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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

As the college bowl season draws to a close and the NFL playoffs begin, I’ve noticed myself playing more simulated football. From classic paper football with my son to Madden NFL 10 with friends, I just can’t seem to get enough lately. Controlling the action in these games seems to help counter the sense of helplessness that goes along with watching the sport this time of year. During a recent session of Madden with a friend and fellow gamer, we […]

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January 7, 2011

Time travel doesn’t require a magic potion or a Back to the Future DeLorean. Sometimes all it takes is a familiar scent, sound, or taste. For me, it might be smelling popcorn, hearing a favorite Christmas carol, or seeing the cover of a once beloved but forgotten book that sends me back in time. I had a vivid time travel reaction recently when the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play at the Strong acquired an extensive collection of Golden […]

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January 4, 2011

The next time someone criticizes video games for their impact on moral values, here’s some historical perspective to offer them.
More than 200 years ago, commentators expressed concern that the newly popularized novels distracted readers from their work and harmed their morals. Critics worried especially about young women who became some of the most avid fans of novels. In an 1802 broadside, “Novel Reading, a Cause of Female Depravity,” one critic wrote, “Without the poison instilled [by novels] into the blood, […]

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December 30, 2010

My grandmother loved to play all kinds of games. In fact, I probably inherited my love for games from her. When my sister and I would show up on Nana’s doorstep and ask her to play a game with us, she would stop whatever she was doing and say, “Go pick out a game from the closet.” The closet’s trove of options included games such as Trouble, Sorry!, Po-Ke-No, and Don’t Spill the Beans. But our number one pick was […]

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December 28, 2010