Dutch artist flips the White House's Build the Wall into a bridge-building game

Dutch artist and social designer Wouter Sieuwerts launched Build that Bridge, a free browser game that directly counters the White House's Build the Wall: Zombie Border Siege — a Tetris-style minigame on the recently launched Arcade.Gov site. Where the Trump administration's game has players stack bricks against incoming "aliens" at the "Southern Border", Sieuwerts's version uses the same block-clearing mechanics in reverse: completing lines extends a bridge from both riverbanks toward the middle.

Players can start their own bridge or join one already in progress, and markers on the riverbanks show where other builders are joining from around the world. A live counter tracks total bridges built, active builders right now, and cumulative "meetings" across all bridges — a running tally Sieuwerts frames as the players' collective voice. "Just as the colonisation of America was turned into child's play, the White House now makes a game out of excluding migrants," he said. "But play is precisely how you discover the world and get to know new people and customs. So for everyone who would rather build bridges than walls, I made Build that Bridge." The game is free at buildthatbridge.eu, with no ads, no data collection, and no account required. Players interested in refugee support are directed to UNHCR.

The release lands days after The Tetris Company publicly distanced itself from Build the Wall, stating it was not involved in its creation and that it believes in "the power of connection and bringing people together" — a pointed contrast to the White House game's theme. Sieuwerts echoed that sentiment directly, saying of his own game: "That is exactly what this game does, and always did." Arcade.Gov also features Rio Run, a Snake-like game where players collect prisoners in orange jumpsuits toward a "deported" count, giving a sense of the broader tone of the administration's gaming initiative.

Build that Bridge has no commercial angle — Sieuwerts built it as a statement, and the only external link in the game points to the UN Refugee Agency. Whether it gains traction as a counter-cultural moment or fades quickly will likely depend on how much attention the ongoing Arcade.Gov controversy continues to attract.