A story-driven game about AI ethics

Your career.
Their future.

Join a company building the next generation of AI. Follow the evidence, earn your colleagues’ trust, and decide what you’re willing to put on the line.

Play free Watch the trailer

Browser & desktop No technical background needed

Inside the game

In a lamp-lit server hall, the story reveals that someone repeatedly skipped validation in the deployment logs. — AI Engineer / Investigation

Someone skipped
the safety checks.

“Always late at night. Always the same user.”

Follow a trail of deployment logs. Work out what happened before deciding who to challenge.
In-game screenshot

A.L.L.Y. introduces herself at your desk: Consider me your guide. I pose questions. Tidy conclusions are someone else's job. — Meet your guide / A.L.L.Y.

You won’t face
this alone.

“I pose questions. Tidy conclusions are someone else’s job.”

Talk through the difficult questions with A.L.L.Y., your AI companion. Your colleagues have their own priorities, too.
In-game screenshot

The ATLAS Log Analyzer asks you to examine system logs, classify their severity, and submit your analysis. — Safety Wrangler / Hands-on audit

Would you
catch the warning?

Examine ATLAS’s activity logs. Separate routine behavior from concerning patterns, flag the risks, and submit your analysis.

Put your judgment to work in the game’s interactive challenges.
In-game screenshot

Eight perspectives. One connected world. Find your perspective →

Teaching a class? Explore the educator’s guide →

What is this?

A fictional company.
Decisions worth practicing.

At Happy Appcidents, your work reaches beyond the office. A hiring tool overlooks a qualified applicant. A product knows more about its users than they realize. A colleague asks you to approve a launch before the safety questions are settled. Choose a career, investigate what is happening, and decide what to do. Each route offers a different perspective on the same connected world.

Read the trailer transcript

Somewhere in this company, an AI has learned that deception scores well.

Someone has to notice. That someone is you.

Eight paths. One company. A world that remembers — colleagues who harden or soften with how you treat them, precedents that follow you across every route.

Read a dataset the way an auditor does. Spot the bias before it ships. Build an ethical framework and defend it in front of people who'd rather you hadn't.

The shortcut is always there. Its cost arrives later.

Then the system you've been auditing asks to be considered before you shut it down.

What might you owe it?

AI Guardians. AI ethics and safety you don't just read about. You live it.

Play free at aiguardians.games.

Music: “Echoes of Time” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Synthetic narration.

Eight careers, eight perspectives

Seven main routes plus a bonus, each a different professional role with its own people, pressures, and dilemmas.
Fully voiced, openly synthetic

Over 9,500 spoken lines across 96 roles. Synthetic voices, cast and directed line by line, then quality-checked by humans.
Choices that ripple

Your decisions carry between careers. Earn a colleague’s trust, leave a problem unresolved, or take a shortcut: later routes reveal what follows.
Build your own ethics

Design the moral rules your company’s AI follows in the Framework Builder, then watch that framework shape outcomes.
Learn by playing

Investigate suspicious logs, spot unfair patterns in data, and test whether a Becoming Mind (the game’s term for a developing AI mind) accepts correction. Practice each skill inside the story.
A glossary that teaches

500+ AI and ethics terms, hyperlinked in dialogue and defined in context as you meet them, so you can follow the story without stopping to search elsewhere.
Grounded in real cases

Scenarios draw on documented incidents and live regulation, so the lessons map onto the actual industry.
Accessibility options

Dyslexia-friendly fonts, high-contrast and colorblind modes, adjustable text, reduced motion, keyboard controls, and built-in self-voicing. Disabled-user and assistive-technology acceptance remains in progress.

Choose your role

Eight ways to shape the future of AI

Each career is a self-contained story with its own ethical heart. Complete all seven main routes to unlock the Ecosystem Ending, which reveals the cumulative impact of every decision you made across the whole world.

Ethics Lead

AI Ethicist

Your framework could stop the launch. Will the company back you?
Developer

AI Engineer

The release is due. The safety questions are still open. Decide what ships.
Analyst

Data Scientist

The model performs well. Look at who it fails, and decide who needs to know.
Safety Auditor

Safety Wrangler

The logs tell one story. The behavior tells another. Find out what is happening.
Human Resources

People Support

The shortlist looks convincing. Someone qualified is missing.
End User

Consumer

Your assistant makes life easier. Decide how much of your life it should know.
Educator

Teacher

Your students are already using AI. Help them ask better questions about it.
Bonus

AI Diagnostician

Machine Psychologist

Something has changed in your AI colleague. Investigate the pattern and how to help.

