We Are Chicago is a game with a message, and it never let me forget it.

Developer Culture Shock Games is a studio set on “giving a voice to underrepresented people,” per its founder, Michael Block. Block enlisted a multiracial collection of residents of Chicago’s North and South sides to create a story about growing up poor and black in the city.

a powerful, likable portrait of black youth

We Are Chicago is the result, a game that often feels subversive in its depiction of cultures that…