Yoriai: An alternative world of gaming at Kyoto Institute of Technology
- Written byAnkita Dhal
- Published date 21 July 2025
Share story
Post-Grad Ambassador Ankita Dhal imagines an alternative world of gaming—one that’s not just inspired by Japan, but deeply rooted in its cultural practices, values, and traditions.
Do you remember the thrill of finding a rare Pokémon card tucked inside a packet of crisps? Or the pre-COVID days when Pokémon GO had an entire generation of teens out on the streets, chasing virtual creatures and forming real-world connections? Japanese anime and games shaped a huge part of early 2000s gaming culture, leaving an indelible mark on how we play and connect. Our project, "Yoriai," imagines an alternative world of gaming, one that’s not just inspired by Japan, but deeply rooted in its cultural practices, values, and traditions.
Project Context:
This project was developed at Kyoto Institute of Technology during our semester abroad as part of UAL’s GCDP program. Guided by Professor Tomohide Mizuuchi, our brief explored the context of Sakoku, Japan’s closed-border policy that lasted until 1853, when U.S. naval officer Matthew Perry forced the nation to reopen to Western trade. This moment, marking the end of the Edo period and the start of the Meiji era, sparked rapid modernization and Westernization. Yet Kyoto, once the imperial capital, still preserves its cultural roots through architecture, city planning, and tradition. Our challenge was to reimagine a world where Sakoku never ended, where Japan evolved without Western influence and to design an alternative form of gaming shaped solely by its own cultural logic.
Team and Problem Space:
Our team includes three GCDP students - myself, Ana Flavia Fernandes, and Daniel Li alongside KIT students Mershad Berarti and Chiyumi Nogami. With backgrounds spanning architecture, product design, media technology, merchandising, and UI/UX, we chose to explore how Japanese trading card culture merges centuries of tradition with modern pop culture. Our question: How has Western influence shaped gaming-based entertainment in Japan? Kyoto, historically central to the evolution of card games, played a key role in this transformation. Through our research, we discovered that contemporary trading card games like Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! have deep roots in the Edo period, evolving through a unique fusion of Japanese heritage and Western aesthetics. Today, TCGs form a global, multi-billion dollar industry of competitive play and collectible culture.
Historical Timeline:
Japanese card culture began in the 16th century with Karuta, derived from Western playing cards introduced by Portuguese traders. As isolationist policies took hold under Sakoku in the 1630s, foreign cards were banned. In response, local artisans created abstract, symbolic designs, eventually evolving into Hanafuda by the 18th century, a flower-themed deck that emphasized seasonal imagery and avoided gambling associations.
The end of Sakoku came in 1853 with Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival, reopening Japan to Western influence. Western-style games re-entered, sparking new cultural blends. In 1889, Nintendo was founded in Kyoto to mass-produce Hanafuda, laying the foundation for its future as a gaming powerhouse. Post–World War II, American occupation introduced bridge and trick-taking games, subtly influencing Japanese design. By the late 20th century, games like Pokémon (1996) and Yu-Gi-Oh! (1999) fused Western mechanics with anime aesthetics, launching the global phenomenon of trading card games (TCGs). These TCGs blended storytelling, collecting, and strategy, redefining modern gaming worldwide. To explore this evolution, we visited Furuichi Takano, a Kyoto store specializing in retro consoles, manga, and trading cards. It also hosts TCG tournaments offering a glimpse into how these hybrid traditions continue to thrive today.
Cause Layered Analysis:
Transactional card games have evolved into more than just a hobby, they represent a complex social phenomenon driven by layered motivations and systemic forces. At the surface, behaviors such as skyrocketing prices for collectible cards, obsessive engagement, and a surprising lack of social interaction during in-person play are commonplace. These behaviors are fueled by social causes including strategic manipulation by game companies, frequent prize-based tournaments, and a game setup that encourages individualism over community. Underpinning these causes are deeply embedded worldviews centered on capitalism, consumerism, and the belief that rarity and competitiveness equate to value and success. Winning becomes a marker of worth, and possessing powerful cards is perceived as a means to gain social capital. At the deepest level, myths such as the inability to stop buying or the desire to be evaluated by others point to an underlying mental desire for validation and recognition. This layered analysis reveals how transactional card games reflect broader cultural and psychological dynamics, transforming play into a mirror of our social and economic realities.
Building on this cultural analysis, we explored how we might envision entertainment outside the framework of Westernisation by revisiting the Japanese concept of 娯楽 (goraku), a term that broadly encompasses leisure and amusement. Rather than centering around spectacle or profit, this vision of entertainment is grounded in mental ease, education, and the harmonisation of body and mind. Traditional performing arts such as listening to music and watching dance are highlighted not merely as passive consumption but as experiences that nurture relaxation, offer escape, and support personal and communal well-being. This approach reframes entertainment as a culturally rooted, restorative practice, suggesting an
alternative model that values balance, reflection, and tradition over commodification and global homogeneity.
Speculation and Inspirations:
Welcome to Alt-Kyoto 2025, a world where the Sakoku period prevails and westernisation does not influence the gaming and entertainment culture. Competitive and escapist values don’t influence the development of games and they are centred around the idea of Goraku - mental ease and harmonising our body and mind. What would leisure look like in a world like this? How do people come together for enjoyment and socialising? How might we embrace Japanese values in an alternative society free of western influence? To answer these, we began looking at three existing games and deriving inspiration from them to shape our own alternative game.
