History VideoGame / DotsHome

* AllThereInTheManual: The game's [[https://risehomestories.com/dots-home/characters/ official character page]] has some additional descriptions of the characters, such as Alma being a Catholic Afro-Latina and her wife Georgia becoming a house flipper after the 2008 Recession.

* RaisedByGrandparents: Carlos often stays with his grandma because [[WhenYouComingHomeDad his mothers are often busy with work.]]

** Grandma Mavis remarks that Georgia is an opportunist like her mother Evelyn, always taking every chance they can get.

* OlderThanTheyLook: Dot, a millennial woman, time travels back to 2010, when Alma, the wife of Dot's older sister Georgia, is organizing a community event for the Tawfiq Family. Alma is surprised that Dot entered the community center when she was supposedly "too busy with college applications" to attend the meeting.

* TeenPregnancy: {{Downplayed|Trope}} with Georgia, who was 18 when her and Alma's son Carlos was "on the way" when they were arguing over what to do with the house in 2010. Alma even calls Dot, who came from the future, her "sister-in-law", implying that she and Georgia married young as well.

* WarRefugees: In 2010, the Tawfiq Family fled from Iraq to escape the Iraq War, and Alma organized a refugee program to help them move into their Detroit neighborhood. As Dot learns in her time travel to that period, immigrants struggle with housing discrimination, even in modern times.

* AffectionateNickname: Mavis's husband Karl calls her "Mavie", while Hank calls his wife Evelyn "Ev".
* TheAllegedHouse: Grandma Mavis' house has wallpaper peeling off the walls, stains in the corners of the ceiling, a leaky roof on the second floor, and a dusty basement that's giving Carlos asthma attacks. This is because she was scammed into owning it by Murphy's grandfather when she and Karl made the deal with him in 1959.

* GenerationalTrauma: The plot explores how racism affects Black people through generations by shedding light on the housing inequality they suffered in history. It also shows how seemingly inconsequential decisions made by family members impact those who come after them many years later. As Dot learns by time traveling through her family's history, her grandparents had to make a difficult decision to buy or rent what would become her home when settling in Detroit after leaving South Carolina. Their children then had to move out to a public apartment due to the redlining[[note]]being refused a loan or insurance due to one's home being considered financially at risk[[/note]] imposed on their race. Then after having Dot's older sister Georgia, they had to make another difficult decision: to move to a new town for their daughter's sake, or stay and fight the VillainousGentrification in their neighborhood. This then comes to a head in modern times, when Georgia and Alma argue over whether to sell their old house to Hope Equity, even if they're a PredatoryBusiness, so they can live better off than Georgia's parents in their new one, or let an immigrant family rent the house so they'll feel welcomed in the community. [[spoiler:All of this explains why Dot's Grandma Mavis is struggling with having to sell her ancestral home to pay the bills -- she believes that everything her family has worked for for generations will be destroyed, and she will have nowhere to go due to the rising housing and retirement costs. Mavis tells Dot everything that led the family here and reveals that she saved the house deed for her for when she's ready to make the decision: to either stay home with Grandma despite it being run-down due to the high maintenance costs, or move out and start a new life for herself and her future family.]]

** The Good Ending: All the major choices [[GoldenEnding must be the best ones to get this ending.]] [[spoiler:Carlos moves in with his great-grandma after Dot moved next door to her, and he still loves it even if he complains about its condition. Dot also teaches at the local school, and she stands up for her neighborhood to make the community land trust. With everyone's support, the neighborhood is able to drive away predatory real estate companies who want to sell out their town, and they continue to fight for equal housing rights for all races.]]