For Gen-Z, social performance is a survival skill. Traditional therapy is too slow, the conscious mind "edits" the truth before speaking. We built a card game that forces the answer before the edit.
People edit the truth before they say it, so honest conversations stall.
Led game design, research and the pitch for a five-person Global Game Jam team.
Playtested live with 50+ people; the jury saw a potentially fundable product.
For the 13–25 demographic, social masking isn't a choice, it's a survival mechanism. They curate identities for classrooms, parents, Instagram, and therapy sessions. Traditional clinical tools give patients unlimited time to respond, which means the conscious mind has time to "edit" reality to protect the ego.
Standard projective testing (Rorschach, TAT) works, but it's slow, requires trained clinicians, and feels clinical. The 13–25 group disengages the moment they feel like a "patient." The result: weeks of small talk before a therapist reaches the actual trauma.
This was the working premise from our research synthesis: given enough time, people edit their answers to protect how they come across. Most existing reflection tools we reviewed give unlimited response time, so we treated time itself as the design variable.
By capping the response at 15 seconds, F2F creates a Cognitive Bottleneck. The player is pushed to speak before they can finish polishing a "safe" answer. The intent is to catch the first response rather than the performed one. If a player repeatedly hits the 15-second limit or answers very literally under pressure, that's a signal of high cognitive load a facilitator might explore further. It is a prompt for conversation, not a diagnosis.
We tested the premise in a 50-person live playtest. What we observed: players dropped their social masks within about 4 minutes, and one participant said they "forgot we were being filmed." One playtest doesn't prove the premise, but it's the behavior we designed for, and it suggested something close to a flow state.
F2F rejects the "Engagement Trap", making therapy fun. We use tension as a diagnostic tool. Two players. Abstract imagery. Weaponized questions. No board. No screen. Uninterrupted eye contact.
Every player starts with 3 Hearts (expandable to 5). Hearts represent psychological stamina. Lose one for giving a literal "IRL" answer, withdrawing, or timing out. Gain +0.5 for 3 consecutive creative answers. When Hearts hit zero, the Mask breaks.
16 abstract cards in two phases: 8 B&W cards trigger the logical brain (how you build your Mask), 8 Color cards trigger emotional flooding (bypass the logic gate). Any literal description = a defense failure.
The Observer draws keyword cards (BURDEN, GHOST, STATIC, VOID) and can either read the printed question or "Bluff" with a sharper, targeted probe. This simulates the hypervigilance of trauma survivors, the Subject is always scanning for traps.
If a player's distress exceeds 8/10 on the SUDs scale, mandatory pause. Meridian-point tapping sequence (Eyebrow → Under Eye → Collarbone) resets the nervous system. This is a rule, not a suggestion. We don't value truth more than the player.
Each card contains a bolded keyword and a coded question. The Observer uses these to probe the Subject's interpretation of the Rorschach images. Three categories target different defense layers.
We didn't just test it in a corner, we ran a mass social experiment at the venue itself. Over 50 participants and volunteers engaged simultaneously, creating a collective arena where social masks became impossible to maintain.
Didn't know a game could reveal one's thoughts and underlying emotions in such a subtle way. Not an average card game.
I forgot we were being filmed.
In the playtest, players dropped their social masks within about 4 minutes. Faculty saw potential for F2F as a non-invasive conversation tool around social anxiety and trust, a direction that would need proper clinical research before any diagnostic claim.
Designed the entire game system, the Vitality/Heart system, the 15-second pressure valve, the Doctor's Bluff mechanic, the dual-phase Rorschach engine, and the TFT safety protocol. Every mechanic maps to a clinical diagnostic function.
Synthesized the "15-second gap" insight from cognitive psych research. Designed the keyword card system with clinically coded anchor words targeting specific trauma markers (dissociation, enmeshment, hypervigilance). Built the SUDs/TFT safety framework.
Taught juniors on the team my design process on the go, how to deconstruct a clinical system into game mechanics, how to think about tension vs. entertainment, how to anti-scope deliberately. The team learned design thinking in real-time under hackathon pressure.
Delivered the final pitch explaining "Ambiguity" and "Projection" to the jury, framing F2F not as a game but as a product disguised as one. The jury recognized its potential as a fundable clinical tool, not just a hackathon entry.
F2F didn't take a prize at the Global Game Jam, but it earned something more valuable. The jury recognized it as a potentially fundable product, a clinical tool disguised as a game, with real diagnostic utility for social anxiety, trust disorders, and neuro-disability masking in the 13–25 demographic.
"In F2F, we replace the 'Fun' of traditional gaming with the 'Weight' of shared truth. Winning isn't about points; it's about the resilience of the Mask. The game ends when the performance stops and the truth is finally seen Face 2 Face."
