Appropriate for International Day of Play, the goal of each game is to travel across countries and oceans. In The Game of Travel, players draw tickets with a list of locations. On a player’s turn, they proceed to the next location on their ticket. Once they’ve visited each location on the card, they draw a new ticket that takes them on the next leg of the journey. Players win by visiting Constantinople (now Istanbul) and returning to the United States. Named after historian and children’s book author Hendrik Van Loon, the Wide World Game was released almost 40 years after The Game of Travel. Fittingly, given its title, the game features a wider world than its predecessor. While The Game of Travel restricts players to Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, the later game’s routes take players across every continent except Antarctica. Here, the goal is to be the first to travel from San Francisco to Manila. The Wide World Game follows the same basic flow of moving between cities according to one’s tickets.

Both games were influenced by the increasing availability of international travel around the turn of the 20th century. Alongside technological developments and Gilded Age economic changes, the number of issued U.S. passports increased significantly in the late 19th century. Steamships and trains made travel more accessible to a growing middle class. Such methods of travel are highlighted in the games through an unusual feature. The Game of Travel has players swap out their moving marker according to the method of travel: a train when traveling by land, a ship if by sea. Since the games are so similar, though, it’s interesting to see where they differ. The wide world changed between 1894 and 1933. By the 1930s, there were several commercial airlines in the U.S., and with new forms of travel come changes to the rules. The Game of Travel requires players to move one city at a time, but the airplane in the newer game lets players move through as many as six cities in a single turn!

Guests could appreciate many things about the games if we showcased them in a display. The Game of Travel is a beautiful production. Its cover features painterly illustrations of attractive destinations like the canals of Venice and England’s Windsor Castle. Its metal steamships shimmer in the light. The Wide World Game’s stylized world map appears hand-drawn with vibrant colors. I’m sure guests would be delighted to see them. With interpretive labels, we could provide some information about the games’ rules and historical context. But games are meant to be played.

To be clear, not even I get to play the games in our collection. This is for good reason, although I’m often dying to give the games a try. For one, many of them are fragile. The Game of Travel was printed more than 100 years ago, and it shows. The board is coming off in flakes, leaving holes in eastern Europe. We wear gloves when handling artifacts not just to protect the objects, but also to protect ourselves. The malleability of the steamship tokens hints that they are likely made of toxic metals, and paint used in the Wide World Game is probably also dangerous. So, how can we have guests engage with these historic games without putting them or the games at risk?

We chose to create our own versions of each game. Making the copies required collaboration between multiple teams at the museum. First, I scanned the games’ boards and cards and sent the scans off to Corinna, one of our public programs coordinators, to fabricate those components. They pasted the boards to a large piece of cardboard and printed out and laminated the cards. Meanwhile, Martin, our arcade game conservation technician, began 3D printing trains, planes, and ships using a resin printer. Martin’s trains are a real highlight, featuring little linked cars that follow behind the locomotive. After laminating the cards and sealing the boards, our more robust versions of the games were ready to be played with by childhood hands.

Our International Day of Play programming was a success. I delivered a small presentation showcasing the original games, along with some other travel-themed games and puzzles, while our associate curator Natalie gave a fascinating talk about postcards and souvenirs. The reproduced games were available to play all day. The preservation of board games is important. Researchers come from across the globe to study our collection. But there are probably very few living people who’ve actually played these games. I’m excited that we gave our visitors a chance to join that exclusive group.

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Then, in 1996, an unprecedented hot-pink box appeared in the software aisle: Barbie Fashion Designer. Unabashedly feminine, the game stuck out from its peers not only for its aesthetics, but for its dress-up gameplay. It was one of the first games designed specifically for girls. Barbie Fashion Designer was an instant sensation and commercial success for Mattel, and alongside Sega’s Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover, these two games ushered in a new wave of games designed for girls. Game studios like Purple Moon responded to this burgeoning market by developing these “girl games,” characterized by gameplay involving dress-up and fashion, domesticity, dating, and shopping, all wrapped up in “pinkified” Barbie-inspired aesthetics.

Just as girl games became immediately popular, so too did they immediately generate controversies. Some feminists were concerned by the potentially sexist content of girl games, arguing that their gameplay perpetuated a narrow ideal of femininity centered around fashion, appearances, and relationships with men. Those on the other side of the debate claimed that playing girl games was actively participating in female culture and thus constituted an act of feminist resistance. In either case, girl games remain popular today, with recent titles like Infinity Nikki (2024) and Dress to Impress (2024) garnering millions of dedicated players. The last 30 years have proven that girl games (and the debates around them) are here to stay.

Most conversations about girl games place their emergence as a genre in the mid-90s with the release of Barbie Fashion Designer and Cosmopolitan Virtual Makeover. But digital games don’t just spring into existence—they are often rooted in an analog past. Girl games are no exception. As a longtime lover of girl games, I wanted to discover if there were any common threads between analog girl games and their video game descendants.

