Game design
Game design is the art of applying design and aesthetics to create a game for entertainment or for educational, exercise, or experimental purposes. Elements and principles of game design are applied to other interactions, in the form of gamification. Game design creates goals and challenges to define a board game, card game, dice game, casino game, role-playing game, video game, war game or simulation that produces desirable interactions among its participants and spectators. Academically, game design is part of game studies, while game theory studies strategic decision making. Games have inspired seminal research in the fields of probability, artificial intelligence and optimization theory. Applying game design to itself is a current research topic in metadesign. Sports and board games are known to have existed for at least nine thousand, six thousand, four thousand years. Tabletop games played today whose descent can be traced from ancient times include chess, go, backgammon, mahjong and pick-up sticks.
The rules of these games were not codified until early modern times and their features evolved and changed over time, through the folk process. Given this, these games are not considered to have had a designer or been the result of a design process in the modern sense. After the rise of commercial game publishing in the late 19th century, many games which had evolved via folk processes became commercial properties with custom scoring pads or preprepared material. For example, the similar public domain games Generala and Yatzy led to the commercial game Yahtzee in the mid-1950s. Today, many commercial games, such as Taboo, Pictionary, or Time's Up!, are descended from traditional parlour games. Adapting traditional games to become commercial properties is an example of game design. Many sports, such as soccer and baseball, are the result of folk processes, while others were designed, such as basketball, invented in 1891 by James Naismith. Technological advances have provided new media for games throughout history.
The printing press allowed packs of playing cards, adapted from Mahjong tiles, to be mass-produced, leading to many new card games. Accurate topographic maps produced as lithographs and provided free to Prussian officers helped popularize wargaming. Cheap bookbinding led to mass-produced board games with custom boards. Inexpensive lead figurine casting contributed to the development of miniature wargaming. Cheap custom dice led to poker dice. Flying discs led to Ultimate. Personal computers contributed to the popularity of computer games, leading to the wide availability of video game consoles and video games. Smart phones have led to a proliferation of mobile games; the first games in a new medium are adaptations of older games. Pong, one of the first disseminated video games, adapted table tennis. Games will exploit distinctive properties of a new medium. Adapting older games and creating original games for new media are both examples of game design. Game studies or gaming theory is a discipline that deals with the critical study of games, game design and their role in society and culture.
Prior to the late-twentieth century, the academic study of games was rare and limited to fields such as history and anthropology. As the video game revolution took off in the early 1980s, so did academic interest in games, resulting in a field that draws on diverse methodologies and schools of thought; these influences may be characterized broadly in three ways: the social science approach, the humanities approach, the industry and engineering approach. Broadly speaking, the social scientific approach has concerned itself with the question of "What do games do to people?" Using tools and methods such as surveys, controlled laboratory experiments, ethnography researchers have investigated both the positive and negative impacts that playing games could have on people. More sociologically informed research has sought to move away from simplistic ideas of gaming as either'negative' or'positive', but rather seeking to understand its role and location in the complexities of everyday life. In general terms, the humanities approach has concerned itself with the question of "What meanings are made through games?"
Using tools and methods such as interviews and participant observation, researchers have investigated the various roles that videogames play in people's lives and activities together with the meaning they assign to their experiences. From an industry perspective, a lot of game studies research can be seen as the academic response to the videogame industry's questions regarding the products it creates and sells; the main question this approach deals with can be summarized as "How can we create better games?" with the accompanying "What makes a game good?" "Good" can be taken to mean many different things, including providing an entertaining and an engaging experience, being easy to learn and play, being innovative and having novel experiences. Different approaches to studying this problem have included looking at describing how to design games and extracting guidelines and rules of thumb for making better games Game theory is a study of strategic decision making, it is "the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers".
