Look who’s talking about Bruce Whitehill and The Big Game Hunter.
Bruce Whitehill is a member of the Europäische Spielesammler Gilde – European Society of Game Collectors. To see his information there, go to ESG, and click on Collectors – Private and then click on Bruce Whitehill.
Comments from visitors to this site:
Nov. 2011: Hi Bruce ~ I am about to launch my game Lunch Box in a few weeks. I have read so many things of yours. Thanks for all the information. There are quite a few gurus but I find your website to be the most informative and welcoming! Thanks!
- Liz Northcutt
Oct. 2011: I wanted to … log in to your web site and post a comment telling you “that you can’t possibly imagine how much I appreciate your informative, very well-written web site”… Do you know what I’ve been doing in my spare time lately? Reading your web site. What a passion you have for the industry! … Some day this year, when you see our game in its shiny new box, I want you to know that “you” are a part of that accomplishment. I mean that sincerely.
–Jane Cleveland-Kolesar
| Good morning, Bruce, and thank you so much for sharing this information about your website. I just spent the last 30 minutes looking it over and reading some of the many articles. Wow…it is just great! – Lyle Rhodebeck |
Very kind of you to give others the opportunity to read my articles (on checkers/draughts–ed.). You have a marvelous site ! Greetings from Holland– Wim van Mourik
Have a read or check out these links below, and then search “whitehill.”
The Big Hunter of Games (The Big Game Hunter) (in French)
Jeux sur un Plateau
#73, March-April, 2011
www.jeuxsurunplateau.com
From spielbox.de
18 March, 2011
The Big Game Hunter is Back! (In German.)
18.03.11: Nach einem Serverausfall verschwand er aus dem Internet, jetzt ist er mit einer komplett renovierten Website zurück: The Big Game Hunter alias Bruce Whitehill. Sein Pseudonym charakterisiert nur einen Teil seiner Arbeit: Whitehill ist nicht nur “Jäger und Sammler” von Spielen, speziell amerikanischen Ursprungs – er hat die weltweit größte Sammlung amerikanischer Spiele aus den Jahren 1843 bis 2000 – , er ist auch Historiker, Verfasser und Spieleautor. Auf seiner neuen Website bietet er ein außerordentlich breites Spektrum spielerischer Themen, zu viel, um sie hier im Detail aufzulisten. Angemerkt sei aber, dass er sich nicht auf historische Aspekte beschränkt, sondern auch aktuellen Themen Raum bietet. Eine spezielle Abteilung widmet sich mechanischen Puzzles und “Mind Games”. Für die Zukunft ist geplant, auch internationale Artikel in ihrer Landessprache zu veröffentlichen. Die Adresse: www.thebiggamehunter.com. -kmw 16:55 Uhr
The Big Game Hunter Collection at the National Center for Games in France; Oriol Comas i Coma speaking in the Charlas Desde Mecatol Rex blogspot. In Spanish.
Click here: Oriol Comas i Coma
Bruce Whitehill’s game, “Change Horses,” is reviewed in the Dream with Board Games blogspot. In Spanish.
Click here: Change Horses
MSNBC.com
Collecting: Games People Play
Newsweek
Jan. 10, 2004 issue – Colonel Mustard may have done it in the Clue library with a candlestick, but start a game collection and you might make an even bigger killing. “This is the time to get in because prices are way down,” says Bruce Whitehill, a game historian who owns more than 5,000 titles and recently sold a 1906 race-car game for $3,300 on eBay.
While serious collectors like games from the 1800s, beginners might have more fun with a collection pegged to a theme like TV shows or books. Special, and early, editions of classics like Monopoly are in demand, as are rarer titles like the Fish Pond Game, circa 1900 (below left, $245), or the Golf Game, circa 1920 (at right, $250; both titles from FAO Schwarz). Make sure pieces aren’t missing, the edges of the box or game aren’t frayed and the instructions are intact. For more information, try vintagegamestore.com and theoldgamestore.com. Then pass “Go” and collect your dough.
—Ramin Setoodeh
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6777607/site/newsweek/
Mystery writer pens murder, mayhem
By Denise Kinney, East Bay Newspapers
9/26/2002
dkinney@eastbaynewspapers.com
Warren, Rhode Island – Bruce Whitehill of Warren is a man of mystery. Not that the 56-year-old Long Island native has anything to hide. Rather, his life is an open book, as long as it’s a whodunit with a devious plot he hatched himself.
And that means a story complete with a puzzling homicide — a police inspector who’s a cross between the late Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clousseau of “The Pink Panther” fame and Peter Falk’s brainy, but rumpled TV detective, Columbo — plenty of tell-tale clues, red herrings, wary suspects, astute detection, a solution that leaves no question unanswered and, more importantly, where getting to the bottom of it all is half the fun.
