Tag Archives: Toys

Arts&Culture: Humanities Magazine – Winter 2023

Humanities | The National Endowment for the Humanities

HUMANITIES National Endowment for the Humanities (Winter 2023) Issue:

Gabrielle Suchon, Philosopher Queen of the Amazons

Illustration of Gabrielle Suchon

Centuries before the rise of feminism, this underappreciated thinker wrote to set women free

What Are Toys For?

wooden minimalist rocking horse

A visit to the Strong Museum

La Malinche, Hernan Cortés’s Translator and So Much More

The disputed legacy of an Indigenous icon

How the Drug War Convinced America to Wiretap the Digital Revolution

Operation Root Canal

When Illinois Joined the Union, Its Capital Was Kaskaskia

Illinois

Business: ‘LEGO – A $38 Billion Toy Empire’ (Video)

The LEGO brick may not look like much but it is the cornerstone of the $38.5 billion Danish company. Today, LEGO’s blockbuster portfolio includes collaborations with The Beatles, Star Wars, and Frozen, a mega-hit movie franchise and 8 LEGOland theme parks. A toy that was once thought of for little boys is seeing its largest growth coming from girls and adults. But in the early 2000s, the company made several missteps and came extremely close to declaring bankruptcy. Here’s how LEGO reclaimed its status as one of the most successful toy companies in the world.

Games: The Scandinavian Zen Of The “Townscaper” Video “Toy” App (CityLab)

BLOOMBERG CITYLAB (JULY 23, 2020) – Users say they enjoy Townscaper’s calm ambiance, with no background music apart from the occasional plips and plops of material falling into the digital ocean, and they derive particular pleasure from the simple mechanics of the game — left click: you build something, right click: you destroy it.

Townscaper gameplay

When Oskar Stalberg announced the release of Townscaper a few weeks ago, he made a point of calling it a “toy” rather than a video game — because it has no goal apart from the sheer enjoyment and satisfaction you get from seeing a pretty town rising from the sea as you click.

Townscaper Website

Even though Stalberg had figured people would enjoy his creation, he hadn’t predicted the following it would gain among both designers and game developers — and what they would create with it. So far, the $5.99 game has been met with overwhelmingly positive reviews (more than 2,600 versus 35 negative ones).

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