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Nicky Case
Canadian game developer and web designer whose playable explainers, all in the public domain, let readers run simple simulations of social systems.
Official GDC, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.
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, and Explorable Explanations mentions the hub she built.
- affiliation
- independent
- role
- game developer and designer
- homepage
- https://ncase.me/
makes
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Playable post by Vi Hart and Nicky Case, 2014, built on Thomas Schelling's segregation model, in which readers move shapes, set their bias and watch a mixed neighbourhood sort itself apart.
open sourceno APIopen participation
Tags: explorable explanation, playable post, simulation