An alternative term suggested "as a more descriptive name for the discipline" is interactive decision theory. The subject first addressed zero-sum games, such that one person's gains equal net losses of the other participant or participan
Easy-Bake Oven
The Easy-Bake Oven is a working toy oven which Kenner introduced in 1963, which Hasbro still manufactured as of late April 2016. The original toy used an ordinary incandescent light bulb as a heat source. Kenner sold 500,000 Easy-Bake Ovens in the first year of production. By 1997, more than 16 million Easy-Bake Ovens had been sold; the oven comes with packets of cake mix and small round pans. After water is added to the mix in the pan, it is pushed into the oven through a slot. After cooking, the cake is pushed out through a slot in the other end; the Easy-Bake Oven was introduced in 1963 by a Cincinnati, Ohio-based toy company. The original Kenner Easy-Bake Oven was heated by two 100-watt incandescent light bulbs, came in a pale yellow or turquoise, was designed to resemble a conventional oven; the design changed many times over the years. An updated "Premier" model, available in avocado green or red, was released in 1969, followed by a "Mod" model in yellow or light green in 1971. A more recent model resembled a microwave oven.
The most collectible model of the Easy-Bake Oven is the one-of-a-kind model presented to the winner of the 5,000,000th Easy-Bake Oven Sweepstakes in 1972. The sweepstakes celebrated. Kenner licensed the Easy-Bake Oven to international markets. Japan represented a significant opportunity for Kenner; the toy oven was licensed to Nakajima Corporation, which sold its version as Margaret's Cooking Oven. In 1962, Kenner created the Gooney Bird as part of its marketing efforts; the new corporate mascot was used as part of the company logo, appearing on most product packaging along with the company slogan, “It’s Kenner, It’s Fun!” The bird was used in trade publications and advertisements with the tagline, “This bird means business!” In 1968, Kenner approached Muppet creator Jim Henson to create a Muppet version of the Gooney Bird. The bird appeared in Easy-Bake Oven commercials with child actress Barbara Price; the Gooney Bird became so popular that Henson refurbished the character as Little Bird, Big Bird's smaller counterpart, in early seasons of Sesame Street.
After Kenner became a division of Hasbro, which closed it down, Hasbro continued to produce the oven. The Easy-Bake Oven and Snack Center was introduced in 1993. A decade after the Easy-Bake Oven and Snack Center was introduced, the Real Meal Oven was released; this oven was different from the others in being able to cook larger portions, two of them at once, using two pans at the same time. It won the 2003 Best Toy Parenting magazine Toy of the Year Award; the neutral colors were more accepted across gender lines, were favored by parents in the midst of queries and complaints over versions not being offered for male children. The Real Meal pans were larger than the Easy Bake ones, it could bake both desserts and main courses; this model featured a heating element and did not require a light bulb. In 2006, a different version of the Easy-Bake was released, featuring a stove-top warmer and a heating element, but like Hasbro's first version, it had smaller pans, it could only bake one pan at a time.
But the new front-loading Hasbro design, a substantial departure from the traditional push-through arrangement, was ill-conceived, as all such units were recalled over safety concerns and reported injuries. The oven was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2011, the last version to use a 100-watt incandescent light bulb was replaced by a new version with a dedicated heating element, titled Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven; the replacement was due to the availability of better alternatives to the incandescent light bulbs that heated previous versions of the Easy-Bake Oven. This rendered all models that used light bulbs as their heating elements obsolete because the company no longer offers replacement bulbs. However, some critics of the redesign indicated that halogen light bulbs emitted sufficient heat to replace incandescent bulbs. In 2012, Hasbro announced the premiere of a version of the Easy-Bake Oven in black and silver after executives met with McKenna Pope, a girl from New Jersey who had started a Change.org petition asking the toy maker to offer the product in gender-neutral packaging.
The prototype Easy-Bake Oven was made available in blue. The redesigned product was slated to be unveiled at the New York Toy Fair. After a release of a new model in May 2006, Hasbro received reports of 29 children getting their hands or fingers caught in the front-loading door, including 5 reports of burns. In February 2007, Hasbro and the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a voluntary recall of the oven and advised parents to stop using the oven with children under the age of 8 and contact the company for a free retrofit kit; the kit was approved by the CPSC and consisted of a plastic grate that fit over the existing oven door. The grate allowed the oven to function as designed, but it now provided an additional barrier to keep small fingers out. Despite the retrofit program, the problems persisted. According to data from the CPSC, an additional 249 reported incidents included 77 burns, 16 of which were second- or third-degree in nature. On July 19th 2007, Hasbro re-issued its voluntary recall of the Easy-Bake after learning that part of a 5-year-old girl's finger had to be amputated because of a severe burn.