Mr. Whitehill, who moved to Warren from Rochester, N. Y., is the founder, writer and oftentimes actor in Mystery Game, an improvisational, interactive theater company that performs at restaurants and hotels, corporate bashes and company parties.
He’s not a master of disguise, but a sultan of intrigue, a highly visible, imaginative individual who has also written a Hardy Boys novel, and 18 years ago found his niche in the mystery dinner circuit.
“Inspector” Bruce Whitehill examines the body of “Boris,” a dummy he sometimes uses in his mysteries. PHOTO BY RICHARD W. DIONNE JR.
Mr. Whitehill earned a bachelor degree in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. He has also nearly completed masters degree requirements in cross-cultural psychology, a field in which he’s gained remarkable insight into human behavior, he said.
‘‘I can predict how the participants will react,” Mr. Whitehill said. “People say to me, ‘No, you can’t do that that.’ But I’m almost always right.”
Although mystery dinner theater was popular in the 1930s, its prominence as public entertainment faded until a revival in the 1980s. He said he first saw it performed at the Mohonk Mountain House in Newpaltz, N.Y.
For Mr. Whitehill, who is also an inventor of games like “Stealth,” which is still sold in stores, the “Fraggle Rock” and “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” games, created when he worked for board game guru, Milton Bradley, the combination of an interactive audience, structured plot and a puzzle to piece together was tailor-made.
He went on to create the first ongoing mystery theater game, which he calls “audience directed,” in New York City. His highly successful, “Murder on Broadway,” ran for a year at one of the Big Apple’s most renowned eateries, Sardi’s.
Looking for a change of venue, he’s brought his talent (and tortuous mind) to the Providence area.
Behind the scenes
There’s a lot more to the craft than banging out scenarios that pit audience participants against each other to see who can solve the crime. Especially when the mystery is for a corporate or private party when background info contributes to his choice of a “vic,” clues, suspects and modus operandi.
That’s when he galvanizes into action working behind the scenes, pre-show, to dig up some dirty little secrets about party guests. He’s stooped so low as to call a person’s home and entice a teenager to rat a parent out, he said, laughing.
Personalizing the murder mystery makes for an entertaining evening and leaves party guests still scratching their heads when they walk out the door.
“People will tell you the strangest information,” Mr. Whitehill said. “If you were to make it up, you wouldn’t get a laugh.”
One such call in advance of a corporate party elicited a hilarious anecdote about a female employee who experienced car problems one morning on her way to work. After pulling over and exiting the car she discovered her tire was low.
“On the advice of her girlfriend, she actually tried to blow the tire up (like a balloon). So at the party I asked her, ‘Isn’t it true that on such and such a day you stopped traffic and tried to blow up a tire? ’ ”
The woman’s reaction, not to mention the audience’s, was priceless, he said.
“But I never give away the source,” Mr. Whitehill said.
It’s great when the audience really gets into it and plays along.
But sometimes he’s the one who’s surprised, Mr. Whitehill said.
In one show, the murdered man — an actor — was particularly handsome.
“This young stud dies. So the inspector (which he played) says to the audience, ‘I need to know if anyone knew the victim or had any connections?’ A woman in the audience stands up and says, ‘Yes, he had an affair with my girlfriend.’ ”
This is good stuff, Mr. Whitehill said to himself. So he asked if the girlfriend is in the audience.
“Another woman stands up. She’s about nine-and-a-half months pregnant,” he said.
This “news” came out of the blue.
Improvising, he asked if the victim was the father of her child.
“She moves her eyes slowly from side to side and quietly says, ‘Yes.’ Then three other women raised their hands and said they had affairs with him, too.”
“There’s a tremendous amount of ad lib,” he said.
Real life on stage
Mr. Whitehill recalled a murder mystery for employees of a pharmaceutical company. Rather than a gunshot or stabbing, quite common in the usual mise en scene, he “killed off ” the victim with poison, a product produced by a rival pharmaceutical company. And if he discovers that one person has to leave early, he’ll make him or her the victim, rather than an actor. It’s more fun that way.
Even better is integrating actors (there are usually about eight per performance) into the audience.
In one elaborate scheme that took mostly everyone by surprise, company employees were told they’d be joined that night by a company bigwig from out of town “He was supposedly a vice president from corporate headquarters,” said Mr. Whitehill. “He arrived in the afternoon then went on a bus ride with a small group of employees.”
The dinner was at 7 p.m. Just before the “curtain “went up, the man proposed a toast, took a sip, gasped, then “died.” Little did guests know he was an actor who had infiltrated the group well before the show. To be on the safe side, the actor took the name of a real vice president to divert suspicion.
And because it’s half structured, half improvisational theater, nearly everything from faked passports, coroner and F.B.I. reports, penned by Mr. Whitehill and slowly leaked to the audience, are part of the game, no matter how realistic or off-the-wall.
“We aren’t restricted by anything but our imagination,” he said.