With The Strong’s generous support, I made the journey from Montana to New York to explore the museum’s vast collection of 19^th– and 20^th-century board games. My research goals were twofold. First, I hoped to contribute historical context for modern girl games and deepen our collective understanding of this significant, enduring genre. Second, as a game designer myself, I wanted to use my findings to offer informed suggestions to other designers working within the genre, so that we can continue to make girl games without perpetuating sexist ideals. My delightful weeks at the museum consisted of playing all manner of board games featuring women or girls. In addition, the knowledgeable staff at The Strong gave me the excellent suggestion of exploring the museum’s collection of trade catalogs, helping me uncover how these games were marketed during the period I was studying.

Before the 1960s, there were very few games that included depictions of women and girls; this was also true of men and boys. In fact, most games designed and sold from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries were traditional—like Dominoes, Checkers, Crokinole, Parcheesi, and various card games—which tend to be abstract in nature. Far from being gendered, these games were touted as appealing to all ages and sexes. The 1873 Milton Bradley catalog, for example, depicts both men and women playing games in parlors. A Sears catalog from 1936 describes a Carrom board as offering “endless amusement for the whole family from little sister to grandfather.” For nearly a hundred years, traditional games dominated the market in America, purchased by middle-class families to play in parlors to entertain guests or pass the time.

The few board games that did depict women during this era, like The Coquette and Her Suitors (1858), The Game of Captive Princess (1875), and Witzi Witch the Fortune Teller (1928) didn’t follow the conventions of the modern girl game genre. Notably, these board games don’t let you roleplay as women; rather, the woman serves as the player’s reward for winning. For example, both Coquette and Captive Princess feature male-only playing pieces, and players must race opponents to the finish line to win the maiden’s hand in marriage. This framing evokes the “damsel in distress” trope common to many early video games—but not girl games. Furthermore, the late 19^th– and early 20^th-century games I surveyed don’t feature the classic pink aesthetics typical of the girl game genre, nor do they include gameplay centered around fashion, beauty, or shopping. While most games featuring women from this period did include game mechanics and themes relating to marriage and courtship—a staple of modern girl games—the presentation of these themes and the lack of other important elements indicate that these early games don’t belong to the girl game genre.

By the 1960s, however, the first obviously recognizable tabletop girl games entered the market. This marks an important shift in the history of analog girl games. While gender-neutral, family-oriented games were still designed and produced, games made specifically for girls appear now, advertised as “For Girls Only.” One example is Miss Popularity Game (1961) where girls compete against one another in a popularity contest to win a bright pink trophy; “The game that all girls love to play!” emblazons the box. The rules are straightforward: draw a card and see what happens. Cards like “Most Attractive Teen” and “Pretty Legs” score girls popularity points. Breaking up with their boyfriend (“Break Up”) and neglecting their personal appearance (“Careless”) loses them points. Drawing “Wardrobe!” and gaining a full closet awards 100 popularity points, the highest possible in the game. With a girly pink aesthetic, a strong focus on appearance and fashion, and themes related to dating and marriage, Miss Popularity Games serves as a quintessential “girl game” despite predating Barbie Fashion Designer by 35 years.

Miss Popularity Game is only one example among many. From 1960 to the mid-1990s, all board games branded as “For Girls Only” use the same pop-pink aesthetics characteristic of girl games today. Again, like modern girl games, half of these earlier board games contain themes or gameplay related to marriage and dating. For example, the entire premise of The Bride Game (1972) is planning the perfect wedding; in multiple others, getting a steady boyfriend is required to win the game. Most strikingly, every single board game analyzed from this 30-year period drew attention to the player’s appearance, discussing her wardrobe, body type, hair, makeup, and attractiveness.

Focusing on the player’s appearance is necessary for dress-up and fashion games. However, many of these board games went a step further, punishing players for not being pretty enough, not doing their makeup well enough, or not being able to afford to go to the salon. In Girl Talk (1988), players must put a large red “zit sticker” on their face, intended to shame her if she fails. In What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls (1966; 1972), drawing a “personality card” describing the player as overweight means that she is unfit for pursuing a career as an airline hostess or ballet dancer. Many of these early girl games do present a narrow ideal of femininity, and girls learn they must be young, thin, white, attractive, and at least middle-class to “win.” This framing is tragic; no game designer should include mechanics that punish or shame players for failing to meet unrealistic beauty standards. No more zit stickers, please!

Of course, no genre of game is free from problematic titles. Despite the controversies, girl games tapped into experiences girls and women could relate to. Girl games established a new kind of engaging gameplay, which has maintained player interest for 75 years and counting. The aesthetics of girl games are eye-catching and vibrant; dressing up is a form of self-expression and engages the player’s creativity; relationships are important to our lives and negotiating them in game spaces is fun, allowing us to experiment safely. It’s not that we need to rid ourselves of girl games at all—in fact, I think we need more girl games, ones that broaden our understanding of what femininity is, and who it’s for. Rather than depicting femininity as something you can “win” and “lose,” girl games should give players a safe space to experiment with what gender means to them. Rather than being marketed only to girls, everyone should get the chance to dress up, play with romance, and wear whatever they want—including boys. I hope the girl games of the future invite everyone to play with femininity.