1. Sandplay Therapy (箱庭療法)
Sandplay therapy inspired us through its tactile, introspective, and non-verbal approach to emotional exploration. The process of arranging miniature figures in sand fosters inner reflection and imaginative storytelling, qualities we sought to embed in our game to encourage emotional ease and symbolic interaction.
2. Karesansui (枯山水)
The meditative practice of designing and contemplating dry landscape gardens (karesansui) offered a framework for aesthetic minimalism and mindfulness. Its emphasis on arranging elements to create harmony and suggest natural forms aligns with our goal to design a calming and reflective play experience.
3. One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each (百人一首)
This classical Japanese poetry card game provided inspiration for how literature and memory can become a source of entertainment. We admired how it blends poetic depth with quick reflexes and communal play, and it motivated us to explore games that bridge intellect and emotion through cultural narratives.
Yoriai: A game rooted in Goraku
Our speculative game is a hybrid, multiplayer, location-based one that blends tactile interaction and craft-based elements. The primary mode of play is through prompt cards which help players design “gardens” or landscapes, first solo and then together by searching for elements in their surroundings. A haiku is a short form of poetry originating in Japan, often focusing on natural imagery, such as flowers, landscapes, or animals. We use this traditional style of poetry as the narrative device of the prompt cards. An illustration corresponds with each Haiku, evoking subjective feelings in the players that guide their designs. Tsuda Seifu's "Kamonfu", a book of crest patterns made using traditional woodblock techniques, inspires the illustrations.
The card deck consists of 6 Individual Play and 6 Community Play cards. The individual play cards called “me み” and have seasonal references through a "kigo" (seasonal word), providing a context for the observation in the Haiku. The community play cards focus on aesthetic values, providing common goals for community play.. The Game play structure is designed around practicing and learning Japanese values. This also serves as criticism for games that can feel stressful, aggressive and competitive. The Japanese values we focused on were: Mui Shizen 無為自然 - letting things unfold naturally, Kyōsei 共生- coexistence and Shared Prosperity, Wabi Sabi 侘寂 - beauty of imperfect things, Yugen 侘寂 - subtle mysterious beauty, Shizen 幽玄 - to integrate with nature as opposed to conquering it and Asobi 遊び - playfulness and the spirit of enjoyment. These values further emphasize how natural beauty and traditional heritage are valued in Kyoto with its beautiful mountains, the Kamo riverscape and the social life around these landscapes. We see this take centerstage in the alternative reality.
Our cards are printed on Washi paper, which plays a very important role in Japanese culture. Washi, is a handmade paper from plant fibers that originated in the 7th century. We are also using the Shibori painting technique consisting of tie dye made with Aizome dye, the natural indigo dye that has been used in japan for centuries. Additionally, we are using Dorozome,
which is deeply connected to the land since it is a natural textile mud dyeing technique that originated more than 1000 years ago. Our gameplay fabrics are made of these traditional techniques, resembling the landscapes they can be played at. The game setting fabric is hence chosen contextually depending on what location the players chose to play the game at, whether a beach, a park or a forest .
How to play:
We deliberately maintain a group of 4-6 players to give the feeling of a small community coming together. The mat is chosen based on location and laid together. Each small circle is for the players to use as their canvas. They can set it up however the group sees fit on the fabric mat. Then the first deck - “me” cards are laid out, each player chooses one card and uses that as their brief for foraging and collecting natural elements in their surroundings. This emphasises individual creativity and exploration. They come back and work on their gardens and can also negotiate and exchange material with each other based on their design ideas. This enables community sharing and shared ownership. After this the group choses one composition that is most aligned with the haiku and balanced. This person gets to draw a community “we” card. The group then works together to discuss and design a community garden using the materials in their own gardens. This enables collaboration, balancing the self and the community, opening up debates, sacrifices, adjustments etc. Finally, the game ends with a variety of optional “awards” one for everyone so that there is a shared but unique sense of achievement and acknowledgement. The awards could be about who had the best idea, who kept the morale high, who was a hard worker, who sacrificed their garden most, who found the most interesting material, who was the ideator or articulated the haiku beautifully.
Our unit, Design and Society, used the methodology of Causal Layered Analysis to unpack the deeper cultural, historical, and ideological layers behind Japan’s gaming and entertainment industry. Through this lens, we explored how Japan continues to navigate its unique hybrid modernity, merging tradition with global influence. Using speculative storytelling, we reimagined an alternative world built on different cultural values. During user testing for Yoriai, we collectively experienced a sense of calm and reflection, interpreting haikus and playing within serene, nature-inspired settings. It became a shared, phenomenological moment of pause and connection.
To learn more about the game and its development, feel free to reach out: a.dhal0320241@arts.ac.uk.
Post-Grad Stories
Post-Grad Stories is a thriving online platform of postgraduate voices. Here you can share thought-provoking experiences, practices, thoughts and articles about what matters to you.
Download the PDF Guide to writing articles for Post-Grad Stories.
UAL Post-Grad Community
Established in 2013, Post-Grad Community is an inclusive platform for all UAL postgraduate students to share work, find opportunities and connect with other creatives within the UAL and beyond. Find out more.