‘The Travellers’ Tour Through the United States’ is the earliest known board game to depict a map of North America.
Library of Congress
Few copies remain of the earliest known board game produced in the US.
Playtime is as important for child development as exercise is for adult health.
Getty Images
Children who play a lot learn skills such as sitting, crawling and standing quicker. Play also leads to better health and wellbeing as they grow older.
Games like Connections require players to be flexible in how they access information in semantic memory in order to find new or remote associations between words.
(New York Times)
NYT’s latest game reveals how our memory works to remember words.
Cosy games exploded in popularity during the pandemic.
Takoyaki Tech/Shutterstock
Cosy, personal games, as I discovered, can change the lives of the people who make them and those who play them.
Tetris has hooked people for decades.
AP Photo/Richard Drew
People young and old love the classic video game Tetris. A working knowledge of the spatial reasoning concepts underlying Tetris can set students up for success in mathematics.
Pexels/Polina Tankilevitch
Our new Music and Games 2023 Benchmark aims to establish the scope and scale of Australia’s game music sector.
Teamwork is a common theme among the growing number of board games that deal with climate change.
Victor Habbick Visions/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
While most board games are designed for one person to win, climate change games are about saving the world.
Nintendo
There is no doubt that open world games are popular – the latest instalment of the critically acclaimed Zelda series is no exception, selling over 10 million copies worldwide in the first three days.
The xenomorph from Ridley Scott’s 1979 classic, Alien.
AJ Pics/Alamy
A new book explores the enormous Alien franchise spawned by the 1979 film.
The ball game marker discovered in Chichén Itzá.
INAH
Ancient rituals and games possess characteristics like repetition, structure and the use of symbolic objects that aid students in understanding the world.
Flickr
The original Minecraft is generally regarded as one of the most successful computer games ever made – but its spinoffs never come close to achieving the same success.
Dobble is a card game with rules that makes it sound easier than it actually is.
Ana Belen Garcia Sanchez/Shutterstock
Dobble is a card game that originated in France in 2009. It involves observation, articulation and speed.
Vampire Survivors won Best Game at the 2023 awards.
Courtesy of Poncle
Vampire Survivors distils the essence of compelling ‘just-one-more-go’ design to create an extremely satisfying game.
There have been numerous iterations of Tetris since the game was first introduced but the iconic shapes never change.
Downloadsource.es/Flickr
Cold war intrigue and an international legal fight were behind one of the most popular video games ever.
Wizards of the Coast’s Open Game License has allowed companies to build hugely successful franchises based on the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game.
(Shutterstock)
Recent events have forced fans to reconcile their love of Dungeons & Dragons with the reality that the game’s owner, Wizards of the Coast, is a large corporation with commercial interests at heart.
Designed by Elizabeth Magie in the early 20th century, The Landlord Game would go on to inspire Monopoly .
Creative Commons
The game’s roots provide insights into capitalism that form part of teaching and research to this day.
Lead artwork for God of War Ragnarök.
SIE Santa Monica Studio
Accessibility can be a major barrier between people with disabilities and their favourite games.
The folded paper decorated with messages, numbers and fortunes printed under the flaps can spark conversation at gatherings or be given as a birthday card.
(Shutterstock)
How to make a ‘fortune teller’ or ‘chatterbox’ with children, and why the paper activity targets many developmental domains at once.
Shutterstock
Persuasive design in kids’ apps is often overlooked in the screen-time debate.
Cherished Pet Foundation
Even though the typical mobile gamer is a middle-aged woman, ageist stereotypes about gamers continue to circulate.