We are inspired by the educational potential of the board game Tales of the Arabian Nights, a popular game based on the eponymous folk tale. Considering this game and others like it, we identify the characteristics that define a genre of culture-narration games, which we consider to have untapped potential for educational and transformative games. We describe a design experiment through which a multidisciplinary team followed an iterative and incremental process, in collaboration with a community partner, to investigate the potential of this genre. The result is a game that uses a theme of monsters from around the world to teach cultural empathy. This pilot project reveals both the promise and several complications with the genre, which lead to recommendations for future work.
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