Game: We’re Not Really Strangers
The “We’re Not Really Strangers” game is designed to deepen connections between participants. The game is light and portable and can be taken anywhere as it only consists of a large card deck. These cards are split into 3 different levels of intimacy. Players begin by drawing cards from the first level and taking turns answering the prompts on the cards. Once 15 questions have been answered from Level 1, players move on to Level 2, and then, finally, Level 3 (so, 15 cards at each level).
Level 1 contains “Perception” cards which prompt players to reflect on their narratives they have about themselves or perceptions they might have of other participants. Level 2 cards are known as the “Connection” cards, pushing participants to connect more deeply with one another by mining players’ pasts. Level 3 is the “Reflection” level where cards ask players to reflect on their connections to the other players, which, if the game works as intended, have been deepened and expanded during the gameplay. The game is intended for 3-6 players, which follows naturally from the intimate experience of playing the game.
Though any group of individuals could play the game, the experience of the gameplay will of course be different depending on the makeup of the group. For example, you could play the game with acquaintances/colleagues to “rip off the bandaid,” so to say, and move past the typical dance of “getting to know you” by forced intimacy and vulnerability. But, this may fall short if some participants are more reticent to share/open up than others. You could play in a group of friends where sharing might be a bit more uninhibited, uncovering new details and insights about one another. This is the context in which I played the game. While it did mean we skipped some questions that seemed surface level and obvious to one another, we still had an incredibly rich gameplay experience.
I would generally consider myself to be a very vulnerable person. I say that I don’t really believe in “TMI.” I think this makes me a good “We’re Not Really Strangers” player because you obviously have to buy into the gameplay experience in order for it to be enriching. If you go into the game with your guard up, others might emulate that behavior and participants will be more hesitant to share, consciously or not. When participants don’t lean in, the game becomes boring because nothing of substance is shared. Because I wear my heart on my sleeve and have probably too much willingness to share, I set a good precedent that makes other people more comfortable in sharing their thoughts/insights/experiences.
I also have a tendency to ask questions that are perhaps ever-so-slightly intrusive in the name of connecting with others. Therefore, when someone shares something in response to a card’s prompt, I’m not hesitant to ask follow up questions if I have unanswered curiosities or if I feel there might be more to the story. This might not make me a great player in a group where I don’t know many people, but I think overall it is additive to a gameplay group of people I have familiarity with.
I think one flaw of the game is that there are a limited number of cards, and if you play with 45 cards each time you play, you will soon gain familiarity with the cards. This might make the game boring quickly. I haven’t played enough times for this to become the case for me personally, but I can see how I would get bored eventually. In order to keep it fresh, you would have to continue to find new groups to play with, but even so, then your own experience of playing might become stale.
Ethics: This game obviously interrogates social norms around privatized, personal information. Outside the context of the game, you might feel comfortable asking some of the questions written on the cards to a close group of friends and not so much to new acquaintances. However, this is explicit from the get-go. In other words, all players are opting in to this experience. Therefore, these norms disappear a bit and are taken over by the gameplay norms which are to lean in.
This game seems as though it is very much intended for a younger, Western audience. I can imagine that such gameplay would not be accepted in many more conservative cultures where personal information is more highly treasured as “secret”.
