Overall, I'd say History of Games ranks among one of the more interesting classes I've ever taken, and that includes my previous degree at BGSU. I found the discussions to be pretty interesting, particularly after we began the section on video games, and the project to make our own game was a fun one. Unfortunately I didn't […]

Technology in games is always improving at a stellar rate. In only 30 years we've come from Pong, to Halo, and beyond.Things such as graphics and sound have truly benefitted from the increased quality technology brings, even to the point of rivaling the best that Hollywood can muster. What really sets games apart from movies is […]

If ever there was a truly addicting single-player casual game, it’s Angry Birds. I have personally now purchased every iteration of Angry Birds there is (the original, Rio, Seasons), each one essentially being exactly the same game, and it has yet to get old. But what makes Angry Birds so darn addicting? What is the […]

1: Take two pieces of high-quality, handmade wheat bread, placing both side by side on a square piece of wax paper. 2: Open the jar of natural, unsalted peanut butter, and scoop out a large amount using a clean butter knife. 3: Spread the peanut butter on one piece of wheat bread. 4: Open the jar of homemade grape […]

Ah, the old console vs. PC war. In general, the differences between PC games and console games lay mostly in the hardware. PC's have traditionally offered gamers more options for playing a game. Most notably, PC's offered online multiplayer, something the consoles didn't offer until the XBox was released. The networking capabilities of PC's were what really […]

I decided to compare and contrast Pong and Breakout. These two games almost beg for comparison, since Breakout is pretty much a direct derivitive of Pong. The original Pong was designed as a simple, electronic version of Table Tennis, and requires two players, with a ball bouncing between both paddles. It is incredibly simple in its […]

Jump The Shark is a simple board game in the grand tradition of Game of Goose and Snakes and Ladders. It is a traditional race game for 2 – 4 players, and the theme of the game is television shows. The players play as a producer of a TV show, and throughout the course of the […]

An amusing religious comic create to try and show the "evils" of Dungeon & Dragons somehow teaching kids to join the occult, cast real spells, and inspire their friends to comic suicide!
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.ASP

At their very heart, most games haven't really changed that much between ancient games, and their more modern counterparts. Perhaps the largest single difference is the introduction of commercialization of games. Manufacturing of game boards, cards, and game sets has become much more prevalent as history continues. Eventually, as printing costs get cheaper and cheaper, mass […]

Using cards is perhaps one of, if not the most versatile way to play games. They can involve either a standardized deck (like the 52 card deck so often used in modern games), or a sectionalized deck containing any number of specifically designed cards to suit all sorts of different rules. For this comparison, I wished […]

For my game, I want to create a board game, using a specialized board. It will be a "race" game, similar to Senet and Royal Game of Ur, but with completely different rules. It will be a "theme" game, similar to the idea of the Game of Goose, but crossed with aspects of Snakes and Ladders. […]

It always amazes me that two very different games, created by very different people, can end up having many similarities, despite their creation being completely independent of each other. It just goes to show that it's almost impossible for anything to be truly original. I decided to compare two old board games and contrast their similarities […]

Craig Lindley says that a game is "a goal-directed and competitive activity conducted with a framework of agreed rules". This is a rather dry definition of what constitutes a game. A game is many things, and performs many important functions to us as humans. They can teach us lessons about life, and they can also serve […]