Parenting Magazine
Making board games a winner
by Jane Cafarella
JANE CAFARELLA tackles boredom with an old friend — the family board game. But there’s a catch: you have to have fun too!
“What are you doing now?” I asked my daughter, Greta, and her visitor. All interest in the Barbie House, the dolls’ house, the trampoline and the swings had been exhausted, and it was too cool for a swim, so they were moping around looking bored. I was tempted to suggest it was time for the visitor to go home – but she had only been there an hour. It was then tempting to suggest that there was something wrong with the youth of today, when despite having everything, they could think of nothing to do. The third temptation was to suggest that things were different in my day, which, of course, was true, because we didn’t have a Barbie House, a dolls’ house, a trampoline or swings.
When we were unable to persuade anyone to take us to the local pool, my friends Alison and Sally and I would spend the long hot summer days sitting in darkened rooms, playing board and card games. Our favourites were Monopoly, Trap the Cap, and a card game like gin rummy, which we called Oklahoma.
With these happy memories in mind, when Greta’s friend finally left I asked: “Why didn’t you play a board game?”
” She didn’t want to,” Greta replied, adding that her friends were only interested in Playstation and Gameboy – of which we have neither.
Was this a trend, I wondered? Were children bored with traditional board games? I put this question to Bruce Whitehill, the author of Games: American Games and their Makers, 1822-1992. Mr Whitehill, also known in America as the Big Game Hunter, is a games historian, inventor and consultant to the toy and game industry. “Since I have no kids, I passed your question on to the 300 members of the Association of Game and Puzzle Collectors,” Bruce replied via email. Within minutes, two members, Jim Polczynski and Clark King, had responded. Jim Polczynki said his kids had always played games with him – and his seven-year-old couldn’t get enough of them. “I think if you make it interesting, they will play,” he said.
Clark King said games were still very popular with nine-year-olds, but boys seemed keener than girls did. Game makers were courting girls aged eight to 12, with games based on TV or movie themes and “others aimed at capturing their emerging interest in boyfriends”, he said.
This was also true in our household. My 16-year-old son has always loved board games because “they let you take risks you can’t take in real life. In real life, you can’t buy up all the houses in your street.”
Mr King added: “I have always been encouraging families to play board games together for the social interaction. You don’t get that with computer or video games.”
Mr King said the environment the child grew up in was also important. “If the youngster comes from a family where books, magazines and newspapers are regularly read, then she will be more likely to read. Same is true for board and card game playing.”
This was echoed by Erika Wilson, who gives talks for the Delaware Humanities Forum on social history aspects of board games. “Are you playing with your daughter?” she asked. “You can’t just shove a game at one or two children and expect them to play. Grandparents, parents, siblings and friends need to be in on the act. It is the personal interaction that makes for most of the fun. One of the saddest things that ever happened to me was when a nine-year-old boy came up to me after a talk, with a travel Parcheesi set, and said, ‘I got this for Christmas – how do you play it?’”
These last comments brought a twinge of guilt. Perhaps the reason my daughter doesn’t play board games is that the minute somebody suggests one, I suddenly remember I have 20 years of family photos to sort out. These days Monopoly especially feels too much like real life: all that tax and mortgage paying. To help, specialty game store retailer Martha Folsom, offered to send me a list of games that both Greta and I would find interesting. Erika Wilson said games manufacturers have found that games are popular with girls from the ages of nine to 12 “so strike while the iron is hot!”.
Melbourne’s cool summer has been perfect for board games, so for the past few weeks we have been playing quite a few games of family Monopoly and Scrabble. I now agree with Martha Folsom: games are a great teaching aid. Not only can my daughter now add up money very quickly, she has also learned not to listen to her father when he offers to give her $200 and the Whitechapel Road for Mayfair.
Rhode Island Magazine, June 2003
(Following is the draft from which the published article was taken)
The Big Game Hunter
by Chris Wall
Rhode Island Magazine
June 2003
It’s the *early-1990s* and Bruce Whitehill is sitting in a car with his mother in lower Manhattan when he spots the diminutive sex expert Dr. Ruth Westheimer – then at the height of her popularity – emerging from a hotel and getting into a *van*. Sitting now in the living room of his Warren apartment, *Whitehill’s* eyes light up and his lips curl into a mischievous grin as he recalls his thought at that moment, *“Here I am looking at Dr. Ruth, live and in person, thinking, how many people are driving around right now with a copy of the 1985 Dr. Ruth board game in the trunk of their car?” *At the next traffic light,* the ever alert and resourceful Whitehill quickly hopped out of his car, retrieved the game from his trunk and – after *running up to the van and* knocking on the window, *making hand and face gestures to convince the good Dr. that he wasn’t crazy – got Dr. Ruth to autograph the game’s box cover. “I *didn’t* hesitate, wondering *whether* it was a sound idea to approach her,” says Whitehill. “*When* was I ever going to get the chance again?”