The recall affected 985,000 ovens, sold between May 2006 and July 2007. Ovens sold prior to May 2006 were not part of the recall, leaving more than 25 million side-entry/light bulb models in circulation unaffected. In 2017, the first annual National Easy-Bake Oven Day was announced by author and toy Histor
Squid
Squid are cephalopods in the superorder Decapodiformes with elongated bodies, large eyes, eight arms and two tentacles. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, a mantle, they are soft-bodied, like octopuses, but have a small internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius or pen, made of chitin. Squid diverged from other cephalopods during the Jurassic and occupy a similar role to teleost fish as open water predators of similar size and behaviour, they play an important role in the open water food web. The two long tentacles are used to grab the eight arms to hold and control it; the beak cuts the food into suitable size chunks for swallowing. Squid are rapid swimmers, moving by jet propulsion, locate their prey by sight, they are among the most intelligent of invertebrates, with groups of Humboldt squid having been observed hunting cooperatively. They are preyed on by sharks, other fish, sea birds and cetaceans sperm whales. Squid can change colour for signalling.
Some species are bioluminescent, using their light for counter-illumination camouflage, while many species can eject a cloud of ink to distract predators. Squid are used for human consumption with commercial fisheries in Japan, the Mediterranean, the southwestern Atlantic, the eastern Pacific and elsewhere, they are used in cuisines around the world known as "calamari". Squid have featured in literature since classical times in tales of giant squid and sea monsters. Squid are members of the class Cephalopoda, subclass Coleoidea; the squid orders Myopsida and Oegopsida are in the superorder Decapodiformes. Two other orders of decapodiform cephalopods are called squid, although they are taxonomically distinct from squids and differ recognizably in their gross anatomical features, they are the bobtail squid of order Sepiolida and the ram's horn squid of the monotypic order Spirulida. The vampire squid, however, is more related to the octopuses than to any squid; the cladogram, not resolved, is based on Sanchez et al, 2018.
Their molecular phylogeny used nuclear DNA marker sequences. If it is accepted that Sepiidae cuttlefish are a kind of squid the squids, excluding the vampire squid, form a clade as illustrated. Orders are shown in boldface. Crown coleoids diverged in the Permian. Squid diverged during the Jurassic. Both the coleoids and the teleost fish were involved in much adaptive radiation at this time, the two modern groups resemble each other in size, habitat and behaviour, however some fish moved into fresh water while the coleoids remained in marine environments; the ancestral coleoid was nautiloid-like with a strait septate shell that became immersed in the mantle and was used for buoyancy control. Four lines diverged from this, the cuttlefishes, the squids and the octopuses. Squid have differentiated from the ancestral mollusc such that the body plan has been condensed antero-posteriorly and extended dorso-ventrally. What may have been the foot of the ancestor is modified into a complex set of appendages around the mouth.
The sense organs are developed and include advanced eyes similar to those of vertebrates. The ancestral shell has been lost, with pen, remaining; the pen, made of a chitin-like material, is a feather-shaped internal structure that supports the squid's mantle and serves as a site for muscle attachment. The cuttlebone or sepion of the Sepiidae is calcareous and appears to have evolved afresh in the Tertiary. Squid are soft-bodied molluscs whose forms have been modified to adopt an active predatory lifestyle; the head and foot of the squid are at one end of a long body, this end is functionally anterior, leading the animal as it moves through the water. The foot has been transformed into a set of eight arms and two distinctive tentacles, which surround the mouth; the suckers may be stalked. Their rims may contain minute toothlike denticles; these features, as well as strong musculature, a small ganglion beneath each sucker to allow individual control, provide a powerful adhesion to grip prey. Hooks are present on the arms and tentacles in some species.
