Berlin’s latest attraction: The Computer Game Museum

If you’re under thirty, computer games have always been a part of your life, but for us old farts wise elders, we remember the first time we took hold of a joystick and moved a spaceship through an asteroid field, or ran a ravenous little yellow circle around a maze while being chased by ghosts. If you’re under twenty, you probably don’t even know what games I’m talking about.

Here’s your chance to learn. The Computer Game Museum has just opened in Berlin. The Computerspiele Museum, as it’s called in German, presents the history of gaming from its early days on room-sized computers in the 50s and 60s, through the arcade craze of the 80s and on up to today. There are even experimental installation pieces examining possibilities for the next generation of gaming, such as RaveSnake, an eight-player game controlled by cell phones via Bluetooth. The developers call this a new genre of “party games for the sidewalk.”

The museum has an archive of about 14,000 games, and some are set up so visitors can play them. According to a detailed article by Deutsche Welle, this is the second incarnation of the museum. It was previously open for a few years in the 90s before shutting down. In following years it created temporary exhibitions for other museums until it got a space of its own and opened on Friday.

In case you’re wondering, the screenshot is of Pong, a table tennis simulator that was one of the earliest games available to the general public, being released in 1972. That’s before even my time!

[Photo courtesy user Bumm13 via Wikimedia Commons]

Where did you pick up your travel bug?

At the age of 10, I could place Port Moresby, Buenos Aires and Cape Town on a map with ease. Where did I get this know how? Not from school — our classes back then talked about little else than Canadian geography. Not from my surroundings either — living amidst globes and atlases wasn’t all that interesting to me as a child. Not even from my dad, who’s flown into so many places that I can’t even name three countries he hasn’t been to.

No, I remember exactly where my early affluence at geography came from. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?. Yes, the computer game that reached its height of popularity in the late 80s — back when floppy disks really were floppy — is where I learned about Lima and perused Peru, all while tracking down Carmen and trying to score more points than my little brother.

I’m serious. I played a lot of that game when I was growing up and I credit it at least in part for my travel addiction in adulthood. And while I wouldn’t say I’m a geography expert now, I’m certainly more knowledgeable than the average person. I don’t know if it’s still around, but I do know that it’s a great learning tool for kids. And I bet many people my age can vouch for that.