Nothing To See Here!
Role: Designer, Producer, QA
Team: 6 total
Time: ~1 year
Tech: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Printing
Platform: Physical Card Game
Website: Retail Link
Description
First Pitched at the Game Center Incubator 2020,
Launched May 10th, 2022 with Eat Melon LLC & Clarkson Potter
"Nothing to See Here is the hilariously naughty party game you’ve been missing—use your cards to come up with a “believable” story to explain your way out of any number of outrageously compromising positions.
What would you say if you, a florist, got caught half-naked behind the curtains holding a cucumber? Or if you, an electrician, are found under the bed, covered in oil, and bound with fluffy handcuffs?
In Nothing to See Here, a raunchy, sex-positive card game, each round has one dealer and two to seven additional players. The dealer comes home to discover a host of random characters in all sorts of shocking positions that lead them to believe their partner is cheating! The players start each round with an identity, location, and physical state card and have to come up with a narrative to explain that there’s nothing to see here—and not get caught in the act. For an extra layer of fun, the dealer and other players give players item cards that they have to seamlessly weave into their story. Good luck explaining that massage oil and feather tickler!”
First Iteration Prototype
--->
Final Shipped Product
My Contributions
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Joined the project after its original student prototype and helped transform it into a polished commercial game as a co-founder and designer.
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Refined the core gameplay loop and co-designed three story scenarios and more than 100 cards, including new prompts, item cards, award cards, and game-master guidance.
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Led more than 20 in-person and remote playtests, using observation, recordings, surveys, and player feedback to improve pacing, rules clarity, narrative flow, and accessibility for players with different levels of improvisation experience.
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Helped bring the game to publication by preparing pitch decks and prototypes, presenting to publishers and the NYU Game Center Incubator, and collaborating with Penguin Random House on the final rulebook, card content, packaging, and visual presentation.
Case Study: Rewarding Creativity Instead of A Right Answer
The original game ended when the game master selected the player they believed was secretly involved in the affair. Although this resolved the scenario, playtests showed that the ending felt anticlimactic and placed too much importance on identifying the “correct” player .
This did not match what players actually enjoyed most: improvising elaborate explanations, committing to unusual characters, and building on one another’s stories.
I helped redesign the ending around an award phase. After each story, the game master draws award cards—such as Best Supporting Role or Most Out-of-This-World Story—and gives them to players based on their performances. The final game contains three storytelling rounds and twenty award cards, with the player who collects the most awards becoming the winner.
This shifted the goal from solving a hidden-identity puzzle to creating memorable stories and supporting the group’s role-playing.
The scoring system now rewards the behavior that makes the game fun: creativity, commitment, and collaborative storytelling.
Case Study: Building a Remote Playtesting Process
Because the game was developed during the pandemic, traditional physical playtests were often impossible. I researched and evaluated digital tabletop and card-game platforms, recreated the game for remote sessions, and established a repeatable online testing workflow.
I moderated sessions, managed recordings, documented player behavior, distributed surveys, and rapidly revised the rulebook and card content between tests. Remote testing also made it especially important to evaluate whether new groups could understand the game without relying on our verbal explanations.
These sessions helped us refine:
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turn structure and pacing
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rulebook language
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game-master instructions
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card readability
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narrative flow
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support for players unfamiliar with improvisation
The process allowed us to continue validating a physical party game while the team, testers, and collaborators were working remotely.
Sex Positivity as a Design Pillar
How do you meaningfully include sex, kink, & sexuality in games? What are the design & safety considerations? How can we create experiences that aren't offensive or embarrassing? In this panel I shared the process of designing Nothing To See Here! and how we subverted common design tropes to create a sexually positive and inclusive player experience. (2020, Game Devs of Color Expo)