"HUH?" A Cross-Cultural Role-Playing Card Game

Project Overview

“Huh?” is a cross-cultural role-playing card game designed to spark empathy, challenge assumptions, and bridge communication gaps between English and Chinese speakers. Through immersive, team-based gameplay, players step into culturally specific roles and navigate everyday social scenarios shaped by differing values, norms, and etiquette.

The game’s title, “Huh?”, is inspired by linguistic research demonstrating that “huh” is a near-universal word used across languages to signal confusion and initiate repair. This moment of conversational breakdown became the core metaphor for the project highlighting how misunderstandings can be reframed as opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and cultural learning.

Challenge

Cultural misunderstandings often stem from implicit expectations, language subtleties, and etiquette gaps. Traditional cross-cultural training methods can feel abstract or disconnected.

Goal

Create a tangible, engaging experience that builds empathy, encourages active discussion, and helps players understand cultural logic from another’s point of view.

My contribution

Within this project, I :

  • Defined the core objectives of the game, drawing from linguistic and cultural research on miscommunication and repair.
  • Conducted literature reviews, interviews, and competitive analysis to identify cross-cultural pain points between English and Chinese speakers.
  • Designed and iterated the card structure, spinner mechanic, and scoring system, with a focus on clarity, immersion, and cultural relevance.
  • Planned and facilitated two rounds of testing with multicultural participants, incorporating both observational data and post-game interviews.
  • Refined gameplay based on user feedback, adjusted card content for accessibility and cultural clarity, and designed printable prototypes.

How to play

Players: 6 or more, split into two teams (e.g., British Team vs. Chinese Team). Each team assigns one player as an Expat, who temporarily joins the opposing team to provide cultural guidance.
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Rounds: The game is played over 4 rounds, alternating between teams.

How to play

All Rules

Spin the Wheel

The active team spins a wheel to determine the category of the scenario (e.g., Business, Food, School, Relationships).

Draw a card

The team draws a pre-paired card from the opposing culture’s deck. Each card includes:
  • A persona (e.g., a Chinese student)
  • A situation (e.g., receiving a gift from a teacher)

Role-Play & Discuss

The team discusses how their drawn persona would respond, based on the cultural norms of that character. They can consult their Expat for clarification but not direct answers. The team presents their final answer.

Peer Evaluation

The opposing team evaluates the cultural accuracy of the response:
  • Culturally accurate → 1 point awarded
  • Culturally Inaccurate → No point

Repeat

The next team takes their turn. The process continues for 4 rounds in total.

Game Flowchart

The game flowchart offers a clear, step-by-step overview of how a typical round of how the game unfolds, from card selection to team discussion, voting, and scoring.

Iterative Testing & Improvements

To ensure the game provided both meaningful cultural insights and an engaging player experience, two iterative rounds of user testing were carried out with participants from both Chinese and British backgrounds.
Round 1

Primary Usability Insights

Initial playtests revealed friction points that affected immersion and clarity:
  • Players were confused by randomly paired character and scenario cards, which often lacked logical or cultural coherence.
  • Certain roles, like “government official”, felt too abstract, making meaningful role-play difficult.
Key Iterations:
  • Replaced random pairings with pre-paired, contextually grounded scenario cards to support narrative flow.
  • Removed overly niche or technical roles in favor of more relatable everyday characters.
  • Introduced a spinner mechanic to randomly select themes (e.g. business, food, school), adding variety without sacrificing structure.
Round 2

Validation & Fine-Tuning

Remaining refinements identified:
  • The Expat role (a neutral cultural advisor) needed clearer rules.
  • Some translated scenarios lost meaning, requiring linguistic and cultural clarification.
  • Text readability needed improvement, especially for older players or low-light settings.

Card Design Improvements

Overview
Research
Ideation
Design Process
Test & Results