The two tentacles are retractile. Suckers are limited to the spatulate tip of the tentacle, known as the manus. In the mature male, the outer half of one of the left arms is hectocotylised – and ends in a copulatory pad rather than suckers; this is used for depositing a spermatophore inside the mantle cavity of a female. A ventral part of the foot has been converted into a funnel through which water exits the mantle cavity; the main body mass is enclosed in the mantle. These fins are not the main source of locomotion in most species; the mantle wall is muscled and internal. The visceral mass, covered by a thin, membranous epidermis, forms a cone-shaped posterior region known as the "visceral hump"; the mollusc shell is reduced to an internal, longitudinal chitinous "pen" in the functionally dorsal part of the animal. On the functionally ventral part of the body is an opening to the m
Dartmouth College student groups
This page contains detailed information on a number of student groups at Dartmouth College. For more information on athletic teams, please see Dartmouth College athletic teams. For more information on college publications, please see Dartmouth College publications. Dartmouth College's oldest a cappella singing group, the Aires were formed as the Injunaires in 1946 as an offshoot of the college Glee Club. Although the Aires have about sixteen members, group numbers vary on a term-to-term basis. Auditions are held at the beginning of every fall term. Members of the Aires pick; because the Aires are such a diverse group, they end up singing a lot of different styles. Much of their repertoire consists of popular songs from the 1980s, 90s, 00s, but it includes many traditional Dartmouth songs, a few 1950s and 1960s tunes, selected hip hop tracks, the occasional musical theater piece; the Aires perform an average of three times a term at Dartmouth. They take weekend road-trips and reveling at other colleges, performing for high school music festivals, entertaining at Dartmouth alumni clubs.
Every winter break, the Aires tour the Eastern Seaboard, while travelling further afield every spring. Recent spring tours have taken them to Costa Rica, Italy, Colorado, a few of the Hawaiian Islands and California. Recent Aires accolades include winning the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award for Best All-Male Collegiate Album for both their 2003 and 2005 album releases, as well as selection for Varsity Vocals' Best Of Collegiate A Cappella compilation CD in 2003, 2005 and 2008, selection for the Voices Only compilation CD in 2005, 2006 and 2008, their most recent album, Extraordinaire, is featured on both compilations. They were scheduled to release a new album, fresh aire, in June 2011. In 2011, they competed in season 3 of a national reality show. Out of 16 original contestants, they have made it into the top three; the Dartmouth Brovertones are Dartmouth's second oldest all-male a cappella group, founded in 1993. The group was named Final Cut, was traditionally known for singing popular songs from the 80's and 90's.
The Brovertones have since expanded their repertoire to include modern hits. Brovertones' repertoire includes a varied mix of 30 songs ranging from "House of the Rising Sun" to a mash-up of "Bailando" and "Despacito"; the group has four albums, including Bro & Tell, released in May 2012. The Dartmouth Brovertones' winter tours have included Boston, New York, Washington DC, Louisville and Atlanta, they have performed at Brown University, Princeton University, Tufts University, Georgetown University, Smith College, Middlebury College, Trinity College, Yale University, WPI. They hold competitive auditions every fall in conjunction with other campus a cappella groups. In a March 2018 charity competition sponsored by Kappa Delta sorority, the Dartmouth Brovertones edged out every other participating performing arts group on campus, cementing their status as 2018's most popular Dartmouth a cappella group per popular vote. In Fall 2018, they plan to release a still-untitled album; the Dartmouth Cords are an all-male singing group founded in 1996 which consists of around 20 members.
They are known for wearing corduroy to every performance. Their repertoire includes pop, hip-hop, traditional Dartmouth songs. Voice parts include tenors, baritones and vocal percussionists; the group incorporates choreography, comedic skits, visual media to enhance their shows. These fine gentlemen love three things above all else: good music, good times, a good pair of corduroys; the Cords have an annual tour during winter break where they travel to sing at colleges and alumni venues throughout the country. Past tours have included the Midwest and numerous places in the Northeast. During the spring term the group hold sing-outs where Cords alumni from past years come back to Dartmouth to sing Cord's songs. In the spring of 2011 the Cords traveled to South Korea for their first international tour; this tour consisted of singing at South Korean high schools and colleges including Yonsei University where they opened for the US Ambassador to South Korea before a panel discussion. Their CD Elements of Style, released in 2002, has won awards from the nation collegiate a cappella organizations CASA and Varsity Vocals.
