Antidote Games

30/08/2019

15/08/2016

Our game was included in a compendium of games for reimagining cities. Check out the other cool stuff there too!

Broken Cities [2011] addresses the tensions between traditional and sustainable building practices in cities.

01/11/2015

Here's sneak peak into some food illustrations from our new game: Last Chance Diner! It's a game about running the best diner, but also toxicology! !
https://twitter.com/HelloAntidote/status/660927222694477828

17/10/2015

A game based on alternate African histories is being made in Cameroon. This looks promising!

Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan is an African-Fantasy Action-RPG based on a frenetic and creative combat system.

07/08/2015

Games offer an alternative to tons of children in difficult situations. We couldn't agree more!

"Lyari is a tough neighborhood. There are a lot of gangs, and people are always trying to bribe young kids to do bad things. I've run this arcade for 15 years. It makes me happy to see children playing games instead of getting caught up in those things."

(Karachi, Pakistan)

05/07/2015

What types of game narratives and systems are being overlooked by not including all voices in the game creation process? Here is one answer.

Ehdrigor, a game created by a black, American Indian game designer, gently reflects the Native experience, and how that approach to storytelling differs from Western narratives.

02/07/2015

"[Kumari says] and I will tell them: ‘If you want to play any sport, that will help you to understand things."

An NGO in one of India’s poorest states is helping to combat early marriage and to raise girls’ confidence, aspirations and school attendance through sport

13/06/2015

An excellent read from Anna Anthropy. "The trick of The Z is Zapped, and most good children's books, is to invite play, not to try and enforce or legislate it."

Based on where and who else is playing a game, having an elegant but complicated game system may be detrimental to creating the community that a board games afford. In our practice, this also means that the conversation we try to facilitate through our game's play never gets started. Learning to design just enough is difficult, but is also why we love what we do, and what we make.

A designer studies her favorite works of play and picture to explain what's missing from many modern video games

03/05/2015

2 years ago we had the privilege of working with the Innocence Project, a legal NGO working with wrongfully convicted prisoners and judicial misconduct, on a game about false confessions - Accused ( http://playaccused.com ), and as long time fans of criminal fiction, we were amazed at how tenuous forensic evidence can be. While our project only dealt with interrogation abuse and misconduct that leads to false confessions, this new news about forensic falsification makes us question the morality of law enforcement very strongly. This, coupled with the spate of police misconduct-led wrongful deaths and resulting civil disobedience makes outrage against the police more and more justified. Now more than ever, serious prosecution reform needs to happen.

*“The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.”*

What went wrong?
“Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far.”

The shameful, horrifying errors were uncovered in a massive, three-year review by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Innocence Project. Following revelations published in recent years, the two groups are helping the government with the country’s largest ever post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.

Chillingly, as the Post continues, “the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death.” Of these defendants, 14 have already been executed or died in prison.

For more stories like this, like Slate on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Washington Post published a story so horrifying this weekend that it would stop your breath: “The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawe…

03/05/2015

We firmly believe that lasting change can only happen when communities are empowered to lead and/or contribute in their own emancipation. External aid is limited in scope, true ownership only happens when the community can believe in the solution. Leading by example in action!

A wonderful example of creating true community based sustainable green development, a group of women from a village in the Honduras traveled to Tilonia, India where they worked for six-months as technical support staff at Barefoot College. They learned to re-create solar-powered villages that are currently up and running in rural communities across India. When the women returned to Honduras, they starting installing solar panels and training fellow villagers, sharing knowledge they had learned.

La Mosquitia,Los Naranjos and Los Hornos, and El Zapote and Buenos Aires, located in the north east, south and east respectively, are areas that are difficult to access. These communities live in houses made of adobe or wood with dirt floors, experi

30/04/2015

the boardgame, a precursor to digital games like ? We love ourselves some analogue games about hard hitting topics.
[As seen on Laine Nooney's ('s) Instagram feed, found by John Sharp]

29/04/2015

Our Systems Designer, Ben Norskov, will be speaking at an event tonight with Colleen Macklin and Subalekha Udayasankar. Y'all come out and let's design some change together!

According to Ray Kurzweil, our smartphones give us access to more intelligently searchable information than the President of the United States had 15 years ago. They also give us access to more games.

14/04/2015

Today we discovered Ganjappa or Ganjifa, an old card deck with up to 16 suits, played with round cards! We were researching round card-based games for our game "Howzat, Umpire?" about setting up a game of cricket as a critique of colonialism, and we chanced upon this. The rule variations and play styles are really interesting as well!

Once prolific in Persia and South Asia, it is all but forgotten now. Ganjappa remains as a dying craft tradition in the East Indian state of Odisha, where artisans use the Pattachitra style of gluing sheets of cloth together to create a cardstock like rigidity necessary for a card deck. Some artisans still use natural dies and paints to illustrate these cards. We'd love to get our hands on a deck!