That question seems to encapsulate the guiding philosophy of the *50+*-year-old Whitehill, whose life story is filled with examples of creating and seizing opportunities. It’s a question he may have asked himself before embarking on a post-college trip around the world, which turned into a seven-year odyssey. Or when he wrote the only book on the history of American games. He may have paused to ask it before buying each of the *now* thousands of games he owns – a collection that makes him one of the world’s leading collectors of American games and has earned him the nickname The Big Game Hunter, which is also the address of the web site he maintains that is devoted to the history and collecting of games: www.thebiggamehunter.com.
When asked where this affinity and passion for games comes from, he replies, “I was never particularly competitive as a child and I looked at games as a good and safe way to compete. You don’t get that ‘loser’ feeling. *Whitehill* doesn’t remember any epiphany that sparked his passion for games, but he does have fond and vivid memories of a particular toy he received from his grandmother. *As a boy growing up in Long Island, he would visit his grandmother in Manhattan’s Lower East Side (he would be put on a bus at one end, a note pinned to his jacket, and she would meet him at the other).* She would bring him a colorful crepe paper ball from *nearby* New York’s Chinatown. *As the ball was unwrapped, little charms and toys and surprises would fall out,* “Much like what you find inside a box of Cracker Jacks,” says Whitehill. What he remembers so well is “the sense of excitement, anticipation, and discovery as I *unraveled* each ball. You never knew what would be uncovered next and that wonder was the magic of it. *Now, opening up a game box does the same thing for me–you never know what might be inside!*”
Sitting in Whitehill’s apartment in a handsome 220 year old Federal style house off Warren’s Main Street, it is obvious he has never lost that sense of childlike wonder and excitement at the prospect of playing a game. Perhaps it is this unabashed connection to childhood pursuits that keeps him so youthful. With his unlined baby face Whitehill could easily pass for ten years younger. And with his twinkling blue eyes, a neatly trimmed beard and mustache flecked with gray, if you threw in a couple of pillows he would make a great Santa Claus. *(Except I’m Jewish!)*
A look around his living room with bookshelves on every side filled with books about games and you realize how many different types of games there are: board games, card games, dice games, positioning games, race games, skill *and action* games, strategy games, *and, though not eactly games*, *jigsaw* puzzles and mechanical *puzzles*.
In the adjoining room the only piece of furniture is a *workbench, surrounded by file cabinets, lawyer’s bookshelves, wire shelves, and an early 1900s rolling bakers rack, all filled or* stacked with board games. Resting in the hall leading to his office *are antique wooden boxes, all *filled with the games, including one with games* Bruce created during his stint (1982-1984) as a game inventor at the legendary Springfield, Massachusetts, game company Milton Bradley: the Ripley’s Believe It or Not game, the Fraggle Rock game (based on the once-omnipresent children’s TV show), the Centipede game (based on the once-omnipresent video game) and *“Championship Baseball,” and his newest strategy game, Stealth, *which is still on the market*. “It’s a great feeling to walk into a store and find a game you created on the shelf,” Whitehill says proudly *–especially if your name is on it, which it is on “Stealth” but not on the Bradley games.
All this would convince the layman that Bruce is a serious gamesman, but this isn’t the half of it.
Up a narrow flight of stairs is the attic. Not a crawl space attic, more of a full third floor attic with *four* large rooms. From wall to wall in the long rectangular room at the top of the stairs is what Whitehill calls his “for sale” collection. It consists of hundreds of game *boxes* stacked almost to the 10-foot tall ceiling. Filling an adjacent 10 by 10 room is *part of* Whitehill’s “permanent collection.” These games have historical and artistic significance and value: first edition games, beautifully hand crafted games, boxes with exceptional lithograph covers, *and games that represent particular periods or events in American history*. “There are collections out there *that have more value*,” says Whitehill. “But there are none that represent the history of American games as well as mine does.” He hopes these games, along with *some of the* 4,000 (yes, 4,000!) other games he keeps in storage in a Philadelphia warehouse, will some day form the heart of the collection in the *only* museum of games in the United States, which Whitehill hopes to open. There are seven game museums scattered across Europe, but none in the United States. (BTW, Chris, there was a game museum in NH once, which is why we can’t say “first ever” museum.)
Anthropologists believe Mancala, the world’s first known game, was played in Africa years before the birth of Christ. Mancala, which is still played today, was first played by moving seeds around a series of holes dug into the ground. Early people played games for the same reasons they are played today: as an entertaining pastime, as a way to test and sharpen the mind, as a friendly competition, as a gathering point for family and friends.
Most early American games were educational: they taught math, geography, history, and morals. In the early morality games players who *move onto spaces of virtue* advance, while *landing* in vice sends you back. In Milton Bradley’s original “Game of Life,” published in *1860*, players had to avoid “gambling to ruin,” “idleness,” and “disgrace” in order to win.
