AI Ban Simulator

You have a project to finish and an AI assistant to help. There's just one problem: the "automatic review" might disable your account at any moment, and nobody will tell you why.

AI Ban Simulator is a small, offline, choose-your-answer game. Each day brings one card and two answers. Work fast and you look suspicious. Play it safe and you run out of money, or patience. You can't see how risky you look; all you get is a gut feeling.

And if the ban comes? Appeal. Write a long, sincere letter. Paste the template everyone uses. Complain in public. Sometimes a human answers. Sometimes nobody does. Sometimes your account simply comes back, and you never learn why.

• 186 event cards, many drawn from what real players complain about, each with two answers and its own punchline (swipe or tap)
• A plan to pay for, in play money only: the free plan runs short, Pro renews every week of the game, and now and then a present or a bug in the renewal page gives months away. The game itself is free: nothing to buy, no ads
• Trials: student, graduate, study grant, open source, teacher, executive. The honest way in is never found out; any other way (a student card with a cat on it, three hundred bought stars) may be, every renewal day, and it doesn't pay in the end
• Trips away from home, each morning a new problem; courses that are the honest way to a trial
• A log wall of green squares, a square a day, with your ban rate, appeals that worked and your longest run; every game ends with a row of little squares to share (all kept on your phone)
• Daily challenge: the same deck for everyone each day, one try, a streak to keep and a result to share
• Human checks: on bad mornings, prove you're a person by picking every cat before time runs out
• Every day has its own hour and network: the review seems sleepier late at night; on slow days answers spin and time out
• Odd things happen: a shark bites an undersea cable, your cat flows into the keyboard (a few inspired by real Ig Nobel research)
• The same answer doesn't always go the same way, and every game unfolds differently
• Stop any time and carry on later, right where you left off
• Appeals with little games: a human check on the form, a network error and a run while you wait. Or ask for a refund and get passed round the help desks
• People: your boss, a coworker, the client, Mom, a forum friend and the support bot. Some answers come back days later, and anyone you get on well with will help you once
• Made-up AI industry headlines most mornings; some last for days and change how strict the review is
• Days off for gigs, classes and better-paid jobs; a second-hand market for spare accounts; favours that bring a friend to vouch in an appeal
• A little pixel room that shows how things are going, and pixel portraits for everyone in your cards
• Mystery-box items in four rarities up to Legendary, and scenes: run a shop, rent out your account, train a model of your own
• Four characters to play as (indie dev, small-company boss, CS student, AI reseller), each with its own start and cards
• After each game: what the review held against you, and what another character would have met
• 28 achievements, each with a pixel badge, and 11 endings to collect, from "Shipped" to "Not What It Said"
• Three ways to appeal and three ways to word it, each with its own odds
• An 8-bit tune that turns tense when things look bad and changes on trips, and sound effects (the music is off until you turn it on)
• Four languages: English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Japanese
• Fully offline: no account, no ads, no permissions, nothing collected

This game is a work of fiction and a parody. The AI products, companies and events in it are made up. It is not affiliated with any AI company, and it contains no advice: only jokes.

A little joy, for everyone. Free forever. No ads, ever.