Explore the Victoria and Albert Museum Online
The V&A is, of course, one of the world’s premier museums of design and decorative arts. They have recently announced that over a million items from their collections are now accessible online.
People using Search the Collections… will find images of more than 100,000 objects… The online records vary from detailed studies written by curators to more basic inventory information which might include the maker, provenance, production technique and style… Users explore the site by clicking on images that scroll across the screen or by accessing the powerful search engine that identifies objects by type, maker, date, material or location in the V&A. Google maps show places of origin. Text mining technologies also allow searching of all the text associated with an object so for the first time researchers are able to move from one theme to another.
The example shown above is a board game from 1804 – “The New Game of Emulation Designed for The Amusement of Youth of both Sexes and calculated to inspire their Minds with an abhorrence of vice and a love of virtue.” It was marketed as a morality game designed to lead children “to admire and adopt the virtues of Obedience, Truth, Honesty, Gentleness, Industry, Frugality, Forgiveness, Carefulness, Mercy, and Humility; and to view in their real colours the opposite vices of Obstinacy, Falsehood, Robbery, Passion, Sloth, Intemperance, Malice, Neglect, Cruelty and Pride.” It is one of hundreds of games in the “games” category of the online collection.
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Drench
You may have to lose once to figure out how the game Drench works, but then it’s a lot of fun! Select your next color to make your paint splotch bigger, and try to cover the entire floor in paint. You only have a certain number of moves for each level. Link -via Metafilter
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Beyond Monopoly: The 15 Greatest Board Games Of All Time
People often blanche at the thought of playing a board game, but that’s because they have only been exposed to the old "classics" that really aren’t worthy of the title due to poor rulesets that promote luck over skill. Here are 15 games that are probably superior to the old standbys like Monopoly, including Last Night on Earth, a zombie thriller:
Last Night on Earth is essentially a survival game. Participants can play as either the “Hero” team or the “Zombie” team. The objective is for one team to complete their “scenario objective”, thus defeating the opposite team. The game is designed to have a horror movie feel, and even comes with it’s own soundtrack!
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Tetris Turns 25: Ten things you might not know about the game
As Tetris turns 25 this week, the Geeks are sexy blog compiled a list of ten interesting facts you probably didn’t know about the game.
1- The game was completed on June 6th 1984 by Alexander Pajitnov, a programmer at the Moscow Academy of Sciences who worked on the game in his spare time [...]
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White Zone Flash Game
Don’t you hate when you answer the phone and get sucked into the receiver? Me too. That’s what happens in White Zone, where you’re magically transported to a room with just four pieces of furniture: a T.V., a dresser and two chairs. How will you escape? That’s for you to figure out… but if you get stuck, there’s a walkthrough at JayIsGames (where I get all of these wonderful Flash games from).
Link via JayIsGames
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Bars of Black and White
In this fun click-through game from Gregory Weir, they’re out to get you. They’re always watching. And they’ve always been there. But maybe, just maybe, you can find a way to escape them…
Link via JayIsGames
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The Ultimate Vending Machine Challenge
It usually works out for the best, but on the days it doesn’t, you can always vent your frustration with the Ultimate Vending Machine Challenge from Adult Swim.
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White Jigsaw
This starts out easy, but every time you successfully complete one of the all-white puzzles, you get another one with more pieces. I can’t seem to stop playing… I want to know how large the final puzzle gets! If anyone gets there, let me know.
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Playable Guitar Hero Textadventure
Here's a playable Guitar Hero Textadventure where you write about pressing red and blue buttons when you read about falling red and blue circles. Hilarious and based on this fun image at b3ta. When you fail at writing "press red button" when reading "red circle falling" you will be trampled to death by the crowd.
Your utter failure to mimic a series of colored circles enrages the crowd, who storm the stage. Chaos ensues as someone grabs the guitar out of your hands and beats you over the head with it, knocking you unconscious. Your prone body is trampled to death by the enraged audience.
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Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
Every inch of Marvins Marvelous Mechanical Museum's 5500 square feet of floor space with 40 foot ceilings containing an array of buzzing and clattering new and vintage mechanical devices and oddities. Overhead dangle signs, animatronic dummies, over 50 airplane models gliding along a steel rail, vintage fans of all types, and classic sideshow posters. Marvin himself travels the world looking for odd coin operated devices, both new and old. Some of his machines are custom made just for him, and can not be seen in operation anywhere else. Marvin's is also listed in the World Almanac's 100 most unusual museums in the U.S.