Written by, Ashley Rezvani, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow at The Strong National Museum of Play

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The Commodore VIC-20 first debuted at the Computer Electronics Show held in June of 1980. It began to be sold for North American households the following year and from the get-go was a hit–an inexpensive computer that could display color graphics. The other major competitors of the time were the Atari 400, TRS-80, and Apple II. It’s easy to forget now, but in the early ’80s, Apple was still the newcomer, whereas Commodore—under the leadership of the aggressive and visionary Jack Tramiel—was already a well-established player in the electronics market.

Commodore’s goal was simple, quoted from creator Tramiel himself: “Computers for the masses, not the classes.” Many hobbyists learned how to code on the machine, as it was one of the more affordable 8-bit entry computing systems of its time.  

Its low cost and developer-friendly architecture made the VIC-20 popular not just among casual users but also within the growing coder and gamer communities. It went on to become the first personal computer to sell more than one million units—ultimately reaching an impressive 2.5 million over its lifetime.

Commodore even brought in celebrity endorsements to promote the VIC-20. William Shatner, of Star Trek fame, starred in television commercials encouraging households to bring home this “wonder computer of the 1980s.”

Donations play a vital role in shaping our collections at The Strong Museum. In recent years, both collectors and former developers have generously contributed VIC-20-related artifacts. One such donor is Scott Elder, co-creator of the game development company Nüfekop, who provided a treasure trove of items tied to his company’s history.

Nüfekop developed and published titles for both the Commodore 64 and the VIC-20. The company name itself has a quirky origin—co-founder Gary Elder invented a fictional “Druid” mythos linking Nüfekop to Stonehenge. Alongside his brother Scott, the two created games from scratch, turning a bedroom project into a full-fledged publishing effort. (Fun fact: try reading the company name backwards.)

In addition to commercially available games, the donation by Scott Elder also included things that were never released, such as alternative product packaging. Other ephemera donated included posters and advertisements, such as the Krazy Kong advertisement as seen above.

The Commodore VIC-20 holds a special place in the history of personal computing—not just as a bestselling machine, but as a gateway that introduced millions to the world of digital creativity and play. Its affordability, accessibility, and wide game library helped pave the way for the home computing boom of the 1980s. More than just a piece of hardware, the VIC-20 became a platform for innovation, where garage developers could become game creators and everyday users could become programmers.

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First let us get some big questions out of the way: who is Cthulhu and what is the Cthulhu mythos? Cthulhu is the creation of American author H.P. Lovecraft, who is considered by some to be the father of the cosmic horror genre. Using elements of science-fiction and fantasy, Lovecraft built the mythos of the various types of eldritch beings called the Outer Gods, Elder Gods, and the Great Old Ones. According to Chaosium’s website “Cthulhu is a Great Old One. With the rest of his race, he sleeps in a vast tomb at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Cthulhu seems to be the most important Great Old One on Earth.” Featured originally in Lovecraft’s 1928 short story “Call of Cthulhu,” the ancient sleeping being is described as “a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, and narrow wings behind.” So Cthulhu ranks as a very scary monster and a thing of nightmares for some. The mythos itself is the various lore, monsters, and the “‘Lovecraftian horror stories” that were created around the sleeping Great Old One.

Jumping ahead to 1975, after receiving a “particularly good tarot card reading,” Greg Stafford decided to take the leap and start a company that would allow him to combine his hobbies in fantasy stories and war games into one. He called it Chaosium. The company is now in its 50th year and has had quite the journey along the way. In the late 1970s, Chaosium acquired the licenses for H.P. Lovecraft’s writings from Arkham House. According to Shannon Appelcline, in November 1981 Sandy Peterson’s Call of Cthulhu TTRPG was released, and gradually it became the company’s top RPG, eventually eclipsing other Chaosium games for most of its history. During times of financial struggles, Chaosium concentrated all its updates and new content on Cthulhu because it was so popular, and eventually it became the company’s signature game. One report recounts that in 1992 when the 5th edition of the game came out, Cthulhu emerged as the core of Chaosium’s image and business, something the company played up with their Cthulhu for President rallies at Gen Con that year.