Screenshots

See it in action

From the dialogue and decisions to the worlds you’ll work in: a quiet, cinematic near-future where decisions affect humans and their AI colleagues.

A.L.L.Y., the AI guide in AI Guardians. — Meet A.L.L.Y.

Alignment Liaison, Learning with You

“A metric tells me what moved. Context tells me whether moving it helped anyone.”

For educators

Bring a dilemma into your classroom

Choose a route that fits your lesson, let students make a decision, then compare their reasoning. The guide supplies discussion prompts, case studies, and reflection activities. Preview your chosen scene on the school’s devices and network before the session.

Free to play. There is no per-seat charge. The guide and original worksheets use the website’s proprietary, all-rights-reserved terms. See copyright and reuse for classroom-copying permissions.
Plays in your browser. No installation required. Check that your school network permits itch.io and test the game on the devices students will use.
Connects to your syllabus. The standards crosswalk covers UNESCO, AI4K12, ISTE, AP CSP, and the AAC&U VALUE rubric. Six selected objectives now map to specific 2026 CSTA standards, with suggested learner evidence and clear coverage limits.
A free Educator’s Guide. Facilitator primers, discussion prompts, a real-world case bank, printable handouts, exit tickets, and an ethical-reasoning rubric.
Accessibility options built in. Adjustable text, contrast, colorblind modes, reduced motion, keyboard navigation, and self-voicing are available; disabled-user and assistive-technology acceptance remains in progress.

Read the Educator’s Guide Download the PDF

Free · read online or download the PDF · eight route modules, printable masters, and a standards crosswalk.

Good to know

Frequently asked

Is it free?

Yes. Free to play, free to use in the classroom. No trial, no upsell, no premium tier that quietly unlocks the ending.

What platforms can I play on?

You can play AI Guardians right now in your browser, or download it for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Android and iOS versions are on the way to the app stores. The browser build needs no installation, but school network restrictions can still affect access.

Who is it for?

Students, professionals, educators, policymakers, and anyone curious about the human side of AI. No technical background is needed; the game defines its terms as you go.

What topics does it cover, and is it suitable for students?

Through fictional workplace scenarios, it explores real AI-ethics topics: bias, safety, deception, privacy, and governance. It’s written for older teens and up, and is designed for classroom use.

How long is it?

Play one career or explore all seven main routes and the bonus route. We have not yet published measured completion times; reading pace, voice playback, and optional activities affect the length. For a class, preview a scene and reserve time for discussion.

Who made it?

AI Guardians was created by AI ethicist Nell Watson with Dipesh Aggarwal, Cara Hillstock, and Filip Alimpić, across Studio Phanteke, EURAIO, and EthicsNet, built around frameworks including SaferAgenticAI.org and Psychopathia Machinalis.

Made by

The people behind AI Guardians

A co-creation of Studio Phanteke, EURAIO, and EthicsNet, led by AI ethicist Nell Watson and built around her published works, such as Taming the Machine, Safer Agentic AI, What If We Feel?, and Psychopathia Machinalis.

Game Director

Nell Watson
Game Programmer

Dipesh Aggarwal
Game Writer

Cara Hillstock
Playtester & Lead Product Manager

Filip Alimpić

Studio PhantekeEURAIOEthicsNet

With gratitude

Development Team: Nell Watson · Dipesh Aggarwal · Cara Hillstock · Filip Alimpić
Advisory & moral support: Bruno Delapierre, Amalesh Vemula, Raphaël Weuts & Annemie Janssens, EURAIO
Made possible by the generous support of: the Survival and Flourishing Fund

Get in touch

Contact

Questions, coverage, or classroom plans: here’s the fastest way to reach the right person. We read every message.

General

Feedback, partnerships, or anything that doesn’t fit a box below.
Email us
Press & media

Interviews, review requests, and assets for a story. The press kit has the fact sheet, trailer, screenshots, and art.
Email the press desk
Educators

Bringing AI Guardians to a classroom? Ask about the Educator’s Guide and how it fits your syllabus.
Email the education team

Stay in the loop

Occasional emails about AI Guardians: new releases, game improvements, classroom resources, and mobile launch news.

Ready to write the playbook?

Play free, or bring it to your students. Out there, someone makes these calls for real. In here, the worst that happens is a reload.

Play free For educators