ABOUT THIS ARCADE
Somebody will always build the arcade that makes people smaller. This is the other one.
Five games, five minutes each. Free to play, no account required, no ads. They are about the least controversial idea in the world once you take the flags off it: help the person in front of you. Get your neighbor covered. Keep the line moving at the soup kitchen. Know what happens to a family when the vans pull up at 6am. Then go catch a wave, because nobody can carry all of that at once.
Nothing here calls anyone names. There's no party logo, no fundraising ask, no petition at the end. The only argument we make is that other people are real, and the only evidence we use is public and cited.
In the darkness, be the light. Also: press start.
THE CABINETS
- ACA Navigator
Income, household, plan tier, subsidy. Every choice costs days off the calendar. Get covered before open enrollment closes.
- SNAP Supporter
Match trays to the people in front of you and keep the soup kitchen line moving until closing time.
- Climate Defender
Wildfire, flooding and extreme heat fall on your city. Answer with clean-energy upgrades, cooling centers and resilient infrastructure.
- Asylum Seeker
Pick your status, make it to America, build a life — until a raid changes the rules. Detention, counsel, and one judge at the end.
This game deals with immigration enforcement, detention, and family separation. It is grounded in documented realities and is not gratuitous, but it can be heavy. You can leave at any time.
- Blue Wave
Drop in, chain your combo, and ride as long as the ocean lets you.
HOW WE MADE IT
Everything is rendered in pixels in the browser — no engine, no downloads, no ads. High scores stay on your own device.
The characters are invented. The situations are not: every factual card in the games comes from a public government or research source, listed on the sources page. Where a detail is dramatized for play, we kept the underlying rule accurate.
Games are good at making you care about something for five minutes.
If a game got something wrong, we want to fix it. If a game made you look up your local soup kitchen, food bank, bond fund, or free legal clinic, that's the whole point.
WHO MADE THIS
Empathy Arcade was created by Brandon Tidd, a Cleveland-area software architect and AI community builder. Built with Lovable.
Corrections, press inquiries, or a game idea: support@empathyarcade.com.