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).
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Developer: Sunset Visitor
Publisher: Black Tabby Publishing
Platform(s): PC
Release date: TBC
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?"
Let's jump into the uncanny valley.
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.
Will the world of 1000xResist return? "In the back of my mind, I'm always thinking about the world of 1000x," says Siu. "Never say never, but there's a lot to learn for us."
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.
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