In “The Mansion of Happiness” game published *by Ives* in 1843, a player landing on a space marked “Passion” was sent to the “Water” because the rules prescribed that “Whoever gets in a Passion must be taken to the Water and have a ducking to cool him.” “Piety,” “Chastity,” and “Temperance” were among the qualities a player must possess to enter “The Mansion of Happiness.” “Audacity,” “Cruelty,” and “Immodesty” would preclude your entrance to the Mansion. Of course, in today’s sex and violence soaked video games audacity, cruelty, and immodesty are the keys to winning. “Games reflect the society that creates them,” says Whitehill.
Most games come and go with the times. Remember the “You Bet Your Life” home version of the Groucho Marx television show? Because of the prohibitive cost of launching and marketing new games, many of today’s games are spin-offs from movies or television shows that have already bought brand identity in the crowded entertainment market. But some games; like chess, checkers, and dominoes, transcend the disposable, transitory modern marketplace. They are popular across the years and throughout the world.
Whitehill says, “Games reflect life, so they contain both elements of skill and luck to determine the outcome. I prefer games that squeeze out most of the luck and place a premium on skill.” Games that rely on a roll of the dice or the spin of a wheel to move you around are leaving your fate to chance. Knowledge and skill come into play when the players are responsible for choosing strategy, movement and positioning.
The best games, Whitehill says, are simple, but not simplistic. “You can explain how to play them in *five* minutes, but enjoy playing them over and over because each time *it’s* different.” Whitehill and his ** game-playing cohorts usually find themselves playing strategy games from Germany. These games give players lots of choices, but they limit the number you can do at one time. There are offensive and defensive maneuvers you need to execute to win, but with the restrictions you have to set priorities. “It is your skill in making the right choices that makes you responsible for the outcome. And that’s is where the satisfaction comes in,” says Whitehill.
When it comes to American games, Whitehill keeps Stratego, Battleship, and Clue in his playing closet, *along with a host of other games (“Troke,” for example) most Americans wouldn’t recognize*. For the record, no, he does not care for Monopoly, the most popular board game in the Western world. “I agree with the original opinion of George Parker, who initially rejected the game when it was first brought to him because of its flaws. *With the luck of the dice role being so important, there have been times where I have had no chance of winning after one trip around the Monopoly board, yet I had to keep playing forever. A good game has a catch-up feature so everyone is in the game the whole time.”
How enjoyable a game is to play makes a difference in how a game sells, but not in how valuable it is as a collectible. When it comes to collecting, it is generally not what is inside the box that matters, but what is on the outside. It is because of the beautifully lithography on their box covers that board games from the 1880’s and 1890’s are some of the most valuable games around.
In addition to artistic beauty, the qualities collectors are looking for include: rarity, quality of craftsmanship and historical significance. The highest price believed to have ever been paid for a game collectible is the *$73,000* the late magazine publisher Malcolm Forbes spent on a hand-painted oilcloth game board of a pre-Parker Brothers version of Monopoly. Anything to do with Monopoly before ** Parker Brothers bought the game and mass produced it is valuable, says Whitehill.
The two earliest known extant American board games were published in 1822. They reside in *a historical museum in Massachusettes, and are taken from comparable English games.* *There is also a special collection* held at the University of Pennsylvania. Not much is known about these rarely glimpsed games, but Whitehill hopes to take a closer look when the group he founded, the ** Association of Game and Puzzle Collectors, holds its 20th annual conference in Philadelphia in 2004 .
Oddly, Whitehill himself really just stumbled into game collecting. After returning from his seven year trip around the globe, which included stints as a television puppeteer in Israel and a yodeling waiter in a faux German beer hall in Tokyo, Whitehill began acquiring games as he worked the *California* antique show circuit. His primary interest at the time was in antiques, specifically the most unusual pieces he could find. *Whitehill* greatly enjoyed his antique trade and his stall always attracted a large number of visitors, but few buyers. One day a fellow antique enthusiast pulled him *aside* and explained why. “This friend tells me, ‘Bruce, you’ve got great things here, it’s one of a kind stuff. The problem is you need one of a kind buyers and they’re hard to come by.” Around the same time another acquaintance asked Whitehill *if he was a game collector. “I don’t know–I never really thought about it.” The friend persisted, asking “How many games do you own?’ ‘200’, Whitehill replied. “You’re a game collector,” said the friend. Soon thereafter Whitehill divested himself of his antiques and began to think of himself as a collector *and historian* of American games. In 1984, *now back on the East Coast*, he founded The Association of American Game and Puzzle Collectors. The group ** has *over* 300 members including noted Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim.
