GoKawiilIf you're flustered at how much AI chatbots chat like humans, there's an upcoming indie game with your name on it.
During the Triple-i Initiative showcase in early April, the studio Sunset Visitor (creators of 1000xResist) unveiled its next title, Prove You're Human. The narrative game puts players in the role of a person trying to convince an AI that they aren't human -- and with a creative team full of former performance artists, it'll get pretty existential from there.
The trailer is evocative yet scarce on details, which is fitting for the first look at a game that doesn't have a release date yet. Given the indie success of Sunset Visitor's debut title about cloning and personhood, 1000xResist, expectations are high for another cerebral narrative. And as the first game under the new publishing arm of Black Tabby Games (makers of indie hit Slay the Princess), the game is sparking a lot of hope.
In a conversation with the Sunset Visitor founder, Remy Siu, I delved into Prove You're Human, asking the crucial question: What even is this game? And while they're not releasing too many details right now or even hinting at when it'll be released, we talked plenty about how a science fiction game inspired by the hit TV show Severance and the rise of generative AI speaks to the moment we're all living in -- where people chatting with ChatGPT succumb to AI psychosis and AI proselytizers claim the technological singularity of true artificial intelligence is near.
Prove You're Human "is a game where an AI dares to dream that she's human, and you've been hired to put her in her place," Siu said. "And by you, [I mean] you the player who has undergone an operation to split their consciousness into two: one virtual consciousness, and then what we've been calling your corporeal other, your meat body that continues to exist outside doing things."
Sunset Visitor
See what I meant about Severance?
As with the show, Prove You're Human uses these layers of existence to comment on work selves versus outside-world selves. And as you'd expect for a group of former performance artists, there's pageantry in this divide, with your digital work self (the one controlled by the player, rendered in 3D), who is occasionally sent messages from your outside self, which are depicted in full-motion video. (That's the real-life video we see in the trailer.)
"She gets to have all of her dreams come true, and you are the version of yourself that is now trapped here doing all of the work," said Abby Howard, co-founder of Black Tabby Games and the new Black Tabby Publishing arm.
"It's an examination of our relationship with work in the year 2026. If you're working for a corporation now, does the you that is spending time in the office get to enjoy the fruits of that labor?" said Tony Howard-Arias, also co-founder of Black Tabby Games.
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