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A review by henrymarlene
A Game Maker's Life: A Hall of Fame Game Inventor and Executive Tells the Inside Story of the Toy Industry by Jeffrey Breslow, Cynthia Beebe
3.0
Jeffrey Breslow was inducted into the US National Toy Hall of Fame for the work he conducted in creating games and toys as part of a multi-million dollar businesses across several decades. He also experienced a terrifying workplace shooting where many of his closest colleagues were killed, and he continued to deliver in this industry in their memories. He has now released a memoir of is life from toy maker to when he focused on being a sculpture maker from the 2000s. Jeffrey goes into a lot of detail about his origins and how his mind shifted to what he wanted to do, and how this drive was applied throughout his career.
We get a good history of the toy industry in the 1960s-1990s, and I was amazed at how many games I have seen and played that he was involved with and created: Mousetrap, Mr Machine, the original Mickey Mouse phone, Jaws, Operation and many more. One of his core drivers was to understand design and apply functionality to it, so that the game or object was not something only to look at from afar. He wanted to create games and toys that were interactive, that worked and moved and brought imagination to life.
We get a good history of the toy industry in the 1960s-1990s, and I was amazed at how many games I have seen and played that he was involved with and created: Mousetrap, Mr Machine, the original Mickey Mouse phone, Jaws, Operation and many more. One of his core drivers was to understand design and apply functionality to it, so that the game or object was not something only to look at from afar. He wanted to create games and toys that were interactive, that worked and moved and brought imagination to life.