Press Release

For more information contact: Shane Rhinewald, The Strong, srhinewald@museumofplay.org;

ROCHESTER, NY—Have you ever wondered how some of your favorite board games were developed? Game enthusiasts and researchers alike can now dive into the creative processes and thinking of legendary game designer Sid Sackson through a new online portal from The Strong National Museum of Play that showcases his diaries, correspondence, notes, game descriptions, and publications. 

“Sid Sackson is probably best known for the board game Acquire, but he created close to 500 games during his prolific career,” says Archivist Julia Novakovic. “His collection at The Strong contains more than five decades of his professional correspondence, notes, references, game descriptions, manuscript drafts, and meticulously kept diaries. Now those 35 diaries and some other materials are available online to researchers from around the world thanks to a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.”

Through the Sid Sackson Portal, enthusiasts and researchers can view full PDFs of each year’s diary or Browse the Collection to keyword search or to view individual page image files. The portal also contains more information about Sackson and his career, hundreds of photos of game prototypes (as well as published games), and a glossary terms about the people, games, corporations, and publications to which Sackson often referred.

While the diaries and other materials have been digitized, the project continues. The pages can be viewed online, but the museum is working toward a full transcription of every entry. Through crowdsourcing, the museum plans to make each page easier to research and access. Five diaries will be “open” for transcription at a time, and as entire diaries are transcribed, reviewed, and approved, they will unlock the next chronological one for transcription. (So far, the 1964 diary has been completely transcribed, with links to relevant glossary terms provided within the transcription text.)

For anyone interested in helping, read About The Transcription Project.