museumofplay

The year is 2013. I'm in my college dorm, putting little board game pieces into bags. The year is 2026. I'm in my office, putting little board game pieces into bags. The more things change, the more things stay the same. But these bags are archival polyet

By: Dr. Emily R. Aguiló-Pérez, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow For generations of children, brushing Barbie's hair has been as central to play as dressing her in the latest fashions. Beyond the familiar brush tucked into countless doll boxes, Mattel

Jubensha, translated from its original Chinese as "script(ed) murder," shares similarities with Western murder mystery dinner party games, yet equating the two oversimplifies a far more complex cultural phenomenon. Since the 2010s, in China, where the scr

When South African bishop Desmond Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his anti-apartheid activism, Linda West Olds of Delaware turned to her 10-year-old son Kevin and asked: "Do you know what segregation is?" He did not. Perplexed, Olds probed

By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History "On your mark…get set…GOOOOO!" On October 6, 1986, Marc Summers uttered those words to kick off Nickelodeon's Double Dare… and changed the face of television. Nickelodeon had surviv

We all have our preferences, presuppositions, and favorites; the subjects, outlooks, and topics that we gravitate to again and again. That's why I love randomness. It's a tool I use frequently to challenge my own inherent biases in my work here at The Str

By: Hana Hanifah, 2025 Valentine-Cosman Research Fellow In recent years, the momentum for accessibility in games has gained significant traction. Many custom configurations, such as captions, remappable controls, and adaptable hardware, are becoming the n

A few years ago, while chatting with a visiting research fellow in the Brian Sutton-Smith Library & Archives of Play at The Strong, they posed an interesting question, "So, what is your area of expertise? Video games, toys, something else?" I wasn't quite

By Adam Nedeff, researcher for the National Archives of Game Show History Prizes on game shows seem fairly straightforward. Here's a nice thing; win the prize. But there's some slight nuance to it that's led to muddled or mistaken information being common

Inducted Year: 2018 The Robbins family of Reading, Ohio, loved to play cards, especially the game crazy eights. But that game's tricky rule variations sometimes led to friendly family arguments. Merle Robbins, a barber by trade and the father of the famil