We’re Not Really Strangers (WNRS) is a getting-to-know-you game meant to help deepen relationships between players. The original game consists of 2 pencils and a notepad, 2 “dig deeper” cards, and 150 questions and wildcards. The manufacturer-labeled age is 15+ and the game is recommended for 2-6 people. The game was created by artist Koreen Odiney, beginning as an Instagram account that has since grown into a card game with expansion packs as well as a social movement.
The objective of this game is perhaps best categorized as exploration, with heavy emphasis on the aesthetic goals of fellowship and expression. The procedures are as follows: the game is divided into 3 levels, each more intimate than the previous: the perception round, which is about first impressions and superficial observations; the connection round, which includes questions that encourage vulnerability and sharing; and the reflection stage, a round in which emotions are at their most heightened and players are invited to reflect on their relationships with one another and what they’ve learned. There is also a disruption mechanism, or wildcards incorporated into the deck to break up the rhythm of the game. These cards can be frisky and fun or deep and vulnerable, and they often require some sort of interaction between players (e.g. make eye contact with someone for 30s).
Playing this game required that I find a balance between the push and pull of privacy and vulnerability. I would consider myself someone a bit more reserved and concerned with matters of privacy—I fear oversharing and am vulnerable around a small, select group of people—but within that group of people, I think that I am very trusting and have “deeper” conversations all the time. Despite my familiarity with these kinds of more meaningful connections, playing this game with friends was interesting because putting scaffolding to the conversation topics I might normally encounter on my own felt strange. I’m used to organically navigating my way to a topic like “what I admire about you,” but it doesn’t come up as directly and succinctly as it does when we’re flipping through the WNRS deck. Similarly, if I land on the subject of “what I admire about you” with a friend, we’ll often spend some time savoring this question before moving on to another more lighthearted topic to break up the mood—so playing WNRS felt new because I wasn’t used to encountering multiple topics of deep emotional valence in succession. At the end of our gameplay, my friends expressed feeling “disoriented,” as if they had been jolted out of a really intense gameplay and back into the real world.
Players of this game can range from strangers to close friends, with a subtext of the game being that relationships at any stage, whether early or storied, can benefit from some added vulnerability. I consider the fact that this game is agnostic to relationship type both an astute observation and an element of clever design. In my case, playing with people I trusted, I found that the honest and direct communication style I normally maintain with these friends was enhanced by the simple question mechanism combined with the plain red look of the cards. It felt like there was no narrative, metaphor, or fiction to hide behind, and that this game is something one might describe as “pure abstraction” (Theory of Fun). While we learned in the “What Games Are and Aren’t” assignment that games are often fun because they require mastery or learning of a particular skill, this game is less “fun” in the “learning is the drug” kind of way—the does game build soft communications skills, but there is no obvious way to master or “clear” challenges—and more fun in the way it evokes a sense of awe, mystery, or harmony; that is, in the way it creates meaning. The mechanism of taking turns to answer a question altered my group dynamics, as well—typically, the friends I played with tend to be argumentative, enjoying banter and quick-witted responses, but in this game, the spotlight was put on each person individually, allowing for less debate and slowing the pace of discussion down. Surprisingly, this seems to have rubbed off on our group a little in the days since the gameplay: we have begun to incorporate these purposefully deep, structured questions into our conversations, although because this group of friends has a taste for the irreverent and the cheeky, they’ll put their own twist on these inquiries: “Let’s go around and each decide one thing we like about X person, and one thing we dislike about them.” In this sense, the game has longevity—perhaps in the way that more fictitious games are abstractions of real patterns and rules (Theory of Fun), this game eliminates all the fictitious elements to make the takeaways about patterns and rules feel more relevant and lasting in our lives. I find this efficiency to be quite clever and effective.
I noticed that there were a lot of reversal cards—for example, “What do you think I fear the most?” I wonder if gameplay could be enhanced by incorporating a “contest/appeal” mechanism: other players can contest the answer provided with their own thoughts, and the subject of the question can confirm or deny with their own perceptions of themselves. There were also some minor flaws in the applicability of all questions: for example, it was easy for our group to speak about habits we have and actions we’ve taken to hurt one another, but I imagine that answering the same prompt would be difficult for strangers—so the game isn’t completely relationship agnostic. Other alterations that could be incorporated might focus on the different intimacy levels: what if players had to “earn” or “unlock” progressive levels, or what if players could set the level from the start?
By definition, WNRS as a getting-to-know-you game is bound up in ethical questions. It reflects norms of emotional openness amongst its target generation (Millennials and Gen Z in particular, who tend to be comfortable with notions of emotional literacy, therapy, self-care and mental health struggles, and vulnerability on public platforms like social media as fair game). Concepts like “attachment styles” and “trauma responses” and “love languages” are normalized—however, overly relying on these pseudo-scientific terms risks conflating professional advice with layman understanding, and overusing therapizing language is a problem adjacent to WNRS that these generations must grapple with. WNRS also responds to norms of accelerated intimacy in modern culture—while far from encouraging something like a hookup, WNRS stands the risk of facilitating trauma dumping, love bombing, and other intense, overwhelming, and unhealthy communication behaviors. Finally, the game stands to exclude players who are neurodivergent or socially anxious with requirements such as eye contact and immediate emotional vulnerability; it also stands to exclude members of older generations or more conservative, private cultures that emphasize family reputation and personal restraint. Without content warning mechanisms, it also may be triggering or create an unsafe environment for players with pre-existing trauma. More intimacy is not always better—sometimes, less is more. I believe that WNRS must be played by players who are emotionally mature, in a contract of trust and care for one another, and, ultimately, with restraint and best-judgment.