So what set this game apart from others? While the game’s atmosphere and horror genre certainly contributed, in Appelcline’s writeup on Chaosium’s history in Designers & Dragons states, “Call of Cthulhu changed the way that people thought about roleplaying . . . because it suggested a whole new world of adventure.” This new kind of adventure meant that players were no longer about hacking and slashing their way through combat, but were instead Investigators, average individuals in our world who were encountering the supernatural. It also introduced a “mental landscape” with the sanity system built into the game. This causes the Investigators to experience shocks when they encounter eldritch horrors beyond their comprehension. As these Investigators were just average people, it made the risk of characters succumbing to phobias and other madness a mechanic in the game. This essentially then made a character’s emotional traits part of the character sheet and mechanics, which could help guide a player in how to roleplay their character. Greg Stafford later referred to this kind of roleplaying as story-telling roleplay games. He said these games engaged with the “entirety of the players’ creative capacity, not just his ability to understand the rules. Its emphasis is on the participating in the story, not memorizing the rules.”

It should be noted that while the sanity mechanic was quite influential and significant to the roleplaying scene, it was based on outdated concepts of mental health. The original mechanic depicted the mentally ill as dangerous and out of control. If a player’s character received too much exposure to the supernatural, they would go insane and become unplayable. This is something Stuart Martyn criticizes in his article “Mind Games” in the Horror edition of Wyrd Science zine. Martyn explains how newer editions and offshoots of the game have tried to adjust for more respectful depictions of mental illness, citing Cthulhu Dark by Graham Walmsley as an example in which a character experiences insight into the true nature of reality that others cannot perceive.

This then leads into something interesting about the Call of Cthulhu game: the many licenses that have allowed the TTRPG expand. In fact, Shannon Appelcline says that Chaosium is probably one of the most prolific licensors in the industry and goes on to add, “Most of Chaosium’s licensees were only interested in publishing books for Call of Cthulhu, and Chaosium was happy to oblige.” Some of the TTRPGs it has led to are include the aforementioned Cthulhu Dark, Delta Green and Trials of Cthulhu. In 2001, Wizards of the Coast even came out with d20 Call of Cthulhu, version intended to take the feeling of the original game but with mechanics that would be more familiar to Dungeons & Dragons players. Apart from TTRPGs, Cthulhu has also inspired various card games, board games, and video games. One board game creation based on a Chaosium license was Richard Launius’ 1987 Arkham Horror board game. This game provided roleplay-like elements and stands as perhaps one of the earliest fully cooperative board games, allowing players to work together to defeat a common enemy.

Some of the video games using these licenses were the 1992 and 2024 reimagined Alone in the Dark PC survival horror games, the 2018 Call of Cthulhu by Cyanide, and Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet from 1993, which used Lovecraft’s stories “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “Dunwich Horror” for inspiration. “Dunwich Horror” is included in the current 7th edition of the TTRPG’s Investigator Handbook. The book states that the character Dr. Henry Armitage provides a “prime example of a Call of Cthulhu investigator” in how he uncovers the supernatural and chooses to fight against it instead of running away.

Overall, the influence of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu has spanned more than 40 years, creating new ways of portraying characters in TTRPGs by focusing on their mental states and emotions, generating cooperative board games, and inspiring numerous video games that connect back to the TTRPG. So, if you are ever feeling up for something different to play and want to experience some Lovecraftian horror, the options are plentiful whether it be a card game, board game, TTRPG, or video game!

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After its founding on April 1, 1976, Apple Computer Company had one of the fastest rises ever for an upstart company. Their first computer was named, simply, Apple I, but in June 1977, the company changed the world with the Apple II. With an external shell for containing the components, a built-in keyboard, game paddles, cassettes for saving data, and glorious full-color graphics, the Apple II was credited for expanding the market for computers beyond experts, business professionals, and hobbyists. For the first time, consumers saw a computer that seemed like it could be used by anybody.

The Apple II made such a quick impact after only a year on the market that Apple employees reported to CBS Television City in Hollywood to help get a game show off the ground.

Tic Tac Dough had originally aired on NBC in the late 1950s. Contestants faced a tic-tac-toe grid with a category in each of the nine squares. The champion (playing X) and the challenger (playing O) took turns picking squares and answering questions, earning a square with each correct answer. For a little added suspense and strategy, the nine categories were mounted on nine spinning drums that would rotate after each round of play. A contestant looking to capture their third box for the win could suddenly find themselves stuck with a category that stumped them.

Tic Tac Dough ended in 1959. In 1978, series creators Jack Barry & Dan Enright were riding a new wave of success with The Joker’s Wild, a quiz in which a giant slot machine determined the categories. Looking for another hit show, Barry & Enright reached to a show from their past and decided to launch The New Tic Tac Dough, selling a daytime version to CBS, with a nighttime version to air on local stations across the country in syndication.

Nine Apple computers were purchased to form the game board for the new version; one Apple II for each square on the game board; a tape cassette machine was also attached to each one for data storage. A 10th computer, the Altair 8800 manufactured by MITS, served as a brain of sorts for the entire collection. All nine Apple IIs were connected to the Altair, which would “tell” each Apple computer what it should display at different points in the game.

