State of Play VI: Speakers' Bios

Profile  

Nicholas Fortugno is the Co-Founder and CCO of Rebel Monkey -- a New York-based game development studio focusing on casual games. Before Rebel Monkey, Nick was the Director of Game Design at Gamelab, where he worked on dozens of digital and non-digital games. Most notably, Nick was the lead designer on the downloadable blockbuster Diner Dash, as well as the award-winning serious game Ayiti: The Cost of Life and the downloadable game Plantasia; Nick was also the co-designer of Miss Management. Nick has also worked extensively in big games and social games. Nick was one of the co-founders of the Come Out and Play festival, a festival dedicated to street play. Nick (along with Frank Lantz and Katie Salen) was also one of the creators of the influential Big Urban Game in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Nick's live-action roleplaying work has been discussed in a number of critical works including the academic texts Rules of Play and Second Person. Nick also teaches game design and interactive narrative at Parsons The New School of Design, and has participated in the development of Parsons' game design curriculum.