I recently went to a Guns and Roses concert. Axl Rose, the only original member, proved a bit soft around the edges and failed to hit the high notes like he used to—during a few songs, I thought of the 1984 mockumentary, This is Spinal Tap. I also realized heavy metal, glam rock, and hard-pop from the late 70s and early 80s prove resilient. That reminded me of some particular video games that featured bands from that era.
Traditional library and archival materials help flesh out the history of video games. In addition to the personal papers of famous game designers like Ralph Baer, Ken and Roberta Williams, Dan Bunten, and Bill Budge, The Strong collections include many items that shed light on the formative decades for the development of electronic games.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Atari programmers and designers crafted hundreds of new video game play experiences for millions of people. This summer The Strong will open Atari by Design, a temporary exhibit (June 22 – September 8, 2013) that features one-of-a kind concept art and design documents and explores the designs behind some of…
Video game music is catchy and memorable. Iconic tunes such as the Super Mario Bros. theme, composed by Koji Kondo, and Tetris’ fast-paced background music, based on the Russian folk song “Korobeiniki,” sound familiar to many gamers and non-games, alike. Hauntingly beautiful songs such as “Scars of Time” by Yasunori Mitsuda, the title theme from…
Pretend play often helps us cope. When we’re sad, scared, or depressed, pretend play lets us escape our hurts and gather strength to face our fears and trials. As psychologists Dorothy and Jerome Singer and Sandra Russ explain, pretend play—“such as divergent thinking, the ability to transform one object into another, and the organization of…
For those of us who grew up during the so-called “golden age” of arcade games (late 1970s through the middle 1980s), the word “arcade” conjures up images of carpeted walls, smoke-filled rooms, black lights, and row after row of brightly colored video game cabinets. For some, the thought of these spaces evoke such vivid memories…
I’m writing this blog while carrying a phone with the potential to play tens of thousands of games like Angry Birds, Temple Run, and Words with Friends. The incredible diversity of game options reflects a revolution in mobile gaming. Today’s smart phones offer a cornucopia of choices inconceivable to users who back in 1997 were…
Earlier this month, The Strong opened its newest permanent exhibit, Game Time!, which traces the history of non-electronic games. The exhibit includes an artifact-rich timeline of games from the 1800s to the present, and also presents collections of some of the most popular game genres, such as race, strategy, party, and wealth accumulation. As excited…
Henry David Thoreau advised his peers, “Let us first be simple and well as Nature ourselves, dispel the clouds which hang over our brows, and take up a little life into our pores.” Thoreau’s contemporaries professed similar emotional, individualist, and idealist sentiments. I respect authors of the American Romantic and Victorian period of literature; however,…
The roots of video gaming go deep into the longer history of games, puzzles, and play. Backyard games of cops and robbers predated first-person shooters. Puzzles existed long before designers incorporated them in video games. Pen and paper RPGs proved so exciting and immersive that programmers began creating electronic variations. To celebrate and explore this…
