The possibility of recording a three-dimensional image for later reconstruction through a hologram was developed out of early progress in X-ray and electron microscopy—notably by Hungarian-born Dennis Gabor, who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics…
In the early days of 1981, a new toy made its way to the West over the Iron Curtain. A few years earlier, a Hungarian architecture professor named Ernő Rubik had developed a “Magic Cube” while tinkering with ways to express rotation in 3D space in a single object…
Originally designed by Douglas Malewicki, an American aerospace engineer and eclectic inventor, the object of this satirical simulation of cataclysmic nuclear war was to be sole survivor, although final retaliatory strikes often eliminated all players in a deadly chain reaction…
By Brother Bill
A wave of dark, violent horror films arrived in the early-to-mid 2000s, all set in the present-day real world and centered on people caught up in deranged systems or subcultures. It seemed as though the lone psycho supermen of earlier decades (Hannibal Lecter, Max Cady, endlessly respawning Freddies, Michaels, and Jasons) were being supplanted…
By J.G. Newman
I typically don’t role-play when I play games. Which isn’t to say I don’t invest deeply in whatever game I’m playing; my emotional connection to my avatar is just fueled more by traditional audience-to-character empathy than actually inhabiting the role of whatever druid or space marine whose shoes the game places me in…
After a partial nuclear meltdown occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant only days before the release of a 1979 film discussing just that possibility, the term “China Syndrome”—used by nuclear power experts to describe a hypothetical scenario in which an overheating reactor core melted its way to the other side of the planet—quickly passed into common usage…
By J.G. Newman
What should have been a couple-session run-through of an old RPG somehow morphed into a piecemeal, month-long slog. It’s the first “historically significant” game I’ve played that feels like a cave painting, a work enjoyable only as a first step toward things to come…
Released by Bally in 1980, Xenon was the first pinball game to feature a female voice (the first speaking pinball machine being the previous year’s sword and sorcery-themed Gorgar). Designed by Greg Kmiec and featuring sensual artwork by Paul Faris—which clearly showed the influence of underground and European comics…
By J.G. Newman
Spacewar! (1962) was the first video game the way that Little Richard was the first rock star. Both wrote a fairly complete rulebook for a future worldwide obsession, yet were known to such niche (or, in Richard’s case, unfairly marginalized) audiences that they now play footnote to the Pongs and Presleys of history…
As a child, I spent a lot of time in the manageable, organized worlds that board games offered. Rules, a sense of order and fair play, and brightly-colored game pieces and boards appealed to me: they were a safe haven from the uncertainty of the outside world…
We Are the Mutants 