Conversation
Starter Game
Three levels of honesty, on purpose
Product design, brand, and front-end
2025
Every icebreaker deck has the same problem. The questions are either so shallow that nobody learns anything, or one of them lands like an ambush and the table goes quiet. The fix isn't better questions — it's letting the table decide how deep it wants to go before anyone answers anything.
Consent before depth
The three levels are the entire product. Picking a level is a group agreement made out loud, before the first question. Choosing 'Uncomfortable Conversations' means everyone at the table has already said yes to it — so the hard question isn't an ambush, it's the thing they signed up for.
The levels do the emotional work that no individual question can do. Same deck, completely different room.
From Figma to running code
The widget on this page is the Cards/SelectionList component from the original Figma file, rebuilt in React. Colours, type, radii and the corner art are the design's own values — Merriweather for the level titles, Lato for the frame, the exact blue, gold and clay of the three tiers.
The one change: it is responsive here. The original was a fixed 389px desktop component.
Fun. Funny. Fruitful
Casual conversations for laughter.
The default. Low stakes, high volume — this is where a table warms up.
Serious / Life / Protection
Finances, Vices, Relationships, and more…
The middle tier, and the hardest to name. It had to sound substantial without sounding clinical.
Uncomfortable Conversations
Hard but needed.
Named honestly on purpose. Softening this label would have broken the consent the levels exist to create.
Explore Different Conversation Levels
Fun. Funny. Fruitful
Casual conversations for laughter.
Serious / Life / Protection
Finances, Vices, Relationships, and more…
Uncomfortable Conversations
Hard but needed.
JelloWorld does not tamper with information. All information is based on verified evidence from users and topics found online.
Live component — rebuilt from the Figma file, not a screenshot.
Fifteen rooms,
not one
Fifteen packs, each with its own artwork. The list is deliberately specific rather than generic — 'The Cousin Walk' and 'HBCU Students' are doing more work than 'Family' and 'School' ever would, because a pack that knows exactly who it's for gets picked.
How a pack gets chosen
Packs surface as recommendations with a match percentage and a trending flag, tagged by level. Pop Culture at 85% match. Games at 80%, 'great for breaking the ice'. First Time Meeting at 75%, tagged Serious. The percentage isn't decoration — it's the argument for why this pack, for this table, tonight.
Why a card game has a disclaimer
There's a line at the bottom of the widget: JelloWorld does not tamper with information. All information is based on verified evidence from users and topics found online. That sentence is the seam where this product meets the platform it lives in.
The conversation game isn't a standalone toy. It's one surface of JelloWorld, a verification platform — so even the fun tier inherits the same promise about where its content came from. Putting that line on a game about laughing with your friends was a deliberate choice, not boilerplate.
Read the JelloWorld case study→What it taught me
What I got right
Naming the third level 'Uncomfortable Conversations' instead of something gentler. Every instinct in product design pushes toward softening that word. But the label is the consent mechanism — a table that picks it knows exactly what it agreed to, and that's the only reason the hard questions work.
What I underestimated
The middle tier. Fun and Uncomfortable name themselves; the space between them is where most real conversations actually happen, and "Serious / Life / Protection" is three words doing the job of one because I never found the single right one.
What I would do differently
Design the in-game flow with the same care as the level select. The selection screen is finished work — the moment-to-moment experience of actually playing through a pack got far less attention, and that's the part people spend their whole evening in.