So, you ever feel like dating is this massive, complicated game and nobody gave you the rulebook? Yeah, I’ve been there. That’s pretty much why I started messing around with this idea for a dating card game. Seemed like a laugh at first, but then it kinda took on a life of its own.
Getting the Ball Rolling
I didn’t just want to make some generic trivia game about love. Nah. I wanted something that captured a bit of the… chaos? The awkwardness? The sheer unpredictability of trying to connect with someone. My first thought was, what are the actual stages or weird interactions? I started scribbling down ideas on a bunch of sticky notes. Piles of them. All over my desk. It looked like a yellow paper monster exploded.
I figured I needed different types of cards:
- Icebreaker Cards: Not your usual “what’s your favorite color?” More like, “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten to be polite?”
- Scenario Cards: Little situations, like “Your date’s phone keeps buzzing. What do you do?”
- “Red Flag or Dealbreaker?” Cards: Those were fun to come up with. Some obvious, some hilariously specific.
- Wild Cards: Just to throw a spanner in the works, you know?
The main goal wasn’t really to “win” at dating, ’cause let’s be real, what does that even mean? It was more about sparking funny conversations or getting people to share stories. Or at least, that was the plan.
The Messy Middle Part
Actually making it fun was the tricky bit. My first few attempts? Oof. Total cringe-fests. Some of the questions sounded like a bad therapy session, or worse, a job interview. “Describe a time you overcame a relationship challenge.” Snooze. Nobody wants to play that, especially not on a supposed fun night.
And balancing it? Nightmare. I tried to get some friends to playtest. One session ended with everyone just staring at their cards in awkward silence. Another time, it got a bit too real, and not in a good way. It’s a fine line, apparently, between “haha, that’s so true” and “oh god, this is my life.”
Why was I even bothering with this, you ask? Good question. It’s not like I’m a game designer or anything. Truth is, this whole idea really kicked off after a particularly bizarre online dating experience I had a while back. I was deep into this online community, right? Met someone there, we talked for months. Text, voice chat, the whole nine yards. I thought, “This is it! This person gets me!” We built up this whole picture of each other.
Then we finally decided to meet in person. And… wow. It was like meeting a completely different human. Not in a catfish-y “they used fake photos” way, but their entire personality was different. The witty, insightful person I’d chatted with online was replaced by someone kinda shy and, honestly, a bit dull. It hit me then – so much of early dating, especially the online kind, is a performance. People are playing a role they think the other person wants.
That whole thing left me feeling pretty cynical about the “getting to know you” phase. So, this card game? It became my weird way of poking fun at that whole performance. Trying to make a game out of the game everyone’s already playing, if that makes sense.
Where It’s At Now
So, after all that, what do I have? Mostly, a shoebox full of handwritten index cards and a few slightly more polished printouts. I’ve simplified it a lot. Ditched the super complicated rules. Now it’s more of a prompt system. You draw a card, you react, you tell a story, you laugh. Or you groan. Both are acceptable outcomes.
I even made a few “Uh Oh” cards that make you share an embarrassing dating story. Those usually get the best reactions. It’s still very much a work in progress. Some days I look at it and think, “This is actually pretty clever!” Other days, I’m like, “What on earth am I doing with my life, making a card game about dating?”
Honestly, I don’t know if it’ll ever be a “real” game you can buy in a store. Maybe it’s just for me and my friends. Or maybe it’s just my own little project to remind myself that even the weird, awkward parts of trying to connect with people can be, well, something to talk about. It’s definitely taught me that designing something, even something silly like this, is way harder than it looks. But hey, I kept at it.
