Part 1: Perception
In the modern era of superficiality and perfect Instagram posts, We’re Not Really Strangers (WNRS) feels like the perfect thing to play. Created by Koreen Odiney, WNRS is a card game meant for two players—mostly teens and young adults—who want to move past boring small talk and actually connect. While it is officially a physical card game, you can also play it on web apps and PDFs.
Looking at it from the eyes of a developer, the game uses a simple, three-tier setup to help players take down their masks. I played the two-player version with a classmate during game night, and this tiering revealed how quickly I default to safe, basic answers when I’m put on the spot, just to protect how other people see me and to not offend anyone.
Part 2: Connection
Using the MDA framework, the core mechanics are the three decks: Level 1: Perception, Level 2: Connection, and Level 3: Reflection. There are also “Wildcards” and “Dig Deeper” cards that force you to do something more than answer a question.
Because you play this version with just one other person, these mechanics create an intense dynamic. There is no group of friends to hide behind. It creates a mutual agreement: if they share something real, you share something just as real.
This leads to the aesthetics of Fellowship (learning about others) and Expression (learning about yourself). Other games like Wavelength are about guessing what someone else is thinking (leading to guessing the person, not knowing them) and games like The Skin Deep: {THE AND} jump straight into heavy, super intense questions from the start. WNRS is different because it uses its levels to build a safe, step-by-step way to open up—and it works, too.
Playing the two-player game with my peer showed me exactly how much we hide behind safe, boring answers to avoid being vulnerable in today’s society.
In Level 1, I felt totally fine because the questions are pretty basic, often centered around assuming things based on first impressions. But level 2 hit us with “Has a stranger ever changed your life?” At first, my peer gave a quick no—the kind of safe thing you say to avoid showing anything real, the default response. But I used the dig deeper card to push them: “That was too quick. Think.”
With just the two of us, they couldn’t hide. The card let me slow the game down, something you don’t often see. After they slowed down for a second, they realized that there was an instance of a stranger changing their life, although it was an accident. The game forced us to take off our masks, slow down, and choose honesty over comfort.
We did run into one small hiccup with the target age range. We drew a card about our occupations, which didn’t apply to us because we’re high school students. This briefly broke our immersion/magic circle, and we had to discard the question and draw a new one, breaking our flow.
Part 3: Reflection
While WNRS was great at getting us to open up, the ending feels like a bit of a letdown. After reaching peak vulnerability in Level 2—where you talk about real, raw struggles—Level 3 suddenly changes direction. Instead of asking deeper personal questions like Level 2, it asks you to talk about the conversation itself like, “In one word, how would you describe our conversation?” After sharing real secrets, shifting to these feedback-style questions feels like a sudden drop in emotional stakes, and it made us lose interest. Rather than going deeper or lingering with the new connection, it feels like an abrupt stop, like a poorly placed montage at the end of a film.
WNRS responds to the social expectation that we should only share sanitized, pretty struggles. By forcing players to look each other in the eye and write notes by hand, it tries to fight this surface-level habit and get people to be fully present. But these social expectations aren’t the same for everyone. The game assumes a very Western view, where talking about your feelings is always the “healthy” thing to do. In cultures that value privacy or keeping face, these questions might feel invasive. Also, cards that force you to stare into someone’s eyes or read subtle body language can make neurodivergent players feel really anxious, punishing them for how they naturally communicate.
In the end, playing WNRS with my peer did exactly what the designers wanted. At first, we gave safe, easy answers to protect our masks and stay comfortable. But as the levels went up, keeping my mask up became less and less of an option, as did my peer’s. The game’s structure wore down our masks without us realizing and forced us to step out of our comfort zone. By the time we packed up, we agreed that we knew each other now, nearly friends even; proving that we’re not really strangers anymore.
