Nicky Case

Nicky Case (born September 11, 1994 ) is a Canadian indie game developer, web designer, and critical theorist. She has developed interactive websites and online video games such as Coming Out Simulator, Explorable Explanations, We Become What We Behold and Parable of the Polygons. Case's works are characterized by her recurring goal to "help people understand complex systems", presenting dilemmas and potential resolutions in a philosophical manner. Case has also collaborated with theorists and academics such as Stefano Gualeni, Vi Hart and Bret Victor.

Besides designing and developing games, Case has been active on her website and blog, ncase.me, regularly updating posts, short stories and comics about mental health, games and media culture, COVID-19 safety, and social science, among others. She has also written educational blog posts teaching mathematics, how to code, and how to make games.

Career Case began game development at a young age of 13 through the creation of various independent flash games on the media platform Newgrounds. Case's first entry into the gaming industry was an internship at Electronic Arts (EA), with the help of a Newgrounds game made by Case (literally titled :the game:) that became popular.

Despite saying that EA was queer-friendlydescribing it as "...ahead of the time for queer acceptance"Case said that she was inspired to become independent by the way that projects could fall through any moment at EA.

First independent projects and Coming Out Simulator 2014

Through a crowdfunding platform, Case funded her first independent project Nothing To Hide. and Case even received emails from queer individuals who related to and felt seen by the game.

With the popularity of the shadow explainer, Parable of the Polygons and following interactive games, Nicky Case began to gain prominence as an interactive designer. It "became [her] mission to explore the yet vastly under-explored medium of interactivity". And they began to help others with this pursuit as well by establishing Explorable Explanations, a platform where users could make and publish interactive articles .

Adventures with Anxiety

Case's latest release took a slight step away from system-based gameplay, and back to the more narrative interactivity of Coming Out Simulator 2014. Adventures with Anxiety represents Case's own struggles with accepting and coping with anxiety disorder.

Adventures with Anxiety, along with some of her other projects, are public domain, and the webpage of the games feature the full source code for free. Case explains that she benefited greatly from the public open source codes of others when she started out making games. She wants to pay it forward and stimulate others to make games as well.

In 2016, Case released We Become What We Behold, a game about yellow journalism and vicious cycles.

In 2017, Case released the interactive presentation The Evolution of Trust. In an attempt to explain the Christmas truce and the rise of mistrust in modern society, The Evolution of Trust uses a prisoner's dilemmalike thought experiment. As the presentation goes on, most optimal play styles to the experiment are discussed, and the experiment is expanded upon to include factors like human mistakes and repeated interactions.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Case has also released an explainer about the spread of COVID-19 and how they interact with lockdown measures, and an awareness comic about the use and need for contact tracing apps that are surveillance free.

Personal life Case is a trans woman and has chosen to be referred to in female or gender-neutral terms. She was born in Singapore and moved with her family to Vancouver when she was young.