1000xResist Studio Announces Game About Convincing an AI It's Not Human

The team behind 1000xResist is making a game about convincing an AI that it isn't human

When the team at indie studio Sunset Visitor were wrapping up their critically acclaimed first game, 1000xResist, it wasn't long before they started thinking about what they'd tackle next. According to creative director Remy Siu, the studio's goal is to always find ways to reflect the world around them. So when they were looking at the cultural landscape in 2024, there was one theme they couldn't avoid: AI. "That was when we really wanted to dive into what we see as a long tradition of science fiction writing and thinking about artificial intelligence," he explains. "So we thought it was a very interesting time to engage with that in a work of art." Today, Sunset Visitor is announcing its second game, a narrative adventure called Prove You're Human. It's coming to Steam at launch, though a release date has yet to be set. You play as a character named Santana who has been hired by a tech company on the verge of achieving AGI. Her job is to convince the company's AI, named Mesa, that it isn't actually human. Prove You're Human is set in a Severance-like universe where Santana has her consciousness split. One half lives in the digital realm where you interact with Mesa, while your physical body is out in the real world, creating CAPTCHAs of your environment. In the game, these different selves are visually distinct; the digital world is rendered in 3D graphics, while the "real" world updates come in the form of live-action video. No AI tools were used in the development of Prove You're Human, and Siu says that research was done through a combination of watching YouTube videos of people using AI tools, and referencing classic sci-fi literature about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Given how quickly AI technology has evolved over the time since development began, he says that the narrative team have had to change and update things along the way to reflect what's happening in reality. That said, he notes that "There is a trap to get too specific, and that is not our intention. What always grounds us is what will be true from an affectual standpoint even as we continue the rest of this decade and, I suppose, beyond." As with 1000xResist, Prove You're Human is being built by a relatively small team, one with a large focus on narrative. That includes three writers, a filmmaker working on the live-action footage, three programmers, two artists, and a producer role helmed by Nhi Do, the actress who voiced the Watcher character in 1000xResist. New this time around is that Sunset is working with Slay the Princess developer Black Tabby Games, which will serve as Prove You're Human's publisher as part of a new venture. Black Tabby has been involved from the very early stages of the game, and Siu says the two-person company has provided valuable insight for the development team. "It feels like [Black Tabby cofounders Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias] have organically become dramaturges for the game, in the sense that they get to be outside of the day-to-day operations of making the game -- they're not in the writers room -- but when we come up for air and have difficult problems to solve from a story perspective, we do talk to them about it and bounce ideas off of them," Siu explains. "That's something that has been really fun and injects lots of energy into the process." For their part, the Black Tabby team say that it was Prove You're Human that helped inspire them to get into publishing right now, something they had previously considered doing much later in their careers. "We heard [Siu's] pitch, and that's when we decided to spin up our publisher," Abby Howard says. "It just seemed like the right place at the right time." Whenever it comes out, Prove You're Human will join a rich history of AI stories, one that has only felt more prescient and important as the technology continues to develop in the real world. The team has been looking at various AI fiction as a source of inspiration; Siu cites AMC's dystopic workplace thriller Pantheon as one recent example, along with classics dating back to Frankenstein and Pinocchio. The idea is to build on that history with a narrative that feels particularly relevant now. "Something that we've been aware of in the writers room is the fact that AI stories have existed in science fiction and fantasy since the inception of the genre," says writer Natalie Checo. "We want to tackle this story in the context of what it means to make a game about AI -- not an LLM, but an AI in the year 2026."

1000xResist devs reveal their wild-looking second game about convincing an AI it's not human

Developer Sunset Visitor just revealed its follow-up to the fantastic 1000xResist. It's called Prove You're Human and looks to wade in similar sci-fi waters as the team's first title. Just like 10000xResist, the new game is a narrative adventure set in the far future. Prove You're Human tasks players with convincing an AI product that its not alive, but there's a rub. The protagonist is a digital clone of a person, so they aren't human either. This will no-doubt lead to all manner of ethical conundrums. "An AI dares to dream she is human," a tagline reads. "You've been hired to put her in her place." The gameplay looks to involve scanning the environment, talking to corporate employees and keeping up with the digital clone's corporeal body. There's also an emphasis on making and solving CAPTCHAs, which makes sense when trying to prove humanity or a lack thereof. The graphics certainly look unique, as the dev team has weaved real-world footage of Vancouver and the surrounding areas into the virtual landscape. "Vancouver is a well-known film town," Remy Siu, Founder of Sunset Visitor said in a press release. "We're accessing that infrastructure, along with our long-time collaborators, to bring a sense of tactility to human forms in the game." We don't know when this is coming out, as the above trailer is just an announcement for the game. However, it's already available to wishlist on Steam.

