ncase

How I Make Explorable Explanations

Added 2017-09-20 16:27:19 +0000 UTC

Finally, I spill my secrets! (note: not actually secret)

6 minute read: http://blog.ncase.me/how-i-make-an-explorable-explanation/

Really, it's a three-step guide for teaching anything through any medium, not just teaching systems through games. Also, at the end of the blag post, I throw out a list of things I may want to try making during my "personal game jam" the next two months!

Speaking of which, here's the "theme" for my personal jam:

"CREATION."

All this time, I've felt a little bit like Willy Wonka (the Gene Wilder version, not Johnny Depp version), showing off a bunch of weird cool stuff here and there – but I don't want to be a Willy Wonka; I want to help you be a Willy Wonka. I want to pay it forward: other people created powerful ideas & tools that helped enable me, and now I want to share powerful ideas & tools to enable you. (P.S: that's why I want to spill my secrets on how I make things!)

And that's one big gap in my work: even though you can play with simulations, you can't really make your own simulations. The only two exceptions are LOOPY & Sim The World In Emoji, but for both of those, you hit the ceiling of complexity pretty quickly.

So, for the next two months, I'll be making a bunch of prototypes around that theme: "CREATION". These will be little prototypes for things that let you create something, together or alone.

I've already started coding up one prototype (hint: it involves more stick figures with hats), and I've sketched out & gotten feedback on four more! I'm really excited to sharing these with you, and eventually, fleshing some of them out into real powerful tools – enabling you to become the Willy Wonka.

<3,
~Nicky Case