Nicky Case's Games: Trust, Crowds, Anxiety and Where to Start

We Become What We Behold is one of a family. Nicky Case has spent years making small, free web games that explain something about people: trust, networks, anxiety, the news. Most of them are public domain, which is why four of them can live on this site next to WBWWB. Here is what each one is, how long it takes and who it is for.

We Become What We Behold (5 minutes)

The game this site is named after. You photograph peeps in a park, the photos go onto a TV with headlines, and the crowd becomes what it watches. It is the shortest of the five and the darkest, with a warning about "snobbery, rudeness & mass murder" on the title card. Start here if you have five minutes.

The Evolution of Trust (about 30 minutes)

The Evolution of Trust is the best known. It opens with the Christmas truce of 1914, when soldiers who had been ordered to fight each other crossed No Man's Land to bury their dead and play games. Then it asks why, even in peacetime, friends become enemies. The answer comes as a game: a machine where putting in one coin gives the other player three. You choose COOPERATE or CHEAT, then meet characters who each play a fixed strategy: Copycat, Always Cheat, Always Cooperate, Grudger, Detective. Later you run whole tournaments and change the rules to see which strategy wins. It is game theory without the equations.

The Wisdom and/or Madness of Crowds (about 30 minutes)

Crowds starts with Isaac Newton losing a fortune in the South Sea Bubble of 1720. From there you draw connections between little grey faces and watch what spreads through them. Why does a friend group seem to drink more than it really does? How does an idea go viral in one network and die in another? Each chapter gives you a puzzle: connect the network so that something does, or does not, spread. The sandbox at the end lets you build your own. It pairs naturally with WBWWB, since both are about what crowds pick up from each other.

Adventures With Anxiety (about 20 minutes)

Adventures With Anxiety flips the usual story. You do not play the human; you play their anxiety, a small red wolf. The human sits on a tree stump eating a sandwich, and you choose what to warn them about. Every warning is one of three fears: of being harmed, of being unloved, of being a bad person. Each act ends with the human choosing to fight or to flee. It starts funny and ends honest, with a short list of real mental health tips and resources. There is a no-swearing mode for classrooms.

Coming Out Simulator 2014 (about 10 minutes)

Coming Out Simulator 2014 is the most personal. Nicky calls it "a half-true game about half-truths". It is a conversation in chat bubbles, first with Nicky, who tells you about the game, then back to one evening: messages with Jack, a dinner with Mom, and then Dad comes home. You choose what to say at every turn, and there is no clean way through. It is short, and it hits hard.

Where to start

• Five minutes free: We Become What We Behold.
• A lesson or a debate: The Evolution of Trust, then Crowds.
• Something about you: Adventures With Anxiety.
• A story: Coming Out Simulator 2014.

All five run in an ordinary browser tab with a mouse or a finger, nothing to install and nothing to sign up for. They were made to be shared, remixed and taught with, which is exactly what their public-domain licence allows.