---
id: people/nicky-case
about:
  label: Nicky Case
  depiction: people/nicky-case.jpg
  depiction_credit: 'Official GDC, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.'
  description: >-
    Canadian game developer and web designer whose playable explainers, all in
    the public domain, let readers run simple simulations of social systems.
  tags:
    - explorable explanation
    - playable post
    - simulation
person:
  affiliation: independent
  role: game developer and designer
  homepage: 'https://ncase.me/'
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: Nicky Case (Wikipedia)
      url: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicky_Case'
    - title: It's Nicky Case! (her own site)
      url: 'https://ncase.me/'
  created: '2026-11-02'
  reviewed: '2026-11-02'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
Nicky Case, born on 11 September 1994, is a Canadian independent game developer and web designer.[^1] She began making Flash games at 13 and interned at Electronic Arts before going independent.[^1] Wikipedia describes her recurring goal as helping people understand complex systems.[^1]

After an explainer of hers reached a wide audience, Bret Victor invited her to a workshop where she met Vi Hart, and the two made Parable of the Polygons in 2014.[^1] She went on to build the Explorable Explanations hub, where people find and publish interactive explainers.[^1,2] In 2016 she released We Become What We Behold, a game about news cycles.[^1] The Evolution of Trust (2017) teaches the game theory of trust through a version of the prisoner's dilemma.[^1] During the COVID-19 pandemic she made an explainer of how the virus spreads and how lockdown measures change its course.[^1] Her Emoji Simulator is a tool for making cellular automata.[^2] Her work is released under a public domain waiver, so it can be reused and remixed in classrooms.[^2]

The wiki carries [Parable of the Polygons](/communication/parable-of-the-polygons/), and [Explorable Explanations](/communication/explorable-explanations/) mentions the hub she built.