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Touch Match Soft

A cushion played with the sense of touch

2024

Concept

Touch Match Soft is a cooperative-and-competitive haptic game where you find the pairs by touch alone. You play it without relying on sight, sensing material differences with your hands, arms, and your whole body.

The project focuses on fabric — an everyday material — combining the kind of textures you'd find around the house: towels, upholstery, raincoats, pillowcases. Made into a big, soft cushion, it lets you taste the textures with your palm and arms, not just your fingertips.

Within a time limit, players search for the pairs using only touch. Even when two people are touching the very same thing, the sensations they feel and the words they use diverge — and the gap between them turns naturally into conversation.

Title
Touch Match Soft
Year
2024
Role
Concept / Product Design
Credits
Concept / Product Design: Kosuke TakahashiResearch: Natsumi WadaProduct Design: Emma HuffmanHaptic Design: Hayato Tabata
Exhibitions
🇳🇱 Dutch Design Week (2024)🇯🇵 Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art "Touch, Untangle, Tones!" (2025)