Adam-Bessie – PLAYTIME

Board Gaming the System: A Comic Series

Posted on January 9, 2018March 4, 2019 by Rebecca Bednarz

For this month’s Board Gaming the System comic, Adam Bessie and Jason Novak draw a new set of cards for Parker Brothers Sorry!

“PIETY, HONESTY, TEMPERANCE, GRATITUDE, PRUDENCE, TRUTH, CHASTITY, SINCERITY”—these were the only ways to advance to a Puritan Heaven of The Mansion of Happiness, the template upon which game of Sorry! was later created by Parker Brothers of Salem, MA. The Mansion of Happiness—widely considered the first mass-produced board game, published in 1843 (also in Salem)—popularized the use of “track” gameplay with which we are all familiar, and which Sorry! is built around. In track games, a single, rigid path takes players toward the final destination: progress is determined not by virtue, but by the luck of the draw, and strategy with the cards you’re dealt (which in Sorry! means trying to knock your opponents off track). What cards are we being dealt in the new year?

Come back for next month’s installment in the Board Gaming the System comic series. Missed the last one? Check it out here.

Board Gaming the System: A Comic Series

Posted on December 11, 2017March 4, 2019 by Rebecca Bednarz

This month, comic duo Adam Bessie and Jason Novak offer us a new spin on the Milton Bradley Company classic The Game of Life.

The Game of Life has always reflected the times, even at the start of its own life, a year before the Civil War. Known first as The Checkered Game Life, Milton Bradley’s seminal game was really just checkers with spots which reflected the values, hopes, and worries of the era: Intemperance, Idleness, Speculation, Ruin, Honor, Suicide, and Happy Old Age (50). Since 1860, every generation has updated Life as a mirror—not of what life actually is, but of what the dominant wisdom tells us it should be. And just what should today’s The Game of Life be?

Come back for next month’s installment in the Board Gaming the System comic series. Missed the last one? Check it out here.

Board Gaming the System: A Comic Series

Posted on November 6, 2017March 4, 2019 by Rebecca Bednarz

In this month’s comic, Jason Novak and Adam Bessie share a little magical thinking with a Magic: The Gathering–inspired card deck.

Before Pokemon gave us “Catch’em All,” there was Magic: The Gathering, a card game invented in the early ’90s that burned through teenage allowances faster than dragon fire. If you’ve never played Magic, you’ve certainly seen the fantasy roleplaying game at your local coffee shop, an entire table filled with animated characters—and that’s just the players, whooping and hollering after a ghost warlock decimates an upstart ice golem with a flaming spellblast. In 2017, what new magical creatures might we add to our deck?

Come back for next month’s installment in the Board Gaming the System comic series. Missed the last one? Check it out here.

Game on! PlayTime on pem.org is live! Join the conversation: how is play changing our lives? In advance of the exhibition, we’ll explore the shifting role of play in art and culture with leading writers, thinkers, game designers, poets, artists—and you. This week, check out features by Virginia Heffernan, Carlo Rotella, Eric Zimmerman, J. Robert Lennon, Lizzie Stark, Angela Washko, Adam Bessie and Jason Novak, and more. #pemplaytime #peabodyessex @peabodyessex

Posted on September 12, 2017March 4, 2019 by Rebecca Bednarz

Board Gaming the System: A Comic Series

Posted on September 27, 2017March 4, 2019 by Rebecca Bednarz

In this month’s comic, Jason Novak and Adam Bessie turn the classic board game Chutes and Ladders into a play obstacle course. The children surmount the walls and fences, and the barriers are transformed.

As fathers of young children, Jason and Adam have spent many fun hours playing board games, several of which were created by Parker Brothers, which made its start as a game company right in Salem, Massachusetts. These board games aren’t just about diverting play, but about rules you must follow to win. The rules of game often reflect the idealized rules and mores of the culture—by playing the game, you are learning how to behave in the culture. And thus, board games are like a time capsule, a way of seeing the dominant values of a place and time. Our five-part series, Board Gaming the System, honors the legacy of the board game (and the many hours we’ve spent playing them) and reimagines classic boards to reveal the unwritten rules of our culture today.

Come back for next month’s installment in the series.