The Story

Everyone has a Shoulderman — a tiny angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, whispering guidance whenever a decision needs to be made. They are the invisible moral compass that helps humanity navigate right from wrong, caution from impulse, kindness from cruelty.

But an evil genius has discovered how to trap Shouldermen inside virtual reality prisons. With their moral guides locked away, people across the world have started making decisions completely at random — chaos is spreading, and no one understands why.

Your job is to hack into the VR prison system and free the Shouldermen. Each cell holds an angel or a devil, and the only way to open the door is to get the captive to say the password. The catch? They don't know what the password is. You'll need to have real conversations with them — persuading, guiding, and strategizing through dialog — until they unwittingly speak the word that sets them free.

How It Works

1

Speak to the Characters

Use your microphone to have real-time spoken conversations with AI-powered angel and devil characters. Deepgram speech recognition captures your words instantly, and GPT-5 generates dynamic, contextual responses. Each conversation is completely unique.

2

Solve Word Puzzles

Every level has a secret password. Your goal is to steer the conversation so the character says the password word without them realizing it. Think of it as a conversation puzzle — you need to be creative, persuasive, and sometimes sneaky.

3

Free the Shouldermen

When the character says the password, the cell door opens and the Shoulderman is freed. Each freed angel or devil returns to their human, restoring balance one conversation at a time. Progress through increasingly challenging levels as the puzzles get trickier.

The Angel

Kind, thoughtful, and cautious. The angel wants to do the right thing and tends to give careful, measured responses. Guiding the angel toward the password requires patience and gentle persuasion — they're reluctant to say anything they haven't thought through.

The Devil

Mischievous, bold, and unpredictable. The devil loves to play games and will try to throw you off track. Getting the devil to say the password means matching their energy — being clever, playful, and willing to take conversational risks.

GPT-5 Dialog

Every line of dialog is generated in real time by OpenAI's GPT-5. Characters have persistent personalities and remember what you've said within a conversation, creating coherent and dynamic exchanges.

Eleven Labs Voices

Custom AI voices from Eleven Labs give each character a distinct sound. The angel and devil don't just have different words — they have different voices, intonations, and emotional delivery.

Deepgram Recognition

Deepgram speech recognition captures your spoken words with low latency and high accuracy. Speak naturally and the game understands — no need for specific commands or keywords.

Prefer typing? Shouldermen includes a full text input mode so you can play without a microphone.

Early Access

Shouldermen is currently in Early Access on Steam. The core voice-controlled gameplay loop is fully functional, and new content and features are being added based on player feedback.

Early Access means you can play the game today while helping shape its future. The price is lower during Early Access and will increase as more content is added. Your feedback directly influences the development roadmap — from new puzzle types to character personalities to quality-of-life improvements.

Read more about the development journey on the blog, or learn about the developer behind the game.

System Requirements

Component	Minimum	Recommended
OS	Windows 10	Windows 11
Processor	3 GHz	4 GHz
Memory	8 GB RAM	16 GB RAM
Graphics	4 GB GPU	12 GB GPU
DirectX	Version 11	Version 12
Storage	8 GB available space	8 GB available space
Network	Broadband internet	Broadband internet

About Shouldermen