Ganjifa, Ganjapa or Gânjaphâ,[1] is a card game or type of playing cards that are most associated with Persia and India. After Ganjifa cards fell out of use in Iran during the twentieth century, India became the last country to produce them.[2]

14/04/2015

Shembe worshippers from South Africa participate in religious festivities that combine Zulu beliefs with old testament Christianity. Real leopard skin was once traditional, but projects like Furs for Life are changing that by encouraging fake fur. This year sees many converts!
is so exciting to see!
: www.fursforlife.com
Reposting from the Instagram feed.
https://instagram.com/p/1bxzsVIVc5/

07/04/2015

At a time when the arts are throwing in their lot with climate conservation, it is both disheartening and alarming to see prominent essayists drink the denial coolaid. Such horrible short-term and deeply privileged thinking is far worse than the absurd denialist rhetoric about . A disappointment from the and the .

"Jonathan Franzen’s latest New Yorker essay offers a dim view of how humans should prioritize two causes that are, according to him, in conflict: climate change and conservation. Since nothing can be done to save the planet, he argues, environmental groups like the National Audubon Society should focus on preserving the quality of the little wilderness that's left. As if that's not depressing enough, he supports his argument with baseless claims lifted from the GOP's climate-denier playbook."

There is no conflict between conservation and climate change.

06/04/2015

Boys in Havana, Cuba playing a baseball hack called "Efecto" since equipment and space are hard to come by. Sounds a lot like Box Cricket, a hack of the original game of Cricket to be played in the streets in India!
(Photo by Ira Block for the National Geographic Instagram feed)
https://instagram.com/p/1HYDitIVek/

25/03/2015

Yes, in fact games come in a variety of languages, times, and cultures. We humans have been doing this for a few thousand years.

Formerly in the collection of the Reverend Chauncey Murch (died 1907). Collected between 1883 and 1906 while Murch was a missionary in Egypt. Collection purchased by the Museum from the Murch family with funds provided by Helen Miller Gould, 1910.

23/03/2015

Guess what we've been up to? A MUCH needed website reboot, that's what!!
We've been so busy with making games that we never got around to giving our site the TLC it needed. Now you can read up about our process and reasoning behind our games, see some videos and check out what we've been up to for the last few years!
Introducing the new and improved Antidote Site! Come say hi!
http://playistheantidote.com

We make playful experiences for understanding complex realities

03/03/2015

One of our friends from the New School is helping run this event. It would be awesome if went!

Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon gives women artists their digital due this weekend at the MoMA.

22/02/2015

A short overview on how to debunk societal myths. The last reason of why it's difficult to debunk myths is "We consistently underestimate the power of narrative."

When more information isn’t better.

10/02/2015

Here's a game to simulate what it's like to live in poverty in Alabama. Games are great at building empathy by allowing players to experience something they may not in real life.

A month in poverty experienced in 15-minute 'weeks' gives Huntsville leaders insight into the systemic barriers to overcoming poverty.

04/02/2015

If a couple of cool teenagers have realized that games can be used to fight social stigma, why hasn't the rest of the world?

There’s no known antidote to the toxicity of Gamergate, but one good way to recuperate is by directing your attention to the teenage creators behind a game called Tampon Run. Sophie Houser, 17, and...

28/01/2015

Initiatives like the ones outlined here can open up the wide, wonderful field of games to many more people. We'll be watching what happens with Never Alone and Love Punks with interest.

How games like Never Alone and Love Punks are helping bring other cultural traditions and concerns to a broader audience.

16/01/2015

We'll be in Bangalore starting tomorrow until the 22nd and are looking to meet people or organizations doing innovative social impact work. If you know anyone cool, please get us in touch.

15/10/2014

Our Narrative Strategist, Mohini, made some pretty great slides for Indiecade this year. If you couldn't make it, check it out!

Can any medium exist outside of the political? Looking at media theory, cognitive theory, philosophy and personal stories to understand games and some of thei…

09/10/2014

Come see Ben and Mohini as part of the panel entitled Politics in Games: The Creation of Message and Meaning this Sunday. If you are around Culver City, stop by!

Speakers: Damon Baker – Senior Marketing Manager, Licensing, Irena Cranston – Associate Software Engineer, Software Development Support, Andy Harpel – Software Engineer, Software Development Support

23/09/2014

Some images from our still-to-be-named Post Climate Society game! Since climate change is inevitable, we might as well figure out how to live with it, right? Well, this game envisions a post-climate society where we took action NOW.

So here's to hoping and have some impact on the policy makers of our world.

10/09/2014

Want to learn about play culture in other countries? Here's a handful of national sports from around the globe.

National Sport of any country represents it’s cultural and traditional diversity. Normally the national sport of any country keeps immense popularity among the

05/09/2014

Our Narrative Strategist, Mohini Dutta, just finished up an artists residency at Khoj International Artists' Association. This is a picture of the installation of her game, Tenacity.

"TENACITY"
Mohini Dutta

24/08/2014

The right to remain silent is under attack. This may lead to more false confessions like we outlined in our game, "Accused." If this worries you, you may want to get more involved with the Innocence Project, who help get people out of jail who shouldn't be there.

On Monday, in a case called Salinas v. Texas that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves, the Supreme Court held that you remain silent at your peril. The court said that this is true even before you’re arrested, when the police are just informally asking questions. The court’s move to...