Whitehill used to find games at antique shops, flea markets, and yard sales but most of the low-hanging fruit has been picked. Now, he looks for games on Ebay and at several large antique fairs, the most notable being the annual paper shows *in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.*
When it comes to collecting, knowledge is king. And Whitehill is American game collecting royalty. Like all successful collectors, Whitehill savors his stories of improbable finds. Like the time at an antique fair when he bought a rare board for cheap because it lacked the game pieces. A few booths down he found the pieces for the game selling cheap because they lacked the board. Whitehill made a nice find at a nice price at the Antique Center soon after moving to Warren when he found a copy of the first *mechanical puzzle* put out by a *now-thriving game and puzzle* company called Binary Arts.
Before moving to Warren, Whitehill lived in Rochester, New York, where he made his living as a freelance writer and as the creator and *director* of dinner theater audience participation murder mysteries, *mock jury trials, and wild weddings*. When he felt he had saturated the Rochester market ** he looked to move to newer, fresher territory near Boston. He had no particular ties to Rhode Island, but liked the combination of the artistic community and antique industry in Warren and felt it would be a good fit for him. He *has a public mystery running at Hail Caesar restaurant in Cranston, and* hopes to book some corporate outings and hook up with a charter boat to offer his mystery theater as an entertaining companion to an evening dinner cruise. “The murder mystery business is a natural outgrowth of my interest in games,” says Whitehill. “When you think about it, it is really just a life-size parlor game, like Clue brought to life.”
Whitehill describes himself as playful and he exudes a refreshing enthusiasm whether he’s talking about his mystery theater plans or the history of games. I am a big believer in ‘it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how often you play the game.’”
Good comments from Poland
poniedzia?ek, 13 paz´dziernika 2003 r.
wydania archiwalne
Gospodarka Profit numer: 07/01, strona: 64
Puzzlowe imperium
Druz˙yna Trefla: zabawki, sport, reklama, media, papiernictwo
Na pocza˛tku lat 90. powstawa?y wielkie fortuny rodzimych biznesmenów. Odnosili szybkie, lecz krótkotrwa?e sukcesy. Przypadek Trefla jest inny.
Z ma?ej firmy wyrós? wielbranz˙owy gigant
Wierzbicki jest w?as´cicielem Prokomu-Trefla, ale nie tylko. Nalez˙y do niego – oprócz firmy produkuja˛cej puzzle – wytwórnia kart do gry, fabryka zeszytów, zak?ady wytwarzaja˛ce gry planszowe, agencja reklamowa, radio…
Taka mieszanka firm i branz˙ skupionych w jednym re˛ku jest klasycznym przyk?adem dorabiania sie˛ rodzimych biznesmenów z pocza˛tku lat 90.
O sukcesie zadecydowali bohaterowie z bajki
Firma Wierzbickiego utrzyma?a sie˛ dzie˛ki niskim cenom. Wiele do z˙yczenia pozostawia?y jednak obrazki na puzzlach. – To odzwierciedla?o moz˙liwos´ci polskiej poligrafii. Nie mielis´my doste˛pu do dobrej jakos´ci zdje˛c´. Ale pozyskalis´my doskona?ych polskich rysowników
- mówi Wierzbicki. Wówczas dla sopockiej firmy pracowali m.in. Edward Lutczyn i Jerzy Christa, autor popularnego komiksu “Kajko i Kokosz”. O sukcesie Trefla zadecydowali jednak bohaterowie z zupe?nie innej bajki. – Od kilku lat na s´wiecie modne by?y zabawki nawia˛zuja˛ce do bohaterów kreskówek – t?umaczy Bruce Whitehill, ekspert rynku zabawek z amerykan´skiej firmy Mattel. – W 1992 r. rozpocze˛lis´my wspó?prace˛ z Disneyem – wspomina Kazimierz Wierzbicki.
Wierzbicki kilka lat temu pozostawi? zarza˛dzanie firma˛ swoim wspó?pracownikom. Niedawno jednak musia? do Trefla powrócic´. – To nie jest produkcja napoju ch?odza˛cego, gdzie wystarczy tylko mieszac´ ekstrakt z woda˛ i cukrem. Dzia?amy w szeroko pojmowanej branz˙y zabawkarskiej, edukacyjnej i reklamowej. Aby tym zarza˛dzac´, trzeba poznac´ wiele nak?adaja˛cych sie˛ na siebie zalez˙nos´ci – twierdzi Wierzbicki.
Na razie sam zarza˛dza ca?ym koncernem. Wie jednak, z˙e nie uniknie zmiany struktury firmy – chce ja˛ skonsolidowac´ i kapita?owo powia˛zac´ spó?ki ze soba˛.
- Tak sie˛ sta?o w wypadku Ravensburgera, rodzinnej firmy ze 130-letnia˛ tradycja˛ – mówi Kazimierz Wierzbicki.