They have had a song featured in the Best of Collegiate A Cappella compilation album. Their other recordings include Against the Grain, Accordingly, No Size Fits All, Tailor Made. Auditions for the Cords are held at the beginning of every fall term; the Dartmouth Bartenders are an all-male a cappella group focusing on mixing diverse styles of music into self-made mash-ups. They were founded by a group of seven members in 2010 and were known as Dartmouth Taal, a South Asian Fusion a cappella group; the group was founded with the goal of blending popular American music with Bollywood tunes. Their arrangements vary from somber to fun but try to maintain a coherency between the blended songs; the Dartmouth Decibelles are the oldest all-female a cappella group at Dartmouth College. They were created with twelve founding members as the Dartmouth Distractions in 1976 and changed their name to Woodswind before settling on the Dartmouth Decibelles a few years later; the group began as an offshoot of the Dartmouth Glee Club.
Although they are no longer affiliated, many of the group's members are prominently featured as part of the Glee Club. The
Bananagrams
Bananagrams is a word game invented by Abraham Nathanson of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, wherein lettered tiles are used to spell words. Nathanson developed the idea for the game with the help of his family; the name is derived from the founding family's claim that it's the "anagram game that will drive you bananas!" Beginning as a family innovation, Bananagrams was made available to the public in January 2006 at the London Toy Fair. The game is similar to the older Scrabble variant Take Two. Game play involves arranging one's tiles into a grid of connected words faster than one's opponents; the object of the game is to be the first to complete a word grid after the pool of tiles has been exhausted. The tiles come in a fabric banana-shaped package; the game consists of 144 lettered tiles. This is called the'Bunch'; the same number of tiles is drawn by each player, once a player calls out "Split!", all the players turn over their tiles to reveal the lettered sides. Each player races to create their own word grids by arranging the letters to form words connected in intersecting or interlocking manner.
You may rearrange your grid as many times as you like – the name "Bananagrams" is a play on the word anagrams, as one must rearrange the words one has formed in order to allow newly-drawn tiles to be placed into one's grid.. When a player uses up all of their tiles, they call out "Peel!" and each player must draw a new tile from the pool of remaining tiles. If at any time during play a player gets stuck with a tricky letter, the player can announce "Dump!" and exchange any letter for three tiles from the "Bunch". When there are fewer tiles in the "Bunch" than there are players, the first person to use up all their letters shouts "Bananas" and wins, becoming Top Banana if all of their words are valid; the letter distribution is as follows: 2: J, K, Q, X, Z 3: B, C, F, H, M, P, V, W, Y 4: G 5: L 6: D, S, U 8: N 9: T, R 11: O 12: I 13: A 18: E Bananagrams uses elements of both Boggle and Scrabble. It is similar to Boggle in the sense that game play is simultaneous, yet players build interlocking puzzles similar to those in Scrabble.
Because Bananagrams can be played by players at any reading level, the game is useful for children who are learning to spell, has been touted as both educational and popular among consumers. An independent psychologist reviewed Bananagrams and expressed her recommendation of Bananagrams as a positive example of creativity stimulation because unlike Scrabble, the goal is to play all of one's tiles, which generates a need to configure and reconfigure one's word grid to accept all of the letters. Other tabletop word games that are played without a board include Anagrams, Perquackey, Quiddler, Scrabble Apple, Scrabble Slam. Bananagrams is similar to Syzygy, a letter-tile game released in 1997, Double Quick. For two people. Play a normal game of Bananagrams; the winner gets 10 points. The loser needs to finish even though the game has been won. Both players look at their opponents' arrangement, decide on one single letter that they are going to remove from the arrangement. Once they have both decided, on the count of three, they remove the chosen letters simultaneously.
Each player must re-arrange their pieces so as to create a new valid arrangement. The winner gets 1 point. Repeat until one of the players has a commanding lead. Bananagrams has won numerous awards for its innovation, popularity among consumers, educational value: Game of the Year 2009 by TOTY Awards Gold Award, Good Toy Guide Best Toy Bronze Award, Right Start Magazine Top Toy of the Year Award, Creative Child Magazine 2007 NAPPA Honors Award, Parenthood.com An online version of Bananagrams was developed by Large Animal Games, in partnership with Majesco Entertainment. It ran from 2008 until 2012; the online version adhered to the same protocol as the tabletop edition, but certain game play adjustments and social features were available. Players could play live games or send challenges to friends, share completed games with one another; the game included solitaire modes and "Banana Café", where the objective was to beat one's own best time. The online game version offered players the opportunity to customize the game with "Banana Chip" credits.