1000xResist studio reveals next game Prove You're Human, about debating an uncanny AI

Developer sunset visitor 斜陽過客 released 1000xResist for Nintendo Switch and Windows PC in 2024, an experimental meditation on diaspora, the pandemic, and more. It received several award nominations, winning a Peabody along the way, and released last fall on PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The studio revealed its next project on Thursday at the Triple-i Initiative Showcase: Prove You're Human, a narrative-focused game about proving to an AI that it's not a human. Founder of sunset visitor 斜陽過客 Remy Siu told Polygon over a video call that development of Prove You're Human started at the end of the studio's work on 1000xResist two years ago. Noticing the rise of generative AI in everyday life at the time, Siu and sunset visitor 斜陽過客 saw an opportunity. "We wanted to dive into this tension of what was happening in 2024 and up until now, both about the state of work and labor and also the effectual experience of artificial intelligence, to a certain extent, actualizing, and the effect of that as a person." In Prove You're Human, you play as the digital copy of someone hired to test the AI, which is named Mesa. "We can use that marriage between the self and work to explore stories that we want to tell," writer Natalie Checo said. "This is a story [where] we're exploring our own anxieties about AI, about work, about the world around us as it is right now in 2026." Mesa is a giant face at the end of a robot arm, longing for a full body. The studio designed her to be "as uncanny as possible," leaning into whatever was the most uncomfortable appearance, according to Siu. Prove You're Human will have players conversing with Mesa, but also debating her through CAPTCHA. "More traditional CAPTCHA [feels] like an act of violence, asking the player to distinguish whether something was something or not in a very binary way," Siu said. "Part of that is asking both the character of Mesa and the player to kind of enact some kind of violence." It'll be published by Black Tabby Publishing, a new publishing label from Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow developer Black Tabby Games. The two-person studio of Abby Howard and Tony Howard-Arias had planned on getting into publishing at some point down the line as they wanted to help alleviate some of the burden indie developers face. "Once we had hit that point where we were comfortable, the first thought was basically, how do we make sure that other developers get here too?" Howard said. Subscribe for deeper takes on AI, indie games, and craft Join the newsletter to get thoughtful coverage and analysis of indie games exploring AI, labor, and narrative design. Subscribe for interviews, developer perspectives, and contextual deep dives that sharpen understanding of these creative and cultural con Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. sunset visitor 斜陽過客 and Black Tabby Publishing haven't given Prove You're Human a release window yet, which is one of the perks of being indie. "We've learned the valuable lesson of Do not give a sense of timing until you're ready for it," Howard-Arias said. Prove You're Human is currently in development for Windows PC.

1000xResist developer added a video sequence 'out of desperation' but now they're bringing FMV back for their next game

