[I.D.: A gifset containing four gifs of the free game DOT’S HOME.
Gif 1 shows the player character, Dot, who is a young black woman wearing a red shirt and red lipstick with her hair pulled into an afro puff, pulling out a glowing key. A second shot focuses on her hand inserting the key into a locked door.
Gif 2 shows Dot talking to younger versions of her grandparents, both of whome are black, in an empty house. A white business stands besides them. Dot tells her grandparents, “I’m certain you two could make a great home here...” before the game presents two narrative options for Dot to say: “Rent” or “Buy.”
Gif 3 shows Dot walking through time. Mirrors with her distorted reflections float around her as she enters a glowing door that fills the screen with light.
Gif 4 shows the same white business man talking to Dot on the sidewalk. He tells her, “If I was you, I wouldn’t go any further. The neighborhood beyond this point is not for your kind.”
end I.D.]
DOT’S HOME is a game about the effects of housing inequality amongst people of color. Play as Dot, a young Black woman in Detroit living in her grandmother’s old home. As she travels back in time, witness the harmful systems that dictate our relationships to our race and environments in the midst of redlining, urban renewal, and gentrification.
For free on Android, Mac, and Windows.
Developed by Weathered Sweater (past work includes Pupperazzi), Aerial_Knight (of Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield) and Titan ARX Interactive.
They collaborated with The Rise-Home Stories Project, a multimedia collection of storytellers, housing, land, and racial justice advocates. They aim to reimagine the futures of communities by transforming the stories we tell about them. DOT’S HOME is one of their five projects about exposing the impossibility of the American Dream for families of color.
