Games Archive

Recently I was engaged in a heated match of pickleball. For those not familiar with the game, imagine it as a cross between tennis and ping-pong, played on a court about half the size of a tennis court with solid wood rackets and a perforated ball sort of like a Wiffle ball but with holes all over the sphere. Pickleball itself was invented in Washington State in the 1960s and in recent years has gained enormously in popularity, evidenced by […]

Continue Reading about Pickleball, Rules, and the Spirit of the Game Published on:
January 28, 2021

“Only boring people get bored.”
This was my mother’s retort every time I told her I was bored. Like, so bored. Like “roll your eyes and sigh and flop down on your bed in exasperation” bored. When toys, TV, and friends fail you, it feels like the end of the world. Most of us have not experienced that uncomfortable feeling of boredom in our adult lives very often. There has always been something to do, something new to see (even if […]

Continue Reading about I Hope This Blog Bores You Published on:
January 14, 2021

Parker Brothers, founded in Salem, Massachusetts in 1883, published more than 1,800 games during its existence. To this day, many of their products—such as Monopoly, Clue, Risk, Sorry!, and Ouija—probably still live on shelves or in closets around your home. Parker Brothers remained a family-owned company until 1968, when it was purchased by General Mills. By 1985, General Mills merged their Parker Brothers division with another subsidiary, Kenner, to create Kenner Parker Toys.
In 1986, Professor John J. Fox […]

Continue Reading about Otherwise “Parkerized”: Oral Histories from Parker Brothers Published on:
January 7, 2021

Born in Tanganyika (now the Republic of Tanzania) in East Africa, English national Leslie Scott and her family moved to Ghana, a country rich in wood, when she was 18. She and her family had played a block stacking game since childhood, and she commissioned sets of blocks from a local sawmill. In her 20s, Scott moved to Oxford, England, and brought some block sets with her. Her British friends loved the game to obsession, she says, “but […]

Continue Reading about Block by Block: Leslie Scott’s Jenga Game (or, in Swahili, Zuia kwa kuzuia: Mchezo wa Jenga wa Leslie Scott) Published on:
November 5, 2020

  How do you know if a game will be a hit or a flop with players? According to legend, video game pioneer Atari knew their 1972 coin-operated video game Pong would be a winner because players filled the test game’s coinbox with so many quarters that it jammed up the machine. As any veteran of the arcade game industry will tell you: “The coin box never lies.” But surely there should be more to it than that? In […]

Continue Reading about Carol Kantor: The Video Game Industry’s First Market Researcher Published on:
October 19, 2020

1989 was the year of the Basel Convention, officially named the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. An international treaty designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, it is meant to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries. It does not address radioactive waste. As of 2020, the United States signed, but never ratified the treaty. A 1989 board game, NIMBY “The Game of Toxic Waste,” was custom […]

Continue Reading about Toxic Times: The NIMBY Satirical Board Game Published on:
September 3, 2020

What sort of party games stick in your memory? No, not the ones from your teen years which involved getting your first kiss. I’m thinking of the classic party games for children’s birthday parties. And one of the top party games for that demographic—at least in my childhood—would have to be Pin the Tail on the Donkey. The earliest donkey pinning games in The Strong museum’s collection come from the 1890s, which aligns with accounts from the internet (because you […]

Continue Reading about Pin the What?! Published on:
August 6, 2020

For most gamers, rolling for initiative has been put on hold for the moment. Presently, due to social distancing guidelines, fans of role-playing games find themselves unable to go to each other’s living rooms to weave a story through teamwork and creativity.
Thankfully even with the obstacle of quarantines and lockdowns, there are options for those role-playing stories to continue and opportunities to create new adventures! We are fortunate that this era is also the digital age, and programs such as […]

Continue Reading about Continuing the Adventure from Home: Tabletop Role-Play Games while Social Distancing Published on:
July 23, 2020

Like many folks born into musical families, I grew up around people always playing and making music. My family takes seriously the learning benefits of strumming guitars and drumming on pots and pans. But developing an ear for rhythm also helped us create our own fun almost anywhere. Playing with music might be my family’s favorite thing to do; we dive into song parodies, genre trivia, impromptu karaoke battles, operatic renditions of Billboard hits, and more. Our music […]

Continue Reading about Name That Tune Published on:
July 16, 2020