Banana Chips were earned by issuing and winning challenges. They could be spent in the virtual store to purchase new tiles and playing boards, to buy in-game hints and bonuses to gain an advantage over other players. Multi-tier achievements were awarded to players in recognition of outstanding skill, a leaderboard contained information pertaining to other players. Bananagrams publishes the games Cobra Paw, Fruitominoes, Pairsinpears, Word-a-Melon, Zip-It. 2019 - Open Source Bananagram Online Solver 2018 - Bananas for Bananagrams 2016 - Anagrams and Bananagrams Solver by Chris Piech
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world; the Irish Sea lies between Great Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world, it is the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017. The UK is constitutional monarchy; the current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 1952, making her the longest-serving current head of state.
The United Kingdom's capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban area population of 10.3 million. Other major urban areas in the UK include Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire conurbations, Greater Glasgow and the Liverpool Built-up Area; the United Kingdom consists of four constituent countries: England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Their capitals are London, Edinburgh and Belfast, respectively. Apart from England, the countries have their own devolved governments, each with varying powers, but such power is delegated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which may enact laws unilaterally altering or abolishing devolution; the nearby Isle of Man, Bailiwick of Guernsey and Bailiwick of Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. The medieval conquest and subsequent annexation of Wales by the Kingdom of England, followed by the union between England and Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, the union in 1801 of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There are fourteen British Overseas Territories, the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed a quarter of the world's land mass and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language and political systems of many of its former colonies; the United Kingdom is a developed country and has the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It has a high-income economy and has a high Human Development Index rating, ranking 14th in the world, it was the world's first industrialised country and the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The UK remains a great power, with considerable economic, military and political influence internationally, it is sixth in military expenditure in the world. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946.
It has been a leading member state of the European Union and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. The United Kingdom is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the G20, NATO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization; the 1707 Acts of Union declared that the kingdoms of England and Scotland were "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". The term "United Kingdom" has been used as a description for the former kingdom of Great Britain, although its official name from 1707 to 1800 was "Great Britain"; the Acts of Union 1800 united the kingdom of Great Britain and the kingdom of Ireland in 1801, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Following the partition of Ireland and the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, which left Northern Ireland as the only part of the island of Ireland within the United Kingdom, the name was changed to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
Although the United Kingdom is a sovereign country, Scotland and Northern Ireland are widely referred to as countries. The UK Prime Minister's website has used the phrase "countries within a country" to describe the United Kingdom; some statistical summaries, such as those for the twelve NUTS 1 regions of the United Kingdom refer to Scotland and Northern Ireland as "regions". Northern Ireland is referred to as a "province". With regard to Northern Ireland, the descriptive name used "can be controversial, with the choice revealing one's political preferences"; the term "Great Britain" conventionally refers to the island of Great Britain, or politically to England and Wales in combination. However, it is sometimes used as a loose synonym for the United Kingdom as a whole; the term "Britain" is used both as a synonym for Great Britain, as a synonym for the United Kingdom. Usage is mixed, with the BBC preferring to use Britain as shorthand only for Great Britain and the UK Government, while accepting that both terms refer to the United K
Blythe (doll)
Blythe is a fashion doll, about 28 cm tall, with an oversized head and large eyes that change color with the pull of a string. It was created in 1972 and was only sold for one year in the United States by toy company Kenner. In 2000 the photo book This is Blythe was published and in 2001 the Japanese toy company Takara began producing new editions of Blythe dolls. There is a network of hobbyists who customize the doll for resale and create clothing and shoes for Blythe. Enthusiasts share other types of dolls on the Internet. Blythe was created in the early seventies by designer Allison Katzman at Marvin Glass and Associates and bought and produced in the United States in 1972 by the now-defunct toy company Kenner. Blythe dolls were only sold for one year in the U. S. and in the UK, Australia and Japan, during 1972. Over time the original "Kenner" Blythe dolls acquired a cult following of collectors and photographers. In mid-1991, Hasbro purchased Tonka, which acquired Kenner Parker Toys, Inc. in 1987.
