2022 APP STORE AWARDS

Cultural Impact winner

Narrative-driven Dot’s Home grapples with housing discrimination head-on.

Dot's Home

View

We were wowed by how this compelling, time-travelling tale shines a spotlight on historical injustices – and pulls no punches.

– App Store Editors

Told through the lens of a young Black woman in present-day Detroit, this socially conscious point-and-tap adventure opens with a harsh reality: Dot’s grandparents were sharecroppers.

After discovering a magical key, Dot travels through time to visit her family: her grandparents in the ’50s, her parents in the ’90s and her sister in 2010. Each era is a vignette illustrating the toll that redlining, urban renewal and gentrification have taken on different generations. Every step of the way, we were torn when presented with the life-changing decisions Dot faced.

Do we advise our grandparents to buy their dream home, knowing full well the predatory practices of the property company, or suggest they rent? Should we push our sister to renovate the house next door for a huge profit, or make it accessible to a family of immigrants? Every choice inevitably leaves a mark on Dot’s future, her family and their communities.

Economic uncertainty and exhaustion inform each decision: miss a single payment and you may lose it all.

This isn’t a story of hopelessness, however. Although Dot’s Home wrestles with the past, its themes are just as resonant today – and remind us that each of us has the responsibility to change our collective fate.

Our favourite moment

Reading the news! The local paper changes coverage as you switch eras. In 1959, The Detroit Daily Post calls out the changing racial demographics of the area, while 2010’s Motorcity Gazette covers foreign investors buying up Detroit’s foreclosed homes in bulk. And in 2021, The 313 Scoop’s headlines are about pollution and the region’s environmental future.

Quick tip

After time-travelling back to Dot’s bedroom, tap the team photo on the wall for a cute Easter egg. Depending on the choices you’ve made, it could be about famous twin sisters or friends with a fondness for coffee.

Meet the creator

The game is a project from Rise-Home Stories, a collaboration of storytellers and housing, land and racial justice advocates who develop multimedia experiences to help us reimagine our communities.

To create Dot’s Home, Rise-Home Stories’ Neil Jones and game studio Weathered Sweater led a team of 20 collaborators, including representatives from the Action Center on Race and the Economy (which challenges structural racism), the National Low Income Housing Coalition (whose mission is to ensure people with the lowest incomes in the US have decent, affordable homes) and other non-profit organisations.