Data Hunters Card Game

Are you ready to step into the world of data-dri­ven chal­lenges? Data Hunters is an inter­ac­tive, team-based card game designed for 8–40 par­tic­i­pants that puts you in the mid­dle of real-world dilem­mas in research and data man­age­ment.

Take on roles such as Researcher, Data Stew­ard, Ethics Expert, or Pri­va­cy Advi­sor and col­lab­o­rate with your team to tack­le eth­i­cal dilem­mas, legal obsta­cles, and data man­age­ment risks. Inspired by actu­al research sce­nar­ios, such as man­ag­ing data for a liv­ing lab in Kath­man­du, the game chal­lenges you to think crit­i­cal­ly and act strate­gi­cal­ly to address issues like incom­plete con­sent forms, data breach­es, and cul­tur­al com­plex­i­ties.

But beware, the unex­pect­ed is always around the cor­ner! Dan­ger Cards intro­duce unpre­dictable twists, chal­leng­ing you to adapt your plans and test your team­work under pres­sure.

Data Hunters is more than just a fast-paced, 55-minute game. It’s a ver­sa­tile tool that can be used for brain­storm­ing, com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing events, ice­break­ing, and train­ing pur­pos­es. It’s cur­rent­ly used in the “Per­son­al Data and Human Sub­ject in Research” course at TU Delft for PhD stu­dents, where it enhances learn­ing through active engage­ment.

This inno­v­a­tive train­ing tool sharp­ens your prob­lem-solv­ing abil­i­ties, enhances your under­stand­ing of data ethics, and fos­ters effec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion in chal­leng­ing sce­nar­ios. Whether you’re a stu­dent, researcher, or pro­fes­sion­al, Data Hunters equips you to tack­le the com­plex­i­ties of man­ag­ing data respon­si­bly in the real world while offer­ing an engag­ing and edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence.

Explanation of the game 

Goal
Teams col­lab­o­rate to address data man­age­ment and eth­i­cal chal­lenges, devel­op­ing strate­gies to mit­i­gate risks and improve prob­lem-solv­ing skills.

Set­up
The game is designed for 8–40 par­tic­i­pants, divid­ed in groups of 4–5. Guid­ed by train­ers and experts, play­ers use Chal­lenge Cards to explor­er com­plex sce­nar­ios and Role Cards to take on spe­cif­ic per­spec­tive in a 55-minute play ses­sion.

Roles
Each par­tic­i­pant takes on a role—Researcher, Data Stew­ard, Ethics Expert, or Legal & Pri­va­cy Advisor—to pro­vide diverse insights and strate­gies.

Game­play
The game knows mul­ti­ple phas­es. The first phase is the risk iden­ti­fi­ca­tion phase, in which par­tic­i­pants ana­lyze their group’s Chal­lenge Card from their assigned role’s per­spec­tive. Next, in the Strat­e­gy Devel­op­ment phase teams col­lab­o­rate to cre­ate risk mit­i­ga­tion plans  bal­anc­ing legal, eth­i­cal, and tech­ni­cal con­sid­er­a­tions. Final­ly, in the pre­sen­ta­tion & adap­ta­tion phase, all groups present their plans, address new chal­lenges intro­duced by Dan­ger Cards, and reflect on lessons learned.

PLay the game — download the game cards 

To play the game, you can down­load the Data Hunters Game cards and addi­tion­al files here.

Want to cus­tomize your own cards? Editable Data Hunters cards are allow you to make your own cards with new cas­es. The cards can be edit­ed in Adobe Acro­bat. Sim­ply add the text in the blank area, and save the file.

A man­u­al is includ­ed which describes the set­up of the game, the cards, the roles of the play­er and the order of the game in more detail.

Con­trib­u­tors: Yan Wang, Nico­las Dintzn­er, San­tosh Ilam­paruthi, Qian Zhang, Con­nie Clair, Zafer Ozturk Tjal­ma, Judith Brads, Lora Arm­strong, Eri­ni Zorm­pa, Car­la Strub­bia, Emi­lie Yane Lopes, Alessan­dra Soro, Nike Ayin­la.