Prove You're Human will mix 3D graphics and full-motion video to bring its two worlds to life. You've been playing 1000xResist for half a dozen chapters, enjoying changes in perspective and mechanics with each chapter shift. Yet the sudden jump to video still feels unusual when it happens -- recorded footage of Hong Kong suddenly taking the place of a cutscene in the middle of the game. As creative director Remy Siu says, that decision came about "really out of desperation." Sunset Visitor, the studio behind 1000xResist, was founded by performers with backgrounds in the arts. Siu just happened to have some footage for a documentary product that turned out to perfectly fill a gap in his game project. "It's like, oh, let me reach into my archives and see what I have." When the studio began thinking about the follow-up project that would eventually become Prove You're Human, a game about convincing an AI she's not a real person, they identified FMV as a useful thing to be proficient in. "Like, we feel comfortable doing lots of voiceover, because that's where we think we can make an interesting contribution," Sui says. "We're making very narrative-forward games, largely because we think that's where we can make a special contribution. And these full-motion videos and film things, that's something I think we can continue to explore." In Prove You're Human, players embody a digital copy who has been downloaded into a virtual world to interact with an artificial intelligence -- meanwhile, the original person is out there living her best life thanks to the payout she was given for consenting to be copied. That half of the game is depicted in video. FMV may have a bad name in some circles, but there are plenty of indie studios looking past the reputation it was given by games like Mad Dog McCree (which we gave a score of 4% in our review back in the day). Games from Her Story to the flood of Asian dating sims on Steam show there's room for all kinds of videogame storytelling that involves putting actors in front of cameras. "There's a lot of exciting movement in that direction right now," says Tony Howard-Arias of Black Tabby Games, who are publishing Prove You're Human. "I mean, Immortality was a handful of years ago. I really enjoyed Road to Empress last year, which was a Chinese choice-driven FMV game that was exploring a historical empress in a very dramatized fashion." "It was so high-budget," adds his partner Abby Howard. "The locations were crazy." Though FMV has risen from the grave, it's still not that common, even in the narrative games space. "It's something that as a genre, I do think we get to jump in there and put our own little stamp on it," Siu says. "And it made a lot of sense for the kind of science fiction scenario that we're in in this game, where there's a very clear split between the physical world and the virtual world." Prove You're Human will be available on Steam.

The creators of 1000xResist are making a game about convincing an AI she's not a real person

Ursula K. Le Guin once said, "Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive." Sci-fi is about today as much as it's about tomorrow, and behind all its clones and aliens and time machines are metaphors for the times those stories were written in. Looking back at 1000xResist, the first game from indie studio Sunset Visitor, it's easy to see its story about the sole survivor of an epidemic cloning an entire society as being about Covid isolation. Sunset Visitor announced its latest game at the Triple-i Initiative showcase, and the contemporary issue it's grappling with is AI. Now is an interesting time to be writing about the imaginary artificial intelligence of the future, when the people trying to sell us on AI are relying on the version of AI we're familiar with from science fiction to paper over the reality they're actually hawking. Which is mostly just chatbots who can help you summarize your reports or video calls. "There's a very long tradition of science fiction storytelling that engages with artificial intelligence," says Remy Sui, creative director of Sunset Visitor, whose next game, Prove You're Human, is set to join their ranks. "All of that tradition is something that we want to contribute to -- but specifically in this time, when working in that space crashes right into the very real and dank experience of some of these things actualizing in 2026 in one way or another." In Prove You're Human, you're hired by a corporation working on artificial general intelligence, because they have a problem. Their groundbreaking new artificial intelligence called Mesa thinks she's human. It's your job to convince her she's not. "This exact pitch, this exact game presented 10 years ago, reads very differently as the same thing presented now," says Tony Howard-Arias of Black Tabby, which is publishing Prove You're Human. "I think there's this instinct before this current era of generative AI being shoved down everyone's throats, of sympathies, right?" The example he gives is of the 2013 Spike Jonze movie Her, in which Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with an AI operating system voiced by Scarlett Johansson. "If you watch it when it first releases there is an immediate compassion and empathy for the humanity of this fictional character," Howard-Arias says. "The entire language of the film changes in the present moment. I rewatched it a year ago, just in the context of current events, and my reaction the whole time was, 'Oh, my God, this guy is in love with a fake chatbot that's mirroring things back at him.'" Black Tabby Games is an indie studio as well, having released the narrative games Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow. They're careful to clarify that generative AI wasn't used to make Prove You're Human, and that as publishers they wouldn't work with a developer that used it. "Tony and I, we have a very hard line about AI that's for sure," says Abby Howard, the other half of Black Tabby. "But I also think that talking about it should not be forbidden." 1000xResist left plenty of room for its audience to interpret things, and Prove You're Human will likewise explore its theme as a conversation with its players. "For us, it really was just to look at labor, the way in which nuance and ambiguity and continuity can be lost, the way in which we're asked to make choices that we don't always want to make," Siu says. "Yeah, all of these things. I guess just being alive in 2026, you know?" Prove You're Human will be available on Steam.

