William Playfair, the father of data visualisation, changed the way we understand information. His bar graphs, pie charts, and line graphs remain essential tools today, yet his name is barely known.

The finalists include circular gauges, conic Excel graphs, three-dimensional bar graphs and Venn pie-agrams. I first give examples and point out problems with these graph forms.

The developers at Digital Dreams don't hold degrees in mathematics or business, nor are they big statistics nerds, but their first Vita game, Metrico, takes place entirely on a landscape of bar ...