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Lost Pig: A Text-Based Adventure
I know some people find text-based games (”Interactive Fiction”) a little dull, but I love them. I was seriously addicted to a certain text-based game back in the day, so I have a soft spot for them. This one is pretty fun – you’re an, um, not-so-smart guy named Grunk who works on a farm herding pigs. Except you’ve lost one. Naturally, you need to go find it if you want to keep your job, but you don’t have much direction as to how to go about that. Imagine you were actually looking for a lost pig and think about what you would do first. You’d listen for pig noises, wouldn’t you?
There, I’ve given you your first hint. Oh, and in case you’ve never played these types of games before, just type simple commands: “E” for go east, “get shovel” for, well, get shovel… that sort of thing. Have fun!
Link via Jayisgames (with a walkthrough in case you get stuck)
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Chalky Chess
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Big Little Big Planet
If you’ve ever wanted to make your own adorable character from Little Big Planet, here’s your chance to knit your own. If you’re really good, you can even customize them like you do in the game.
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Crazy Doors of Rainbow Colors
Can you tell I’ve been sort of addicted to flash games lately? Crazy Doors of Rainbow Colors isn’t too hard, but it’s fun and colorful. Well, there is one tricky part, I thought: figuring out the code for the door. Have fun!
Link via Jayisgames (Hint: the Jayisgames link has a walkthrough if you get really stuck)
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Super Mario Mushroom Burgers - Delicious!
Yummy burgers made out of mushrooms that look like Mario mushrooms! 1 Up to nom town. For instructions to make your own, don’t miss this Instructables post. If you like that, don’t miss their Mario holiday guide here.
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Read This Post. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200.
I love me a good game night. Monopoly gets pretty cut-throat when we’re at my in-laws – cheating bankers, people hiding money, my brother-in-law yelling at people about the free market. It’s a blast, actually. But I love the word games too – Scattergories is probably my favorite, but Catch Phrase is a good time. Especially if there’s alcohol involved. I’ve been itching for a good game night lately, so to satiate my urge until I can convince some friends to come over and be mercilessly beaten at Clue, here are a few facts about some of your favorite (at least, my favorite) games.
Monopoly
It’s thought that Monopoly originated in the early 1900s by Elizabeth Magie, except then it was called “The Landlord’s Game” (that’s her original patent in the picture). A professor at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania even started using Magie’s version as a learning tool in his classes. Evidence shows it was also used at the University of Toledo, Smith College, Princeton, MIT and Columbia. She took different versions of The Landlord’s Game to Parker Brother on several different occasions but was turned down by George Parker every time.
Eventually, a later version of the game was played by Esther Darrow, the wife of Charles Darrow. It was Charles who changed the layout and some rules of the game and began calling it Monopoly. Darrow tried to sell Monopoly to Milton Bradley but was rejected in 1934. Bad move, Milton Bradley. But Parker Brothers again passed on the game too, saying it was too complicated, too technical and too long. However, the company heard about how well the game was selling locally and reconsidered their rejection just a year later. They bought all of Darrow’s remaining inventory and helped him patent the board. They also bought Elizabeth Magie’s patent to The Landlord Game to make sure that they had undisputed rights. Uh, pretty smart, considering that Monopoly has sold more than 250 million copies worldwide since then.
• For some reason, I always thought the Monopoly guy was Uncle Moneybags. Nope. But “proper” names for him include Rich Uncle Pennybags, Milburn Pennybags and Mr. Monopoly (his most recent name). Some sources say he’s loosely based on J.P. Morgan.
• Marvin Gardens is actually a misspelling of Marven Gardens, a housing area in Margate City, N.J. In fact, all of the properties on the “classic” Monopoly board are named after places or streets near or in Atlantic City, N.J.
• In the London version of the game, Trafalgar Square is a red property, Piccadilly is yellow, Regent, Oxford and Bond Streets are green and the blue properties are Mayfair and Park Lane. The railroads are replaced by Underground stops (King’s Cross, Marylebone, Fenchurch Street Station and Liverpool Street Station).
• Neiman Marcus once sold an all-chocolate edition. The whole set, including dice, money, hotels and board, was edible.
• F.A.O. Schwarz in NYC sold a $100,000 version, which included 18-carat game pieces, a rosewood board, real money, street names written in gold leaf and various gems scattered across the board.