1000xRESIST Team Is Back With A New Sci-Fi Game

1000xRESIST was one of the surprise breakout games of 2024, and developer Sunset Visitor is back with a new sci-fi adventure game that seems to be just as existential as its last. Prove You’re Human is coming to Steam and is part of a new publishing partnership with Slay the Princess developer Black Tabby Games. The title is a reference to the CAPTCHAs you’re often asked to fill out on the internet as a way ofâ€|well, proving you’re human. Prove You’re Human follows an AI that believes she’s human, and you must “put her in her place.†It seems like the game will get into a lot of philosophical debates about personhood and whether “copies†of people are just as legitimate as the person who they’re based on. It’s giving a little bit of Apple TV’s incredible series Severance, which also follows “copies†of humans that are essentially made to be workhorses. Throughout Prove You’re Human, you’ll solve CAPTCHA puzzles that get more and more haunted, marrying its science fiction premise with a psychological horror tone. The game doesn’t have a release date yet, but that means you have plenty of time to go back to 1000xRESIST if you didn’t play it in 2024. It’s available on just about every system now that PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions came out last year.

Acclaimed indie dev is leaning into the "uncomfortable uncanniness" that comes from hyper-realistic graphics with its AI-centred horror game

One of the most exciting new games on the horizon is Prove You're Human, from the acclaimed developer behind 1000xResist and a new publisher from the folks behind Slay the Princess. Both parties believe hyper-realistic graphics often feel uncomfortable, but that's exactly the feeling they're chasing in the upcoming horror. Prove You're Human is a unique concept indeed. Set inside what looks like a Windows desktop background with its lush, rolling hills, an AI robot wearing a woman's face desperately wants to convince you she's a human. A real human. Her design alone is rooted deeply in the uncanny valley - a skin and flesh face solemnly hangs off a neck made from tangled wires and metal - and that was entirely intentional. Speaking to GamesRadar+ in an exclusive interview, creative director Remy Siu says the developer's visual design goal was "a real sense of uncomfortable uncanniness." Siu rejects the sentiment that developers should avoid the uncanny valley. "We're just like: let's jump into the uncanny valley, and feel our way around that. And so our desire from the very beginning was to try and achieve a kind of uncanny uncomfortableness." Black Tabby Publishing's co-founder Tony Howard-Arias thinks "that's something that games are really suited for as a medium, particularly in this moment where you have this endless pursuit of fidelity at all costs." Games are a digital medium that seem semi-obsessed with 'photorealism' at times and that's perfect fuel for Prove You're Human. "Not only does that, you know, cost a fortune, but the closer you get to reality, the more mildly off putting it feels," Howard-Arias adds. "So, why not lean into that as one of the strengths of the medium, instead of struggling against what feels like an asymptotic horizon you can never reach?" Prove You're Human doesn't have a release date yet, but you can wishlist it on Steam now. Be sure to buff up your Steam wishlists with our upcoming indie games of 2026 guide.

1000xResist Developer Reveals Prove You're Human, a New First-Person Adventure That Asks You To Convince an AI She's Not Human

Sunset Visitor, the studio behind one of the best and most beloved narrative-driven games in recent years, 1000xResist, has revealed its next game titled Prove You're Human, a first-person narrative adventure where an AI called Mesa believes she's human. It's Sunset Visitor's second project after the award-winning 1000xResist, and is the first project to be published by Black Tabby Publishing, the brand-new publishing arm of indie developer Black Tabby Games, the studio behind titles like Slay the Princess and Scarlet Hollow. Prove You're Human seems to be picking up right where 1000xResist left off - not narratively, as the games are seemingly not at all connected in that sense, but in Sunset Visitor's approach to telling intense stories that force players to reflect and think deeply about what they're experiencing. "We're always trying to lean into our strengths and locality," said Sunset Visitor founder, Remy Siu, in a press release. "In Prove You're Human, we're very intentionally weaving real-world footage into our virtual landscape. Vancouver is a well-known film town. We're accessing that infrastructure, along with our long-time collaborators, to bring a sense of tactility to human forms in the game." You'll play as the digital copy of a human who was hired to test a new AI product that is convinced it is human, and it's your job to get rid of those delusions. It looks to be an incredibly interesting premise as you meet other employees and see the world through your non-digital eyes when you check in with the real-life version of yourself, out actually living their life. Similar to 1000xResist, there's a lot of mystery here, and if it is anything like Sunset Visitor's debut game, it'll be well-worth taking the time to uncover the mystery yourself. The only unfortunate part of this announcement is that there is no release date or window attached to it. Hopefully, we'll learn more about when Prove You're Human is set to arrive, soon. For more on Sunset Visitor's first game, 1000xResist, you can check out my review, where I argued that it is "perhaps the best narrative experience in video games."