Piotr Karnaszewski
Mechanical Puzzle Gallery
En del af Bruce Whitehill’s site ‘The Big Game Hunter’. Her er albums med billeder fra Bruce’s egen samling, af puslefolk og -steder, andres puslerier o.s.v. En god feature er, at det er muligt at se billederne som slideshows.
Lifebeats magazine feature
By Joe Kernan
Warwick, Rhode Island
01/30/2003
Bruce Whitehill has a thing for games; not so for playing them but of studying them, researching them and finding collectible editions that he studies like cultural relics of America’s history. In fact, his book on the subject, “Games: American Boxed Games and Their Makers 1822-1992,” has become a standard history for collectors and a guide to their prices.
In an age dominated by Game Boys and PlayStations, visiting with Whitehill is an experience tinged with nostalgia and a certain degree of regret that the quiet pastimes of our ancestors have been replaced by a galaxy of fast-paced electric games that leave nothing to the imagination of a child. Surely, Bruce Whitehill is not the only adult that holds a deep respect for the simple pleasures that board games have offered to countless generations, but one admires his dedication to the anthropology of games and the people who created them.
“I’ve been collecting and studying them since 1983, 1984,” said Whitehill in his 200-or-so-year-old house in Warren.
His attic is stacked with games, old and new, and his more precious examples are kept in neat little glass cases that he gingerly takes out to show to friends and collectors, to sell or just to look at.
“I began buying and selling antiques in 1976, and by the 1980s most of the antiques were sold off but I kept my interest in games,” he said. “I would like to have a collection that tells the story of American games.”
Whitehill says that New England and Massachusetts in particular were strongly into making games. Names like Parker Brothers in Peabody and Milton-Bradley in Springfield were very successful publishers of board games in 19th century America.
“The game Chutes and Ladders was invented as a teaching tool or ‘morality’ game called Snakes and Ladders, with vices printed on the snakes’ heads going down, and ladders leading up to rewards,” he said. “Most of the early games involved chance cards and spaces on the board and they tried to make them lessons for children, games that mirrored life, which is usually a combination of luck and skill. Milton-Bradley actually came out with ‘The Game of Life’ in the middle of the 19th century. Of course, the new version is completely different.”
Hasbro has bought most of the older companies.
Whitehill said that a lot of games are constructed around characters or personalities, usually from television or the movies. Whitehill has a “Honey West” game, based on a long defunct female private eye show. A lot of games were based on fictional characters before, but the advent of television gave a real boost to licensed products.
William Boyd, who played Hopalong Cassidy, bought the rights to his character and made a great deal of money. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were in the game as well.
“Most of these character-based games were based on games that involved getting from one place to another,” said Whitehill, “’Race games’ were typical.”
Whitehill has even tried his own hand at constructing games, including one that was based on Ripley’s Believe It or Not and another strategy game called “Stealth.”
“Ripley’s was somewhat successful for a couple of years,” he said. “Centipede was based on a video game and was a difficult challenge to do but it worked out very well. I also did a Fraggle Rock game that I tried to realistically link to the show as much as possible.”
The smaller companies Whitehill worked with are either out of business or merged with Hasbro, but he said that there are some smaller game-makers coming forward to challenge the giants.
“The big companies have to sell quantity or built-in characters,” he said. “The small independents give you games you want to play.”
Whitehill said he has no sympathy for people who play board games primarily to beat their friends and family.
“Have you ever heard of a ‘friendly game of Scrabble?’ People will lie and make up words that don’t exist just to win and other people are just as ready to challenge every word.”
Whitehill loves a good mystery story and even wrote a Hardy Boys novel called “The Number Files” in the ‘80s, which was based on a credit card scam for a plot. He is also quick to mention that a game based on Sherlock Holmes came out in 1905. Whitehill, who looks to be in his early 50s, said he has been a writer all his life. He’s written for radio, film reviews and scholarly papers. He grew up on Long Island but his accent shows no trace of the notorious whine associated with that area. That’s probably because he hasn’t been back much. He’s lived in Washington, DC, San Francisco and Massachusetts since he graduated with a degree in psychology and traveled the world for seven years.
In addition to his dealing in old games (he calls himself The Big Game Hunter), he also writes mysteries for dinner plays, most recently at the Hail Caesar! restaurant on Park Avenue.
“There was only one solution to the Hardy Boys mystery and it was fun to do,” he said. “There are any number of misdirections, red herrings and alternative endings in this type of theater, with a lot of audience participation and some good actor-improvisation. It depends on where the audience wants to take it.”
You can call Hail Caesar! for information for the next performance but don’t ask how the mystery will go.
“I always ask the audience not to divulge the ending,” he said. “After all, it’s a lot like a big parlor game.”
