Trending Now: Buddhism
‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.
An uneasy experience where players sit back to back to create a story on the effects of grief and the unresolved internal and external conflicts from loss.
Navigate the difficult conversations that come with losing someone, learn to move forward, confront fears or attachments, and peacefully let each other go — or fail to do so.
Prompt-Based TTRPG
2 Players
1.5-Month Class Project
Playtime: ~60 min. (Short Ver.) | ~90+ min. (Regular Ver.)
Ideation
In Buddhist, Taoist, and Shinto traditions, rituals are performed for 49 days after death to help guide the departed through the bardo, the state between death and rebirth, toward a favorable reincarnation.
49 Days With You is a 49-day, prompt-based, physical back-to-back duet exploring the memories, perspectives, and connections between a grieving individual and the recently deceased—one moving through life while the other stays stuck in time.
This game grew out of my interest in the fragility and ephemerality of life and memory, even beyond death. It's an experimental experience for players to explore these themes while still having fun telling their own stories.
Prompt
Designing the prompts meant considering how they should be framed and what questions would drive conversation or storytelling. It worked best to create everyday situations that players respond to with a set "toolkit," allowing for varied, unique storytelling instead of one fixed plot. I wanted players to go beyond the modern world and beyond just loved-one relationships—the deceased could be a spirit in a medieval fantasy world, a murder victim, or even a pet.
Inspired by Thousand Year Vampire, prompts describe something that's already happened, and players build off it. I find games more fun when they hand you an encounter and let you handle the details and consequences through your own choices—it makes players feel like the character even without control over the broader world. The prompts do what a GM would: create encounters and situations.
Physicality
I incorporated a leaning mechanic inspired by The Time We Have Together, a game about two siblings and their last conversations before one is fully turned by a zombie virus. Sitting on opposite sides of a closed door, unable to see each other, they rely only on voice—and at the end, the uninfected sibling decides whether to open the door. That physical barrier heightens imagination: when one sense is blocked, the brain fills the gap.
I used this same principle with touch. Players sit back-to-back, unable to see each other, relying only on voice and the warmth and pressure of the other's body. Removing sight and replacing it with touch forces players to imagine what they can't perceive. As they lean into each other and the weight shifts, players become emotionally and physically codependent.
Design
Colors: Black, White, & Yellow
White and yellow are common in Buddhist funerals:
yellow for humility and enlightenment,
white for purity, serenity, and mourning.
Font: Amanojaku and EB Garamond
A brush-stroke calligraphy font evokes Buddhist
scripture for titles and statement phrases;
EB Garamond is the closest match I found to
the translated scriptures I grew up reading at the
temple.
Playtests + Iterations
Playtests were completed with friends, family, and classmates. Some were partners, siblings, or acquaintances. There were a total of three iterations spanning one month and two weeks of development.
Through Iteration 01 and 02, I learned that:
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Players tend to forget mechanics and rules mid-play.
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Roles were not clarified sufficiently.
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Play styles varied drastically and they should be embraced.
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The weigh mechanic was easily forgettable.
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The back-to-back physicality caused fatigue and pain, despite prior precautions.
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Day and night transitions felt abrupt, disturbing the flow of the story.
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Grammar and punctuation were lacking, causing further confusion.
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Play would go on too long on regular mode.
With Iteration 03, I implemented:
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Small, cuttable reference cards that players can look at throughout play to remember the core actions, rules, and roles.
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Embraced any play style!
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Made the weight mechanic an intentional closing reflection by moving it to the end of each day instead of each turn.
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Restructured an action loop that requires both players to establish part of the event/situation and to properly close the day.
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Cleaned up grammar and punctuation for clarity.
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Added more physical alternatives to reduce strain from prolonged back-to-back sitting.
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Added the Ace of Hearts as the base win condition.
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Changed the card to time scale. Each card represented three days (regular play) or a week (short play) instead of one for faster and more detailed gameplay.
Project Details
Platform: Table Top
Team: Individual
Status: Incomplete
I wish to further develop this project.
Development Period: 2 weeks
Genre: Social, Satirical, Experimental, Strategy
"Trending Now: Buddhism" is an experimental table top game. The goal is to earn as much "karma" as possible or collect all the Buddhist symbols and decorate your room. You can buy and sell these Buddhist symbols for more karma and there will be competitions to determine who has the best room!
Core Features:
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Cultural commentary card game - Satirical tabletop exploring Buddhism appropriation through collecting and commodifying sacred objects
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Dual win conditions - Collect all 23 Buddhist objects OR accumulate 100 Karma tokens through strategic play
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Economic system - Buy, sell, and own Buddhist objects with Karma as currency; balance Karmaback passive income vs. Karma Value resale
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Competitive decorating - Arrange collected objects aesthetically on design boards; win voting rounds for bonus tokens
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Chaotic event-driven gameplay - Random event cards force auctions, charity, disasters, and gambles that disrupt strategies
Game Designer
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Inspired by:
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Personal experiences and culture as a Buddhist Vietnamese woman.
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Dadaism, the Fluxus movement, and Trains, a board game by Brenda Romero in 2009.
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Created guidelines for a strategic but satirical gameplay & developed and sourced the physical components, either creating the components myself or finding used components in thrift stores or laying around in my home.
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Mechanics:
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Object collection (Figurines, Quotes, Paintings, Pendant) with varying costs and values
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Karma token economy with Karmaback (passive income per turn) and Karma Value (sell price)
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Action cards for sabotage (steal, skip turns, block, extra plays)
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Design board voting system (players rank each other's aesthetic arrangements)
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Die rolls for turn order and tie-breaking
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Event cards triggering mandatory challenges each round
Dynamics:
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Strategic tension between hoarding objects vs. selling for immediate Karma
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Social competition through design board rankings and voting manipulation
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Risk/reward in event cards (auctions, gambles, disasters that reset progress)
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Player interaction through theft, blocking, and forced donations
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Resource scarcity creating auction/bidding pressure
Gameplay Loop:
Each round: Individual turns (buy/sell → play/discard action card → collect Karmaback) → Design board voting → Event card resolution. Players balance immediate gains vs. long-term collection goals while navigating forced social interactions
Design Intentions:
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Dadaism-inspired satire using karma as literal currency to mock cultural appropriation
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Physical Buddhist objects (figurines, quotes, paintings) treated as commodities
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Uncomfortable realization paralleling Brenda Romero's Train - players engage in appropriation while playing
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Event cards create chaos and emphasize the absurdity of commodifying spirituality
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Design board mechanic forces aesthetic judgment of sacred symbols
Progress
Goal
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To visualize and bring awareness to Buddhist cultural appropriation and the materialization of significant symbols in Buddhism.
Challenges
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The biggest challenge was sourcing and creating the right pieces for this game. Every board game component shapes the game's message, so their appearance and intention matters. As an experimental and social board game, the priority wasn't to make polished components. Instead, using found objects from other media or antique stores added depth. but rather taking and sourcing pieces from other media or antique stores. Finding affordable, authentic Buddhist pieces was especially difficult.
Iteration Process
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I spent a little more than two weeks to refine this project. Appropriation is a topic that surrounds my identity and culture relentlessly, so the concept came easily. However, the implementation and mechanics took a lot more time. A week and a half was spent refining the rules, mechanics, and pieces. The last half was spent playtesting and creating or sourcing the pieces for the game. There were a total of 4 full playtests within two significant iterations, not including the final iteration and game.
