Release Date: 2025
Platforms: Steam: PC, Mac
Languages: EN / JA
Developer: Tomo Kihara, Playfool
Publisher: Tomo Kihara, Playfool
Location: Tokyo, London
🔗 Links: Website Twitter Steam
Contacts: General/ Business: [email protected]
Draw things humans can understand, but an image recognition AI can’t!
Deviation Game is a co-op party game for 2-6 players that pits human creativity against AI perception. Flipping Alan Turing’s revolutionary 1950 Imitation Game on its head, Deviation Game encourages players to fool the AI instead of the AI trying to fool them.
In each round, one player is the drawer and the others, plus an image recognition AI, will guess. With categories from objects to concepts, the game challenges players’ creativity to draw things that will baffle the AI’s image recognition, but not their fellow humans.
Game features:
The creators behind the game see AI not as a replacement for human creativity, but as a tool to enhance and challenge our creative expression. Through its simple yet fun mechanic, the game encourages players to push their creativity to deviate from what the AI has already learned, sometimes resulting in some truly unique drawings.
The original concept for the game was a collaborative effort between game designer Tomo Kihara and art-design duo Playfool (Daniel Coppen & Saki Maruyama). Based in both Tokyo and London, both of their practices centre around the notion of play to design tools that foster creativity and produce artistic interventions that engage with urban spaces and society. Their previous collaboration *How (not) to get hit by a self-driving car* received an Honorary Mention in the S+T+ARTS Prize 2024 at Ars Electronica. Deviation Game will be their first venture to produce and publish an indie game.
Tomo Kihara & Playfool (Daniel Coppen & Saki Maruyama)
Previous work: How (not) to get hit by a self-driving car
The game uses AI only for image recognition, analysing drawings during the guessing phase to produce a guess and a short explanation.
The game does not use AI for any form of image generation or sound generation.
Players can choose to share their data to potentially improve the game’s image recognition AI. Only data that players have consented to share will be used. All other data will be deleted.
Deviation Game was initially showcased as an art installation at Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] in 2022. The work has since been shown in globally renowned exhibitions, such as Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), Taipei Digital Art Festival (Taipei, Taiwan), and Now Play This (London, UK), engaging audiences of all ages and sparking critical discussions around AI and creativity.
Initial showcase at CCBT, 2022
Exhibition at Taipei Digital Art Festival, 2024
Download all trailers here.