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# The importance of swapping 'culture as a paint colour' for 'culture as progression'
- URL: https://www.verticalslice.news/the-importance-of-swapping-culture-as-a-paint-colour-for-culture-as-progression/
- Published: 2026-10-28T16:03:58.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-28T16:08:56.000Z
- Description: We sit down with The Arab League of Misfits developer Nazih Fares to learn how the project is challenging "orientalism in gaming."
- Author: Chris Kerr
- Tags: Originals, Production

*The Arab League of Misfits* developer Nazih Fares is on a mission to make a video game that doesn't treat culture as little more than a brittle veneer. 

During a recent chat with Vertical Slice, Fares explains he's working hard to embed regional cultural dynamics into the core "engine" of *Arab League*, which is billed as a satirical deckbuilder fuelled by Arab pop culture and historical satire. 

The roguelite card battler incorporates the idea of "culture as progression," allowing players to click on a card—which cover everything from flying slippers, local grub, and parental dynamics ('your dad fears your mom')—to reveal its underlying slang, historical context, and more by perusing a vast educational glossary. 

That's just one way Fares is hoping to challenge what he calls "orientalism in gaming." It's an issue, he believes, is all too prominent in an industry that overwhelmingly sees the world through a Western filter. 

"Throughout my career in this industry, I would be brought in as a cultural expert at studios or publishers, mostly to consult or help make sure that Arabic culture, language or a specific national and regional representation was correct. It wasn't hard to pick someone like me, as like most Arabs that started their career in the region, we were only a handful, and an even rarer numbers of us were lucky enough to have dual nationality to help us progress in a career, from a regional office (or subcontractor role) to eventually an HQ or European/North American relocated role," he explains.

"And so I've made my way to work with many publishers and studios (sometimes way too many at once), and really make it a mission to protect our culture and language in games, and push for more of it to be implemented, especially when the industry often reduces the Arab world to a vast shooting gallery in productions like Call of Duty, completely turning the region into a blurred composite of fictional countries, where Arab characters are interchangeable, serving merely as targets to showcase the Western protagonist."

Fares feels that even when some of his previous employers managed to deliver "solid representation," too often it felt like rich histories were being reduced to "passive scenery" and "exotic caricatures" that rely on tired archetypes instead of real, lived experience. "No matter what, you end up seeing Western creators apply a fantasy-driven filter rather than engaging with the region's contemporary social realities," he adds.

## Crafting a 1v1 deckbuilder where "culture dictates mechanical interaction"

Fares is resolute in his belief that the industry can—and should—do better. He says the *Arab League* team is committed to accurately representing the diversity of 19 different Arabic countries within all aspects of production, rather than simply churning out an "Arabic-themed MTG or Hearthstone."

"To truly feel unique, and respectful to our origin, we wanted to make sure that game design, mechanics, narrative, localization, music, and all other verticals of the game was infused in the Arabic culture including how we built the team so far to make this game," he explains. 

During the prototyping process, Fares and his colleagues Omar Abdul Hadi and Walid Raouda knew they wanted to infuse *Arab League* with the fundamentals of traditional trick card games Tarneeb and Baloot.

"We wanted to distance ourselves from the usual style of energy-based card game that most Western duel card games use (whether it's elements, colors or Mana). Instead, like most Arabic card games, we wanted to rely on this 'mind game' of what the opponent could do with the simplicity of playing only one card at a time. Culture dictates mechanical interaction," he adds.

"The game's economy relies on psychological consequences, where each turn, both opponents play a single card face-down to engage in the duel, and the conflict resolution follows a clear tactical triangle that is 'nested' into the way the card's rules are built, which is Attack beats Insult, Insult beats Defense, and Defense blocks Attack. The simultaneous format encourages reading the opponent and bluffing, and in a sense victory goes to the player who can anticipate the other's provocation."

Fares feels the lack of an energy mechanic places all the emphasis on an Usloob system ('Usloob' meaning 'style' in Arabic) with seven distinct playstyles that encompass the 140 unique cards present in the game. Each playstyle, he notes, translates an Arabic cultural value into a mechanical identity. 

"Diyafa translates regional hospitality into a tactical resource trap, forcing cards onto opponents until they suffer from an Overstuff debuff which makes them lose HP each turn for having 'eaten' too much. Another fine example is the Sumoud Usloob, which embodies resilience as a game mechanic, inspired by the Palestinian perseverance, where those cards are meant to weather blows, block, and heal over time," Fares continues. 

"On top of swapping a typical elemental coloring theme to a card with a cultural theme, the deckbuilding system has a passive ability system, that encourage players to build a 20 card deck with specific thresholds in a deck to unlock cumulative passive abilities. Tier 1 of those abilities activates upon have 6 cards from a single Usloob activates a humble reactive advantage, which in example, with Sumood, you unlock a basic survival mechanic: if you take 3 or more damage in a single turn, you draw a card. This can go all the way to Tier 4, when you have a deck with 20 cards from the same Usloob, activating a signature ability: every time you play a Defense card, you regain 1 health point."

## "We all expanded upon core ideas using our own cultural memories and artistic instincts"

It's a complex system that Fares hopes will create synergies between cultural values and gameplay, and one that places authenticity at its core. Assembling a team capable of realising that vision required Fares to give as much weight to "cultural grounding" as technical expertise when meeting with potential collaborators. 

"Culture is not something we can 'teach' others, and for a game like ours, I really wanted to make sure that team members draw on their own diverse backgrounds to ensure the satire remains sharp and precise," he explains. 

"\[..\] Most of us might be 'experts' at certain vertical of the craft, but we all expanded upon core ideas using our own cultural memories and artistic instincts, like how Zein Okko (lead programmer) really wanted to create a game mechanic around the exact math behind social negotiation in markets which became the Haggle keyword."

To escape their own biases, the Arab League team have largely playtested with people who have no links to Arab culture. Fares already assumes players from the region and diaspora will respond well to mechanics that reflect their reality, but he's found that people outside that group also exhibit strong reactions.

"We've noticed in general that players unfamiliar with the Arabic culture engage with the mechanics first, which then acts as a bridge to understanding. Most are curious to try a tactical card duel gameplay and end up asking more a more questions to learn the contexts behind the cards. And this is a success for us, because our goal for progression in the game is rooted in learning and curiosity, continues Fares.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/83/ae/83ae1391-311e-4ba5-a8ec-7a0ea72ef568/content/images/2026/10/Arab-League-of-Misfits---Beta-Screenshots--2-.png)

Image via Le Cabinet du Savoir Ludique 

It's evidence, perhaps, that deep-rooted authenticity is not a risk. It resonates because people who play video games are often curious by nature. Discovery is discovery, whether it's learning something new about an unfamiliar culture or poking your head behind a waterfall in search of loot. When asked, then, what other studios should be doing to ensure their projects offer more cultural depth, Fares says it must never become an afterthought.

"Studios seeking genuine cultural depth must really build their production pipelines by integrating cultural creators during the initial concept phase. Relying on sensitivity consultants late in production cannot fix a project built on flawed foundations in my opinion. Treating culture as a final coat of paint results in bolted-on representation that is highly visible to the player and breaks immersion," he explains. 

"And definitely build gameplay mechanics out of social dynamics and cultural values. I know it's hard to get away from the established norms in RPGs, but a design reflecting the worldview of a culture ensures a resulting experience that carries authentic weight. Instead of building a standard progression system and giving it localized names, studios need to design systems around how knowledge, influence, or power actually operate within that specific society."