Editor's Note

The Way We Play

Anywhere you go, games go with you. Ever since humans were making tools, they were finding ways to use them to goof off. We've played kick the can, hide and seek, and tag since time immemorial, and as we've grown as a species, so has the way we play. Hunting parties evolved into sports teams. The educational games of our prehistory are playground games today. And if you think beer pong is new, you're sorely mistaken. It's just that simple: We as a people are all about games, be it on an Xbox 360 or standing in line with a friend and scribbling a game of tic-tac-toe.

Which brings us to issue 130, "The Way We Play." Spanner profiles a few English pub games, which date back as far as the Crusades. Michael Fiegel compares MMOG quests to ancient storytelling principles and discovers formula isn't always a bad thing. Russ Pitts discovered a game on the Streets of San Francisco and managed to track down the criminals who created it. Lacey Coleman talks to an educator whose after-school RPG sessions are teaching kids more than their three "R"'s. And Corvus Elrod looks at humanity's earliest games, the ones we used to survive.

We hope you enjoy it!

Yours,