Deviation Game
Tomo Kihara · 2025 · Party Game, Multiplayer, Co-op, Casual, Artificial Intelligence
PC
Very Positive92% · 107
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About Deviation Game
Defeat an AI in this co-op party game!
Deviation Game is a co-op party game for 2-6 players that pits human creativity against AI perception. Your goal: draw secret prompts like "Flamingo" in a way humans can understand, but an image recognition AI can't!Up to 6 people can play with one copy
If just one person owns the Steam game, everyone can join by watching that player’s screen. Up to 6 players can join for free using their smartphones’ web browsers via a QR code.How to play
1. Join using your own deviceUsing your mobile device, scan the QR or enter the room code at outdraw.ai to transform your device into the game’s controller!2. The drawer picks a prompt The drawer first picks a secret prompt from categories such as objects, actions or even concepts.3. Time to deviate!Then they just gotta draw it! But remember, the aim is to trick the AI while making sure your friends still get the picture!4. Everyone (plus the AI) guessesOnce the drawer is done, all the guessers will submit their best guess, including the AI! Choose carefully, you only get one chance!5. The answer is revealed!If you fail to fool and the AI guesses right, then humans lose! If the AI fails and humans guess right, then humans win!AI to enhance (not replace) creativity
By embracing the medium of games, Deviation Game aims to use AI as a collaborative tool that seeks not to replace human creativity but to enhance it. Through the game, players learn to express themselves in new ways to deviate from what the AI has already learned, making for a fun and brain-teasing party experience, where you’ll create things no one has ever seen before! 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.Keeping consent clear
At the end of each game, players can consent to their drawing being used to potentially train the AI... or not! Allowing you to decide how the game may evolve. Collection is opt-out by default, and all data without consent will be deleted. By working together, players from around the world can collectively uncover the biases in large AI models by exposing their blind spots in interpreting diverse, culturally specific drawings.Played by humans around the world
Deviation Game was initially showcased as an art installation at Civic Creative Base Tokyo in 2023. The work has since been shown in globally renowned exhibitions, such as Ars Electronica, Taipei Digital Art Festival, and Now Play This, engaging audiences of all ages and sparking critical discussions around AI and creativity.About the creators
Deviation Game was developed and self-published by a group of good friends consisting mainly of game designer Tomo Kihara and art-design duo Playfool (Daniel Coppen & Saki Maruyama). With a focus on play, their practice centres around designing tools that foster creativity and making artistic interventions that engage with urban space and society. Their previous work 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 is their first experience to self-publish an indie game.FAQ
Q. How exactly does the AI guess?A: In each round, the AI will return numerous guesses, depending on the number of players in the game. If one of those answers are correct, AI wins!Q: Doesn’t the AI just have access to all the prompt words? Surely it’s cheating!A: Not at all! While some examples are provided to the AI to give it more context, it is freely guessing each answer it submits, which is why sometimes they’re a little off-base.Q: What AI model are you using?A: Throughout Early Access, we are experimenting with various AI models via the service OpenRouter. In the future, we plan to introduce a feature that allows players to choose which AI model to go up against.Q: Does the game’s AI get smarter after each game?A: No, the AI is not learning in real-time. However, custom improvements to the AI can be made with a future update after enough data has been collected to retrain the model.Q: How is our drawing data being collected?A: We only collect drawing data that has been given explicit consent. Collection is opt-out by default, and all data without consent will be deleted.Credits
Project: Tomo Kihara, Playfool (Daniel Coppen, Saki Maruyama) Engineering: Kye Shimizu, Daiki Hashimoto, Jasper StephensonMusic: Plot Generica Logo: Yu MiyamaWhat Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
cool concept, but there are times it feels like the AI is absolutely cheating. In one round, the category was countries and the drawer drew a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ portrait of one of the other players, to imply that their nationality was the word. There was literally 0 other information for the AI to draw on and it somehow guessed the correct country, giving some bs excuse as to how it guessed it. Those moments kind of kill the vibe4 found this helpful
Refreshing change to your standard Pictionary-style drawing/guessing game. If you've ever had a friend opt out of playing a game with you because they're bad at drawing, they will EXCEL at this game. In my experience, "bad drawers" perform the best because the humans typically are accustomed to their friend's art style and what they're intending to draw, and AI doesn't know what's going on. The game rewards thinking outside of the box and being a creative problem-solver over being good at making pretty pictures. Absolutely consider picking this game up. It's challenging and fun.2 found this helpful
A really fun game to crowd around the living room TV and play with friends - it usually gets the entire group howling with laughter! Great to see the game originating from a Japanese developer/publisher. I reported a Steam Deck audio bug in their Discord, and received quick comms that they're working on fixing it. Sometimes their AI bot goes down, or the network seems slow/laggy, so hoping they provide some more consistency there. Great idea, great team, looking forward to playing more and seeing what the devs add along the way!2 found this helpful
One of the best party games I've ever played: Easy to learn, very accessible even for non-gamers, just difficult enough to not get boring and every game feels different and fresh. It also gets around the "Mario Party Issue" of pitting friends against each other and spreading bad vibes at the party, because everyone is working together against a common enemy we can all agree on: AI. TLDR: This is peak party game design in my book.1 found this helpful
Really incredible concept and is very fun. Only 2 major complaints: 1. Categories and Items should be more numerous and not need to be unlocked. Me and my friends have played around a dozen games and are seeing repeats which is CRAZY! 2. Game performance should be improved. After the second game in a row trying to go directly into a third almost always bugs out and requires a full restart. If more topics are not added within the next 6 months or so I will update my review to negative to reflect the lack of content, thank you!1 found this helpful
I really enjoy this game! it's nice t play with your artist and non-artist friends :)
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