Delving into Bangalee folklore through the world of Goheen

There is a certain irony in the fact that one of the most culturally rooted card games to emerge from Bangladesh in recent years began not with a grand mission to preserve heritage, but with a casual evening in the woods.

Mubasher Hasan – the creator and designer of “Goheen” – was visiting his Nanabari during Eid in 2024, wandering through a patch of forest with his cousin and revisiting the ghost stories he had grown up with when the idea for the card game was born. As he explored the forest, he recounted how his mother had once supposedly encountered a corpse-ghost as a child in those same hallowed forests. Later that night, while unpacking board games he had brought along on the trip, he thought: What if these very stories could live inside a deck of cards?

From that simple thought, Goheen materialised. It is a fast-paced set-collecting card game built entirely around characters and creatures from Bangalee folklore. At a glance, the premise sounds simple. Players collect cards, build sets, and earn points. Yet the gameplay quickly reveals its teeth. Cards can be stolen. Carefully built strategies can collapse in a single turn. Alliances shift. Tension lingers at the table. What appears straightforward becomes intensely interactive, competitive, and deeply engaging.

Mubasher’s background as a gamer heavily shaped the mechanics, as he drew inspiration from a range of existing tabletop systems, reshaping and redefining the rules to form something distinct and unique to Bangalee culture. Interaction and unpredictability sit at the core of the design. Rather than passive point accumulation, the structure encourages stealing, counterplay, and constant recalibration. Even the rulebook offers variants, allowing players to choose how aggressive they want the experience to be.

However, what truly makes the game stand out is how closely its mechanics are tied to the folklore itself. The characters are not there merely for decoration; rather, their powers reflect their stories. For instance, in the game, Behula can revive a card from the discard pile, mirroring her legendary journey to bring Lokhindar back from the dead. Similarly, Shakchunni can steal a male supernatural card already in play, echoing her role in folklore. In this way, the abilities do more than reference myth; they actively shape gameplay, placing characters we know from Bangalee folklore at the core of the experience.

Designing the deck, however, required difficult choices. Bangalee folklore spans centuries, from early literary traditions to contemporary urban legends, and a single card game cannot contain all of it. The list had to be narrowed while maintaining a balance between narrative significance and playability. Assigning lore-appropriate powers that still worked within a fair system was, therefore, one of the most challenging aspects of development.

Meanwhile, the artwork took considerably longer to finalise. Illustrator Thanvir Ahmed Rio worked on 33 pieces over roughly sixteen months. His long-standing fascination with the supernatural made the project a natural fit. Character designs evolved through experimentation: colour palettes were adjusted, visual details refined, and certain figures replaced when they did not feel quite right. The title lettering, on the other hand, was designed by Jewel Das, who crafted the visual identity of the name itself. His contribution gives the game’s cover an immediate presence.

One particularly interesting creative challenge involved the character of Boga, often described as the only draconic creature in Bangalee folklore. The difficulty lay in the fact that traditional descriptions are vague. Instead of defaulting to widely recognisable dragon aesthetics from other cultures, the team deliberately reimagined the creature in a way that felt geographically grounded. The final design blended serpentine features with elements inspired by native fish like the Shoal fish, tying the mythical being back to Bangladesh’s delta landscape. This approach reflects Rio’s own commitment to reinterpreting folklore visually rather than simply copying established fantasy tropes.

Interestingly, naming the game turned out to be one of the most challenging portions of the design process. During development, it was jokingly referred to as “project গা-ছমছম”, and a more marketable name needed to be chosen before the game’s release. After discarding numerous possibilities, “Goheen” was suggested, representing a dense forest where these fabled creatures reside. The word captures both the physical setting that inspired the game and the metaphorical depth of the culture it draws from. Its simplicity ultimately made it the right choice.

When the prototype was first assembled, it was entirely DIY: printed names and powers taped onto borrowed cards. Early playtests compared multiple rule variations before settling on the more interaction-heavy version that now defines the experience. Across sessions involving corporate professionals, university students, schoolchildren from Bangla and English-medium institutions, families in urban homes, and relatives in villages, one pattern emerged consistently: the game brought out everyone’s competitive side. More importantly, it sparked conversations about folklore. Players debated which characters they recognised. They argued over whether the abilities matched the stories they grew up hearing. The affection for folklore, it seemed, was already present. What had been missing was an interactive format.

Arafat Wasi, co-founder of Playground Inc. and production lead of the project, sees Goheen as part of a broader momentum within the Bangladeshi tabletop space. Titles like “Polashi” and “Pyachforon” have already demonstrated that Bangla language, local humour, and regional history can shape modern tabletop experiences in compelling ways. In that sense, Goheen does not exist in isolation but within a growing ecosystem that is steadily redefining what play can look like here. While the ecosystem remains smaller than global markets dominated by games like Uno or Bridge, the scene is slowly evolving from hobbyist enthusiasm into something resembling a creative industry. Releasing Goheen in Bangla is therefore not a limitation but a deliberate choice. Accessibility for local players remains the priority, though multilingual editions may emerge in the future.

Ultimately, the game is about gathering around a table and engaging directly with cultural memory through play. It transforms familiar figures into strategic tools without stripping them of their narrative weight. Within a wider resurgence of interest in Bangalee cultural memory, Goheen offers something distinct: an interactive experience. In a market saturated with imported dragons and borrowed legends, it makes a clear and confident proposition: our local stories are more than cultural background; they are living worlds meant to be touched, tested, and triumphantly played.

Sara Kabir is a dreamer, writer, and literature lover who’s constantly juggling academia and her many creative hobbies. She’s currently a lecturer at North South University. Find her musings on Instagram @scarletfangirl.