Bob Bishop, an early Apple employee who designed many of the company’s earliest games (Space Maze and Bomber among other titles) was dispatched to CBS to bring the show to life. He shared his memories in a 2009 interview with Em Maginnis for Juiced.GS Magazine

Bishop remembered, “They needed to put up a giant ‘X’, a giant ‘O’, a dragon, the names of the categories, whatever it is they wanted—somebody had to do that. And so they elected me! It was a fun little thing. I’d never done anything in television before, so it was my first chance to actually go behind the scenes and see what goes on in a TV station. It was kind of a one-shot deal that lasted a few months. There wasn’t that much to do—it was just a matter of programming the computer to do what they wanted. But it was fun because, as you know, when you first write a program, it never quite works right the first time, and even when you think you’ve got it debugged, it doesn’t quite work. I remember we were doing the prototype and the emcee, Wink Martindale, would say, ‘Now, we’ll look at the categories,’ and nothing would happen. Who’s to blame? Everybody’s pointing the finger at somebody else. Usually, it turned out it wasn’t my fault, though!”

Bishop successfully debugged the system and The New Tic Tac Dough was a success. In time, Barry & Enright got more Apple II computers, offering them as prizes in their bonus round, with announcer Jay Stewart even making it a point to hype the computer by touting, “Just connect it to your TV set and you’re ready to program for recording family records, computer games, artwork, music, and it even helps the kids with their math…It’s the same computer that runs our Tic Tac Dough board!”

 Think of what a glowing endorsement that would have been in the late 1970s. A big-time television show in Hollywood used this computer as the central nervous system for their entire production—and you can use it in your own home!

Tic Tac Dough aired for the next eight years, intriguing young viewers who became part of that first generation to live with computers in the home. Two of those fans, Stephen Wylie and Kevin Trinkle, spent the past four months on a labor of love that they finally unveiled on June 20.

Vintage Computer Festival Southwest is an annual gathering of old-school techies displaying their personal collections of classic obsolete computers and other gear. Among the attractions at this year’s event: Nintendo’s Famicom System from the 1980s, with a selection of games sold only in Japan; decommissioned equipment used by the Weather Channel in the early 1990s; Hewlett-Packard’s Pen Plotter, a printer that drew pictures with two mounted pens; Tandy hardware and software sold at RadioShack; and several computer models playing the Oregon Trail on ordinary green-hued monitors.

In the lobby of the Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas at Dallas, visitors were welcomed with an eye-popping array of authentic Apple IIs, strung together just like old times to form the game board for Tic Tac Dough.

Trinkle explains, “Knowing the history of Tic Tac Dough and the board being the first use of computer graphics in a TV game show, we thought it would be cool to recreate it on as close to the original hardware as we could. We’re both game show nerds.”

Surprisingly, rounding up nine 1978 computers in working condition was one of the easiest parts of the process! Trinkle says, “I own three of the Apple II machines, acquired over the past six years as part of my private collection. Stephen owns one of them.”

The other five came from local vintage tech enthusiasts. Three of the computers had been dug out of the dirt behind the former site of a computer store in Dallas.

 Without any actual instructions or guidelines from the real show to work with, Wylie & Trinkle studied numerous episodes of Tic Tac Dough, and used their own knowledge and expertise to work backward, figuring out what kind of coding would have to be programmed in order to produce the numbers, words, and graphics.

Trinkle says, “Quite a bit of my first code was thrown out as it was just too slow…[It] all had to be thrown out and rewritten.”

Wylie adds, “I didn’t expect to be writing Apple II code at this point in my life! I hadn’t written anything serious on the Apple II since junior high school over 30 years ago…I had to relearn quite a bit that I had long since forgotten and learn new things in the process.”

The recreation wasn’t 100% authentic; for lack of an Altair 8800, Wylie & Trinkle used a modern Raspberry Pi to do the thinking for the Apple IIs. The Raspberry Pi also supplied theme music and sound effects. To give some context about what visitors were seeing, Wylie also displayed a Tic Tac Dough press kit from 1978, with photos and information about the show.

Visitors tended to have one of two reactions: “I remember this show!” and “There was a game show that ran on Apple IIs? That’s awesome! I never knew that!”

Dozens of games were played over the weekend, transporting people to television’s past for just a few minutes at a time, and celebrating how far their favorite technology, and our favorite genre of television, have come in the decades since. Wylie & Trinkle are not unique among the fandom either. There are fans who have built their own Showcase Showdowns and Wheels of Fortune in their workshops, fans who have wired their own Jeopardy! buzzers, printed their own giant decks of cards, constructed Match Game question machines and host lecterns. Game shows have inspired hundreds of labors of love from devoted fans.

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As I begin a new decade of my life, I’ve become more aware of the toys that model real-world “adulting.” Pretend play is a childhood staple, and often it involves kids performing what they see adults do. I’ve also realized, with a bit of my now developed adult cynicism, that it was a lot more fun to pretend to be an adult. The real thing doesn’t always measure up.

