Nicole Carpenter

That Dragon, Cancer is available on iOS today

That Dragon, Cancer was released back in January this year, shortly after my father’s cancer diagnosis. My first real brush with cancer, I clung to the game for guidance. That Dragon, Cancer didn’t necessarily tell me what to expect, but helped steer me through the things I needed to feel. I wished

A game about sacrificing villagers will challenge belief systems

Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. In publisher Kitfox Games’s upcoming The Shrouded Isle, those sacrifices are lives. It’s a cult village management game to be released in February 2017 by design lead Jongwoo Kim, writer Tanya Short, and artist Erica Lahaie. The Shrouded Isle is meant as a haun

Social Interaction Trainer will help you in life’s awkward moments

Don’t know how to socially interact? That’s okay. Neither do I. And I suspect there are lots of us, too—the ones who always respond “you, too” after the movie theater ticket taker tells us to enjoy our movies; the party-goers who’d rather sit on the couch and pet cats than talk to other guests; thos

Get ready to prod GNOG’s monster heads in early 2017

Australian milk packaging from the ’80s, designer toys made from wood, illustrations of otherworldly science-fiction landscapes. These are the sorts of images you’ll find neatly organized on GNOG creator Samuel Boucher’s Pinterest board; the sort of things that he cites as inspiration for GNOG’s mon

Upcoming game uses genetic science to create alien gardens

NYU Game Center alumni Owen Bell is the first game designer to be awarded the Public Understanding prize from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Sloan’s Public Understanding prize, in particular, is intended to support projects that blend science and the humanities; it’s for creators and researchers th