Board Games in Academia, 2001 (in Dutch)
Internationaal Colloquium, `Board Games in Academia IV, in Fribourg, Zwitserland, 17 tot 21 april 2001
University of Fribourg (Switzerland)
WOENSDAG 18 APRIL 2001
Bruce Whitehill
autoriteit en schrijver in de USA
Halma & Chinese Checkers
Deze heel sympathieke Amerikaan is één van de autoriteiten op het vlak van de geschiedenis van het Amerikaanse bordspel. Hij is auteur van menig standaardwerk en adviseert bijna elke grote Amerikaanse firma. Blijkbaar had hij nog het een en ander recht te zetten na de vorige colloquia. Hij heeft nl. onderzoek gedaan naar de oorsprong van het spel Halma en kwam tot het besluit dat dit spel eerst in de USA opdook en pas later in Europa (zeer tot ongenoegen van Dr. Irving Finkel, British Museum, London). Er moet in Engeland ooit een spel gecirculeerd hebben waarbij pionnen van hoek tot hoek lopen door over elkaar heen te springen. De Amerikaan George Howard Monks heeft dit wellicht ooit gezien bij een bezoek aan Europa, maar heeft het spel in de USA een totaal (…) nieuwe invalshoek gegeven. Hij vroeg een patent aan in 1884 en de eerste dozen werden in 1885 verkocht. Parker heeft het spel in licentie gehad tot 1961. De eerste dozen toonden militaire tekeningen maar op een gegeven moment kwam iemand op het idee om Chinese tekeningen te plaatsen. Geleidelijk aan kwamen variaties waarbij een ster als hoekpositie voorkomt in plaats van het traditionele vierkant. Uit deze variatie ontstond dan `Chinese Checkers’.
NPR (National Public Radio), December 2000
Host: Kojo Nnamdi
Monday, December 25, 2000
1:00 – Games and Game Development
Listen in RealAudio!
From Monopoly and Risk to Life and Scruples, the names of board games often tell us more about American society than any anthropologist could. In this holiday rebroadcast, the history of board games, how new games are developed, and what our favorite games say about American culture.
Bruce Whitehill, game developer and historian
Bernard Mergen, sociology professor and games historian, George Washington University
The Columbus Dispatch, 1998
by Kathy Lynn Gray ©1998 Nov. 1 1998My family and I made a tradition of playing board games at my grandmother’s house. Stored on high shelves atop a landing and smelling faintly of age, the games had an air of mystery. The faded Clue board, the oddly colored marbles in Chinese checkers and the worn Monopoly money transported us to a place where time had no meaning. We would spend hours trying to figure out whether Mrs. Peacock had used the candlestick in the study or whether the other players could be wiped out with hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk.These days, computer games and their evil cousin, video games, seem to have cut into the popularity of board games. That doesn’t sit well with Frank DiLorenzo, a game fanatic since childhood and the owner of R&R Games in Tampa, Fla. At home, he thinks, families and friends should communicate with one another, not just with their computers or televisions.
“The board game is a socially interactive way to bring the family together,” DiLorenzo said. “With computer games, there is no social interaction”. As a result, the first two board games offered through his company have a furnishings theme.
In Riddles & Riches, players move from room to room in the upright mansion of the imaginary, recently deceased Horatio Bullthrower. The first to solve two riddles about objects in the rooms wins.
In the just-released Sold, players try to amass the most valuable collection of antiques by buying, selling and auctioning them.
DiLorenzo took great pains to make the pieces in both games realistic. Riddles & Riches features photographs of miniature rooms, while the cards in Sold have pictures of antiques.
“Antiques are hot,” DiLorenzo said. “I thought, ‘What better way to show actual antiques than with a game?’”
Home related board games aren’t that common, said Bruce Whitehill, founder of the American Game Collectors Association.
Whitehill, of Rochester, N.Y., found only a few popular ones — beyond Clue and Monopoly — as he looked through his extensive lists. The Merry Milkman had players delivering milk to homes in 1955; MR. Re from l937 had a board with a home cut open to reveal the rooms; The House That Jack Built, a small card game from the 1890s, had pictures of home furnishings on the cards.
A game creator and consultant to the game industry, Whitehill doesn’t think board games will ever go out of style.
“There is some Impact when a fad emerges that takes people’s time away, like computers,” he said. ‘But board games always seem to hold their own.”
DiLorenzo envisions a boost from the cocooning trend — that of people spending more time at home. “These games are a bit of nostalgia,” he said. “People recall playing with their families and conversing or talking while they’re playing”
As a businessman, however, he can’t ignore computer games. DiLorenzo has thought of creating a computer version of Riddles & Riches in which players would interact with objects in the mansion
Meanwhile, he has received praise for both new games — which are available in small shops and can be ordered through Games People Play in Columbus City Center. Some antique stores, too, planto sell Sold, and miniatures groups are interested in Riddles & Riches. The real test for both games will be time – and family favor.
“We specialize in family games because one of the best things you can do is sit down with family and friends, and pull out some board games” he said. “We’re trying to make games that will become classics.”