Take chores for example. Sweeping up with a fake broom or running a fake vacuum across the floor was way more fun than my now never-ending struggle to keep the cat hair out of my carpet. Cleaning the dishes is so much more fun when they don’t actually have food on them. I think it’s the lack of actual need to do the chores that makes the pretend chores more fun. I could flit around the house with my big fluffy duster as a kid, not properly cleaning anything, possibly making it worse, but there wasn’t any actual consequence. Dust is now my mortal enemy with its endless cycle of settling on surfaces.

Cooking is also way more fun when it’s fake. It’s so easy. You can “chop” up your food, stir it in a bowl, dump it on a plate—they’ll all say they love it because that’s their job as adults—and then you can just dump it all back in the basket. No recipes are needed because everything comes out perfect with just the right flavor. Who can beat that? The grocery shopping is so easy too. Super Kids Market is way more fun than the real Wegmans. I don’t have to spend real money, the food never goes bad, and nothing requires prep time. There’s no such thing as perishables in the world of fake food! And let’s be honest, even when we graduate to whipping up cookies in our Easy Bake Ovens, the simplicity, speed, and abundance of desserts means it’s always a good time.

I also held so many careers as a kid. Not to mention the work was so easy! Being a doctor required no medical degree, no actual understanding of the human body, and no charts. I was a super spy using totally real (definitely not toys) spy equipment without any risk of international crisis. I was the caretaker of dozens of animals that were miraculously healthy despite empty food bowls, inconsistent care, and multiple predator/prey combinations housed together. The work environment was great. I set my own hours, had unlimited time off, wasn’t subject to performance expectations, and could do all my work from home. I may have earned no money as well, but I had no bills so that was fine.

I have to say, I think the truest betrayal was the expectation set by the economy during childhood play. Every cash register was full, customers were always stopping by, and they never got to keep anything they bought, so it was pure profit. The board game Pay Day (the 2000 edition specifically) was popular in my house, but I’m beginning to think it established some false impressions about finances. I closed a lot more deals, won a lot more lotteries, and got a lot more bonuses in that game than I do in real life. My finances were way less complicated. Same thing with The Game of Life. The houses I bought and the sizes of the families I had in that game are completely unattainable.

The Game of Life in general needs some attention for its delivery of unrealistic expectations for life. I’ve ended my “life” winning a Nobel Prize, being elected mayor, writing a bestseller, and having six children, all while working as an artist and retiring to Countryside Acres. How was that supposed to prepare me for the expense-to-income ratio of late-stage capitalism? Why can’t I press CTRL + Shift + C and type the “motherlode” cheat code 300 times like in The Sims 2 and then live a life of luxury with my magically acquired wealth? Maybe Hasbro had it right when they released The Game of Life: Quarter Life Crisis (Now with Crippling Debt!).

Perhaps the last six paragraphs of complaining are also a cover for a certain melancholy that comes with thinking about a time in my life with fewer worries and more imagination. Maybe there’s a kid inside me begging to set aside the have-to-do for more of the want-to-do. Maybe it’s the rose-colored glasses that come with nostalgia. Maybe it’s a symptom of millennial burnout, pressure, and anxiety. Or maybe it’s just easier to yell into the abyss, “What gives?!”

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This was the question I was seeking to answer when I applied for the Research Fellowship at The Strong National Museum of Play. Not only is it a relevant research question, but it has been the focus of industry leaders for decades. Through examining the Game Developers Conference (GDC) collection, specifically the keynote speeches dating back to 1998, I discovered industry leaders consistently grappling with two questions: “What does the future hold?” and “How can we shape it?” In their addresses, the leading figures of Sega, Microsoft, Naughty Dog, Nintendo, Sony, and more presented their vision of gaming’s future, hoping to rally developer and consumer support.

My research uncovered that the evolution of the video game ecosystem is rooted in a pattern of mutual adaptation and the emergence of complementary interactions among various stakeholders. Drawing from past successes, failures, and shared knowledge, contributions flow from diverse members of the ecosystem, all aiming to enhance or innovate play. I explored a rich array of records, catalogs, artifacts, and books, including materials from the Game Developers Conference, the Toys for Bob collection, From Sun Tzu to Xbox by Ed Halter, and the Indie Games collections. I discovered that innovations requiring adjustments from other ecosystem players often pave the way for new complementary interactions, driving this evolution forward. Three examples from The Strong’s collections particularly highlight this phenomenon:

The CD-ROM Revolution
When Sony introduced the PlayStation in the mid-1990s, its CD-ROM format represented more than a technical upgrade—it demanded fundamental changes in game development practices. Developers had to master new tools and workflows, while entertainment companies found fresh opportunities to integrate music and video. This mutual adaptation led to dramatic improvements in gaming’s audio-visual quality and storage capacity, while significantly reducing production costs.