Since all the intellectual properties are owned by Hasbro. In 1997, New York TV and video producer Gina Garan was given a 1972 Kenner Blythe by a friend and began using it to practice her photographic skills, she took hundreds of photos. In 1999, she was introduced to CWC's Junko Wong by artist and illustrator, Jeffrey Fulvimari who brought Blythe to the attention of Parco and toy executives. In 2000, Gina published her first book of Blythe photography with Chronicle Books, This is Blythe. In 2001, Hasbro gave Takara of CWC a license to produce the New Edition of Blythe. Blythe was used in a television advertising campaign by Parco, the fashion branch of Seibu Department Stores in Japan and was an instant hit. In 2003 Blythe was the subject in a segment on the VH1 special, I Love the'70s, where she was said to look like either "Barbie with elephantiasis" or "Christina Ricci" among other things; the success in Japan led Hasbro to issue a license to Ashton-Drake Galleries in 2004 to sell Blythe replica dolls in the United States, where the doll became a niche product in a marginal market, selling to adults.
In spring 2009, Alexander McQueen launched a fashion line for Target with an ad campaign featuring Blythe dolls. In 2010, Hasbro began releasing their version of Blythe as a part of the Littlest Pet Shop toy line. There are three sizes of Blythe dolls: the original 28 cm full-sized dolls, the 11.2 cm "Petite Blythe" from Takara and the "Middie Blythe" of about 20 cm. Only full-sized dolls have color-changing eyes; the first Petite dolls were keychains, after some time the design was changed so the Petite eyes would close when the doll was laid down. The Middie Blythes eyes can turn to the sides and her head can twist around. Older dolls are sought after in the collectors market, can sell for as high as several thousand dollars for an original Kenner doll to a thousand dollars or more for the first edition Neo dolls from Takara. In 1972 Kenner released versions of the doll with four hair colors in the U. S. a brunette with chunky bangs, a sidepart brunette, a darker brunette with thinner bangs, a sidepart blonde, a red head with bangs, a sidepart redhead.
Twelve different outfits were released along with four brightly colored wigs. The dolls were released in Japan in 1972 by Tomy under the brand name Mahou no Hitomi Ai Ai Chan; the outfits and the box design were different from the ones released in other countries and are rare. Beginning in 2001, Takara first released new Blythe dolls sporadically, but began releasing new versions of Blythe each month. Under the creative direction of Junko Wong, CWC has produced 207 Neo Blythes, 211 Petites, 17 of the newest addition to the Blythe line: the Middie Blythe dolls; every one of these Blythes were exhibited at Parco Factory at the 10th Anniversary from June–July 2011. Newer releases of the Petite Blythe dolls have bendable bodies; the Middies' heads tilt and their eyes look right without changing color. The bodies of the full-size dolls vary depending on the time of the release. Early releases in 2001-2002 used the body of the Licca doll. In June 2002, in commemoration of 1 year of Blythe releases by Takara/CWC, the doll Miss Anniversary was released featuring the "Excellent Body", quite similar to the original Blythe released by Kenner.
Early dolls had a glossy surface texture, but some had matte face too. The earliest face molds of the reproduction Blythe dolls are referred to as BL. Two more face molds followed the BL mold, the Excellent mold, or EBL, the Superior mold, or SBL, in 2003. In 2006 a new face mold, the Radiant mold or RBL, was introduced to look more Kenner-like, including wider eyes. In 2009 another new face mold, the Fairest mold or FBL, was released with matte texture and smaller eye holes; the BL and EBL mold are the same mold. The difference in the EBL mold were important internal changes to make the eye mechanism more resistant. In 2013, due to wearing in the Radiance mold, or RBL, a new mold called Radiance+, or RBL+, was released and it's supposed to look like the Radiance mold; some changes were made in the eye mechanism as well, it became a lot lighter and easier to change the eyes compared to older releases. By 2013, Hasbro left the Petite Blythes behind to new redesigned doll which seemed to be the end of the collaboration between the brands, despite the doll still being called Blythe, the Blythe logo was no longer used.
In December 2013 Takara/CWC released the Petite Blythe Suri Tebya Lyublyu after 2 years since the Petite Blythe Birt