• The most expensive board even made is a set worth $2 million It’s made of 23-carat gold and has rubies and sapphires embedded in the top of each house and hotel.
• Various versions of Monopoly include Batman, ESPN, Family Guy, American Idol, Nintendo, Sephora, and, honestly, just about any other version you can possibly think of.
Clue
What we in North America know as Clue, the rest of the world knows as Cluedo. Would you believe that it was invented by a part-time clown? Totally true. Anthony E. Pratt invented the game in England and it was published for the first time in 1949 by a British company. Bought by Parker Brothers, the U.S. version came out the same year.
• The dead dude is known as Mr. Boddy in North America, but he’s Dr. Black everywhere else. Also, Mr. Green is apparently alias Reverend Green in some parts of the world.
• Also, some of the Clue characters have little-known first names. They are: Colonel Michael Mustard, Miss Josephine Scarlet, Professor Peter Plum, Reverend/Mr. John Green, Mrs. Blanche White and Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock.
• Characters used in other or deluxe versions of Clue include Miss Peach (not to be confused with Princess Peach), Lady Lavender, Prince Azure, Rusty Naylor and Captain Brown.
• The original nine weapons were axe, shillelagh, bomb, rope, dagger, pistol, syringe, poison and poker.
The Game of Life
Life has been around since 1861… not in the format we recognize today, of course. Milton Bradley himself invented “The Checkered Game of Life” when his lithography business started to go down the tubes (his major product was a portrait of clean-shaven Lincoln… when Lincoln grew the beard, Bradley went out of business).
He had actually been circulating the game on a smaller scale before his clean-shaven Lincoln lithograph took off, but he abandoned it once demand for his lithograph increased. After that plummeted, he focused more attention on marketing and ended up selling more than 40,000 games in 1861 alone – no small feat for that time period!
• Milton Bradley used a spinner to count the number of spaces people could move because dice were associated with gambing.
• In the original Checkered Game of Life, landing on the “Suicide” square put people out of the game completely. Obviously.
• Other squares on the original game board included Prison, Infancy, Ruin, Gambling, Disgrace, Honesty, Truth, Cupid, Industry and “Happy Old Age” (the goal of the game).
• One interesting variant (among many) is The Game of Redneck Life. Careers include Mullet Salon Operator and Monster Truck Announcer. The goal of the game is to get out with as many teeth as you can – through the various fights and brawls you get into over the course of the game, this can prove to be pretty challenging. I’m dead serious.
Scrabble
Scrabble came about in 1939 when architect Alfred Mosher Butts modified a game he had been working on earlier – Lexiko. At first he called it Criss-Crosswords and based the values of the letters on based on letter usages from the New York Times (and other reputable sources). In 1948, he allowed James Brunot to manufacture the game as long as he got a cut of each board sold… which wasn’t much, at first. They actually lost money the first year they produced it. Legend goes, though, that the President of Macy’s played the game while on vacation and, upon his return to work, was shocked that his store didn’t carry it. When they did start to carry it, sales skyrocketed.
• There are 96 two-letter words that are “legal” in Scrabble… including 10 that are spelled with vowels only. I’m so learning those.
• A typical Scrabble board has 225 squares.
• The highest known score for a single word in competition Scrabble is 392. In 1982, Dr. Saladin Khoshnaw achieved this score for the word “caziques,” which means “Indian chief.”
• The highest possible score a player can get in Scrabble on a first turn is for the word MUZJIKS (128 points).
I realize there’s tons of beloved board games I’ve missed, so maybe I’ll turn this into a series… a three-parter, or something. Sorry!, Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Risk, Trivial Pursuit. Lots of options. Have one you’d like to read about? Leave it in the comments and maybe I’ll add it to the list!
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Zwingo
“Zwing” your ball around using the mouse, smashing all the black balls of screen. The aim is to protect the white ball in the centre at all times. If the white ball leaves the boundary, the game’s over. Every 10 levels, you’ll face a boss that you have to continually hit until he runs out of health and goes off screen.
As you hit each ball out of the screen, you gain experience points (xp). The harder you hit the ball, the more xp you collect.
Source: Kabomb
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Guest House
For fans of point’n'click puzzle games, “Guest House” has a different twist to it with strange contraptions, Egyptian hieroglyphics and interesting music. More games of the genre can also be found at Lazylaces with “Rental House” and “Terminal House”.
Source: Lazylaces
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