"The real world is always way more dank than we anticipate," Prove You're Human's creative director tells me about tackling this AI-inspired follow-up to 1000xResist

Interview | Sunset Visitor's Remy Siu talks AI in sci-fi, CAPTCHA as a game mechanic, and tackling FMV in Prove You're Human Ever looked into the rolling green hills and blue sky of the Windows XP desktop background and wondered what it'd be like to get inside and explore it? What if inside was an uncanny face that claimed it was human? And could your digital self even be considered human, or would you be able to delete your mirror image without a second's hesitation? Prove You're Human thrusts you into a frutiger-inspired world in search of answers to those questions. The next project from 1000xResist developer Sunset Visitor, there's no gaming story I'm more excited to get lost in. The first game to be published by the newly founded Black Tabby Publishing, the pitch itself provided the impetus for the Slay the Princess developer to finally establish their publishing arm. 1000xResist tackled a deadly pandemic, where those infected were doomed to purge all moisture from their bodies, deliberately playing with themes on all of our minds around the COVID pandemic. Likewise, Prove You're Human is using the prominence of AI as a springboard to explore classic sci-fi themes in a new way (though no genAI has been used in its development). Logged on After AI program Mesa declares itself to be human, Santana is sent into the digital realm to investigate as a virtual mirror of her real-world self. It's your job to disprove Mesa's claims by conversing with her and exploring the world inside the computer as you do, with a CAPTCHA-style overlay offering more information about what's around you. The "aesthetic representation" and responses to AI have changed a lot compared to how sci-fi has explored it in the past, says Sunset Visitor creative director Remy Siu. "The present day [of AI] is not something I think we anticipated. The real world, the way it unfolds, is always way more dank than we anticipate. Living in that and really internalizing that in the storytelling is always something that we're very interested in." The idea for Prove You're Human came about towards the end of 1000xResist's development, when writing on that project was mostly complete and "the rest of us were sweating about the Switch port", says Siu. "We didn't want to do something that was a follow up to 1000xResist right away. The impulse was also to take a left turn a little bit," he says, while still being "very much a narrative focused game." Some of those left turns Siu wants to keep as a surprise for now, but the obvious ones come through via the first-person gameplay I've seen so far, interacting with the environment via a CAPTCHA-style mechanic, and, of course, FMV-style live-action video which are not just for trailer sizzle. "We're very practice driven," says Siu. "The full motion video - that was something where it's like asking with each project, you know, what are things that we feel we can make a special contribution to?" Santana being split, almost Severance-style, into a digital avatar separate from her living self, isn't just a case of focusing on one rather than the other. "We're trying to draw a very distinct diegetic line between the virtual world being represented as real-time 3D graphics, and the real meat space in which you and I occupy, represented by these real live-action FMVs," says Siu. "In this game - perhaps even more strictly than 1000xResist - the depiction of reality will have a special kind of representation matrix," he laughs. Communication between both versions of Santana is just one of the many ways the CAPTCHA mechanic is used in Prove You're Human. I've immediately fallen in love with the idea of using the mechanics and visuals of the online personhood checking tool we've all become familiar with while browsing online as both an interaction and exploration of the game's core theme. 2D CAPTCHAs, Siu explains, are the main way Santana interacts with Mesa, but there are also 3D CAPTCHAs that "extend into virtual 3D space" and also ones that play into the FMVs as well. Positioned as exploring a similar space as 1000xResist's time-traveling flashbacks, Prove You're Human uses CAPTCHA as a "storytelling tell that we're going to explore all the way up and down," says Siu. In the gameplay I've seen so far the CAPTCHA tool starts out simple enough, before throwing Santana into more existential and unsettling situations - a striking moment in the trailer tasks you with selecting "you" in a steel ball's reflection, while also flanking you with robotic entities. Another appears to be a live-action still of yourself