Toys-to-Life Innovation
Studying the Toys for Bob collection revealed how one company’s innovation rippled through the entire ecosystem. Their Skylanders franchise introduced physical toys that players could digitize into their games using a special portal and RFID technology. This required new partnerships with toy manufacturers like Creata, and created an entirely new gaming genre, “toys-to-life.” The success prompted industry giants Nintendo and Disney to develop their own versions, demonstrating how innovation drives ecosystem-wide adaptation

The CrossPlay Challenge
Through GDC records and industry documentation, I traced the impact of Epic Games’ push for CrossPlay functionality in Fortnite, a significant disruption in the video game ecosystem. This innovation not only built upon advancements in server technology and high-speed internet connectivity but also required an unprecedented relinquishing of power from competing platform holders, such as Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. By enabling users to play together in a shared game environment—regardless of their platform, (e.g. Windows PC, iOS, or Xbox)—CrossPlay transformed the gaming experience. Although this adaptation faced initial resistance and legal challenges, it ultimately reshaped business models and inter-platform relationships across the industry, paving the way for new interactions and monetization strategies, including the freemium model and live-service structures.

My time at The Strong illuminated the clear patterns in gaming’s evolution, characterized by technical advancements, societal shifts, and business adaptations. From the transition to digital distribution to the rise of cloud gaming, these technical innovations open new possibilities. Meanwhile, social changes—such as the emergence of esports and content creation platforms—have redefined gaming’s cultural significance. Business innovations, including new monetization models and distribution strategies, have transformed how value is created and captured within the industry. These patterns are still unfolding today. The Strong’s extensive collections offered invaluable insights into how these adaptations interconnect, shaping the vibrant gaming ecosystem we know today. Thank you so much for the opportunity!

By: Kalan Horton, 2025 Strong Research Fellow

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One rabbit that I recall from my childhood is Uncle Wiggily. Not familiar with him? He started back in 1910 in stories that Howard Garis wrote for the Newark News and he and his fellow characters went on to help Garis publish almost 80 children’s books in his lifetime. I’m not certain that I inherited any copies of those books from my mom, but my sister and I played an Uncle Wiggily board game that pitted the elderly rabbit with his candy-striped cane against various adversaries and obstacles as he hobbled down the path to Dr. Possum’s office to get his rheumatism medication. At least in the game version, Uncle Wiggily was on the innocuous side (a bit like Mickey Mouse in that regard), but I was much more amused by the names of his foes such as Skeezicks and the Bad Pipsisewah.

While Uncle Wiggily ranks as a senior rabbit, the younger end of the spectrum is represented by the little bunny in Margaret Wise Brown’s 1947 picture book Goodnight Moon. Reportedly Brown gave illustrator Clement Hurd minimal instructions as to what she was looking for and Hurd adapted to the assignment by making the characters rabbits—he felt more confident drawing bunnies than people. Despite sluggish initial sales, the book went on to become a children’s classic and a favorite bedtime story to wind down the day and send kids peacefully off to dreamland. Naturally, some of those kids wanted to snuggle into bed with their own plush version of the rabbit from the story.

Another storybook rabbit, this time from 1921’s The Velveteen Rabbit, has also made the leap into The Strong’s collection. Margery Williams’s tale about a stuffed animal who yearns to become real through the love of his owner has endured in the hearts of children and adults for more than a century now. Certainly, looking around the plush animals and dolls in the museum’s holdings, I can see signs of the deep affection that has been lavished upon them over the years as they were clutched for comfort. Their repaired stitching and threadbare fur make tangible some of the meaning they held for their little owners. Some may find The Velveteen Rabbit too sentimental for their tastes, but the story holds powerful emotions for some of us (including yours truly). It therefore feels fitting that a 3-D version of that rabbit makes its permanent home at The Strong.

But to end on a lighter note, let’s turn to the movies and the wisecracking hare of countless Warner Brothers cartoon shorts—none other than Bugs Bunny. A direct descendant of classic trickster characters from folk tales and literature around the world, Bugs holds a special place in the hearts of his many fans, although his nemesis Elmer Fudd and even Daffy Duck undoubtedly feel less cordial toward him. Bugs and Elmer faced off for the first time in the 1940 short A Wild Hare in which Bugs uttered his timeless catchphrase, “What’s up, Doc?” The player of innumerable pranks, Bugs Bunny has seen toys and other products bearing his likeness proliferate over the years, almost breeding like, well, rabbits. At The Strong, our collection includes products far beyond the anticipated Bugs Bunny plush figures, encompassing everything from jigsaw puzzles to PEZ dispensers to video games and yo-yos.

I have no doubt that the rabbits in The Strong’s collection will continue to thrive and multiply. Even as I write this, I’m visualizing more examples on shelves and in cases throughout the museum. Roger Rabbit. Peter Rabbit. Babs Bunny. The Runaway Bunny. The list goes on and on. I guess you can’t keep a good bunny down.

The post Hop to It: The Rise of the Rabbits appeared first on The Strong National Museum of Play.

