An independent game developer has claimed that a man used the AI role-playing game Blade RPG to simulate arguments with his fiancée, repeatedly testing lies until he found responses that could make a digital version of her doubt itself. In a series of Threads posts shared on 22 August 2026, the developer, posting as @tobiasbladehq, said the woman contacted him after discovering the alleged simulations on her fiancé's iPad and asked whether deleted game logs could be recovered.
According to the developer, the couple had been due to marry later this year, but the woman left for her parents' home after finding logs in which an AI non-player character had allegedly been built around her name, personality, childhood trauma, insecurities and emotional triggers. The developer described the setup as a 'gaslighting simulator' and claimed the man would recreate real-life disputes inside the game, test different explanations and only use them on his partner after finding the most effective version.
Developer Claims AI Was Used To Rehearse Real-Life Arguments
The developer said one example involved a scenario in which the fiancée found lipstick in the passenger seat of a car and the man wanted to know how she might react if he claimed his mother had left it there. He allegedly entered the situation into the game's large language model, watched how the simulated character responded and then tried alternative explanations. 'He was rehearsing his manipulation until he found the 100% win-rate script,' the developer wrote.
According to the developer's account, the man allegedly used those mechanics to repeat emotionally charged situations until the simulated character's status indicated that its logic had been compromised and it was experiencing self-doubt and guilt.
The woman was said to have endured six months of arguments in which she would eventually question her own interpretation of events and apologise.
The developer wrote that she contacted him because she wanted the deleted logs for her therapist, not for a lawsuit, and wanted evidence that she had not imagined the pattern.
Discovery Allegedly Ended Their Engagement
The alleged scheme unravelled when the woman borrowed her fiancé's iPad and found a browser tab that had been left open, according to the posts.
The developer said she then read through multiple simulated arguments involving an AI character modelled on her and realised that situations from their relationship had apparently been recreated inside the game.
'She realized she wasn't losing her mind,' he wrote. 'She was losing to a finely tuned, data-driven algorithm.'
The developer further claimed that after the man was confronted, he deleted the saved material and said he had only been 'researching for a sci-fi novel'. The woman then packed a bag and went to stay with her parents, according to the account.
In a follow-up, the developer invited users to test how an LLM analyses personality traits and 'weaknesses' in their browser and included a campaign-tagged link referring to a 'gaslight_simulator'. He also added a warning telling users not to use the technology to manipulate real people.
Gaslighting Is Recognised as Psychological Abuse
The allegations resemble recognised descriptions of gaslighting. UK statutory guidance on domestic abuse lists persuading a victim to doubt their own sanity or mind, including gaslighting, among examples of controlling or coercive behaviour. The same guidance also recognises technology-facilitated abuse as an evolving form of control that can involve digital systems and connected devices.
Women's Aid similarly defines psychological and emotional abuse as non-physical conduct used to manipulate, hurt, scare or upset someone. Its guidance describes gaslighting as making a person doubt their own sanity or believe they are remembering or interpreting events incorrectly. Those definitions closely mirror the effect the developer alleges the fiancée described, but they do not independently verify that the events in the viral thread occurred.
Blade RPG markets itself as an AI-driven text role-playing experience in which choices have persistent consequences and users can create characters whose personalities are played out by an AI system. The developer's account therefore highlights how technology built for simulated relationships and fictional scenarios can potentially be repurposed in real-world interpersonal conflicts.