from behind asking you to choose "you, after death". Some of the CAPTCHA moments play with "semiotic panic", Siu tells me, giving as an example the idea of an image asking you to select "arms" that might show "somebody with arms, [but] there are also weapons in that picture". So far, the CAPTCHA enhances the sense of immersion in a way that compliments the predominantly first-person perspective, the semantic and self-reflective elements really making Santanta's reaction feel personal to you as a player, right the way down to how you understand what is around you. Next stage "Let's jump into the uncanny valley, and feel our way around that," says Siu on Mesa's design. Mesa herself almost clashes with the "dreamcore, frutiger-aero" inspired looks of the digital realm - a hyper-detailed human face sits at the end of a body that is just a robotic arm in a huge chamber. "That's something that games are really suited for as a medium, particularly in this moment where you have this endless pursuit of fidelity at all costs," adds Black Tabby Publishing co-founder Tony Howard-Arias. "Not only does that cost a fortune, but the closer you get to reality, the more mildly off-putting it feels. So, why not lean into that as one of the strengths of the medium, instead of struggling against what feels like an asymptotic horizon you can never reach?" The fantastic 1000xResist may have been Sunset Visitor's first game, but the studio has a performing arts background that "extends beyond stage, but very much was born in devised theater". "One of the things that's consistent right now is that we do have a writer's room," says Siu on how their approach to narrative has evolved across mediums. "We continue to like to write things sequentially and discover and feel our way through it. We do casting before we write anything for real." Actors, it seems, are still a vital piece of Sunset Visitor's storytelling. Between all the FMVs, CAPTCHAs, and different modes of play in Prove You're Human, though, the team's writer's room continues to evolve to meet the new challenges Sunset Visitor is keen to take on. Audience expectation can play a role, as well. "In terms of effect and your way of moving through it, I do feel that there's a lot of similarities," says Siu when I compare narrative gaming to immersive theater. "But, I think there are things in games that, of course, you can achieve, that you cannot in immersive theater, and that's always the exciting part." With Prove You're Human being picked up by Black Tabby Publishing, who also developed Slay the Princess, I can't help but point out that both games' titles are imperatives that really get you itching to take part in playing them. "A call to action is a pretty strong opener," admits Black Tabby Publisher co-founder Abby Howard. "I think it's a part of why people got engaged in Slay the Princess, because the very title itself is asking you to do something." "And, it's asking you to do something provocative that is a little upsetting, and that is kind of the hook there," adds Howard-Arias. I'm also struck by a bullet point in Prove You're Human's store description that says "at the end of the program, decide if you'd like to re-merge your two selves or discard your work self". The decision to have this ending question clearly hanging over the experience is a bold one, though I'm told it'll also be introduced within the narrative early on as well. "We get some comments every now and then that think the trailers for Slay the Princess spoil it from the beginning," says Howard. Though, for those who have played it, that sense of expectation is drastically played with through many branches of tailored, branching interaction that means no two playthroughs are quite alike. "A lot of people thought the Allmother murder was also a spoiler," says Siu about 1000xResist's dramatic opening. "A very interesting dance that we have to make as developers and now publishers of narrative games is this balance between what are the things that we do share with our audience and what are the things that we hold back," says Howard-Arias. "Pretty much anything that happens in a story, especially one made by either of our studios, has a huge number of twists and turns that even early stuff would feel like spoilers. But then, if you don't spoil anything, where's the hook?" Rest assured, I'm already compelled to wrestle with this dreamy, digital world's CAPTCHA as I go mind-to-mind with Mesa in Prove You're Human, though I have no idea whether I'll prove or disprove either of our claims to humanity. Prove You're Human can be wishlisted on Steam, and its release date is yet to be confirmed. Check out our best gaming stories recommendations for more worlds to get lost in!