movie sets in Hollywood, built simulated village training sites for the United States Army during World War […]

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January 11, 2011