While I have run multiple tabletop role-play games (TTRPG) for friends, I had only recently started dipping my toes into the role of Dungeon Master (DM) —the term used for the person who is running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Before this, I had also exclusively run games online, over a Discord voice call using Roll20, a virtual tabletop service. In that setting, we don’t use cameras for our games so no one can see my facial expressions as I do silly character voices or see me searching for music while players talk to each other. The idea of standing in front of people while doing this can be intimidating. And it is no wonder why DMs are harder to find than players in the TTRPG community—it’s a lot of work to prepare such a game, even a short one! Nonetheless, I undertook the challenge, hoping to share this wonderful game we were celebrating at the museum with my co-workers.

The first question was if I was going to undertake a homebrewed adventure or use something pre-written. I immediately decided since I had access to many published short adventures, we would use one of those, since I could be confident they had been tested and designed with beginners to the game in mind. I searched and searched online and consulted many modules I own, but nothing felt quite right for what was needed . . . that is until LEGO announced their Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale set and free module. I couldn’t believe our luck that they were coming out with exactly what was needed: A short and sweet 5th edition module designed to teach the game to new players, complete with pre-made character sheets, a delightful silly adventure, and they even provided music to play alongside gameplay for DMs! Not only that, but Wizards of the Coast streamed an actual play of the module run by Anjali Bhimani, so I got to see how the module should play out.

While it had almost everything a few things were missing. For monster stat blocks or descriptions of certain spells and items, the module referred to the 2014 5th-Edition books, which thankfully the museum has in our collection. As a result, I was able to look up everything I needed and have those descriptions at the ready for the games. There also was the small issue that the LEGO set itself was not going to be released in time for our event, so maps and miniatures for the characters were going to have to be a little different. Thankfully the internet offers access to a wealth of wonderful people who provide 3D print files for miniatures as well as maps! And Martin Reinhardt, our Arcade Conservation Technician here at the museum, was happy to help in printing everything for us!

Map and miniatures, ready! Module, ready! Music at the ready! Now to teach a game that has been around for 50 years, has had multiple editions, and is intimidating for newcomers to approach. I fully acknowledge that Dungeons & Dragons is a lot to learn and can be hard to get into if all you see with the game are people rolling dice, doing math, accessorized with massive books that are essentially textbooks for the game. I also will fully admit to players I often do not know all the rules—I applaud those who have it all memorized though! So where to start? I knew we needed a game that was going to provide a very general overview of various encounters and the most used mechanics of the game.

The first sessions I ran for members of our Collections Team were with co-workers who had played TTRPGs or knew a little of them beforehand, so we could jump in more easily. We played the full module over the course of two 2.5-hour sessions. The second group, our Marketing Team, were almost all new to roleplay games, so I decided to consider what would have been helpful to me when I started playing this massive and intimidating game. Having dice provided and a sheet made for me was a must, plus a clear idea of what I could do during each round of combat felt like a good place to start. Carefully I put together little binders with sheets, spell cards, magical item cards, dry erase markers to mark off on the sheets with, a bag of dice, and this handy free PDF by Matthew Perkins that explains what players can do on their turns in combat in 5e. Perkins’ website even acknowledges in the description of the PDF that “This game is complicated!” and explains he made the sheets to help onboard new players.

With the binders made, I decided to also cut out some pieces of the LEGO module to narrow in on the experience of a “typical game.” I knew I wanted to have a combat encounter, some investigation, a small social encounter to get into the roleplaying, but I didn’t want us to linger too long on Skill Checks or posing optional scenes to players. Also, for both groups and in general as a DM, I am a huge fan of what is called “Rule of Cool” in my games. This means that while the game’s rules may say: you can only move x amount of feet and only do this, I say: if it sounds cool and is within reason then give it a try, let’s have a dice roll still determine if you can do it or not. I always try to provide the space for my players to find alternative solutions. This could mean allowing a player character to talk their way out of combat or to sneak around to avoid an encounter.

Providing the space for players to make the adventure theirs has always been a goal of mine as a DM. After all, to quote Matthew Mercer from Critical Role, “How do you want to do this?” is what we ask players when they are about to defeat a foe in combat! We provide the player with the moment to shine and take control of the narrative of how they want to finish the enemies. But it can be hard to answer this question when just learning TTRPGs. When we started one game and I asked a player this question, the player hesitantly started to describe their finishing blow during the first combat encounter. But by the end of the game, we had excited descriptions and gestures as our heroes saved the day from the evil sorcerer! To see this transformation in just over two hours was amazing and I was so happy to see everyone enjoying the game.

Getting to share this game that has generated so many stories and imaginations for half a century now with co-workers was truly a delight. And I was happy to have the opportunity to be the one to run a game for them. The experience also provided me with a moment to step back and remember that, despite all the books, lore, and changes to the game over the years, it is just that: a game. And having fun with it, adjusting it to the players is always important as a DM. So even though I was there to teach others, I also learned a great deal from this experience and am ready for more stories to tell, whether it be online with friends or at work!

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