The Touch of Hope

The Touch of Hope asks players to use their tactile perception (their sense of touch) to communicate with other players. Each species offers a different mini-game, and each player will have the chance to lead. Some species will make use of tools or props, while others have you pass the strategy around ‘Chinese Whispers’ style… just with touch.

It is a collaborative game where each player (species) communicates via touch, and then it is up to the other species (players) to try and interpret it to understand what is being communicated. Each species uses a different communication method – it is like learning a language while talking. How good are you at remembering the details in a tactile sensation and interpreting it? That is the core experience in Touch of Hope.

To help teach the game, we will do a quick demonstration round so that everybody understands the core gameplay. Each round follows a similar structure, and you can expect to use your sense of touch in a lot of different ways. You might be feeling for shapes, drawing a shape on the back of another player’s hand, or many other ways. This is not a game about exploring limits – hence you will only be touching other people’s hands or the props – nothing painful or unpleasant.

Kåre and Chris started working on this about 1 1/2 years ago, where we asked ourselves ‘what would a game that only used your sense of touch look like?’ We developed a number of different mini games, focusing on making each one fit what a given species would do. Chris had a lot of fun showing this to other designers, who often said ‘they haven’t seen anything like this’ during playtesting – we hope you will think the same.