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This game DISAPPEARS if you pause it!

Branta Games0 HN recommenders · 2025–2026
687K views · demo · evergreen · Uploaded 2024-11-24

A game-dev video demonstrating a noise shader in Godot where shapes are visible only in motion against animated noise and vanish when the game is paused or screenshotted. The demo is available on GitHub.

HN people cite it as the origin of the vanishing-in-a-screenshot effect, used in ideas for captchas and AI-resistant text.

Computer graphics & renderingIndie game developmentGame programming & engines

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4 comments from Hacker News

@Trung02462025 · in “Anubis: Proof-of-work proxy to prevent AI crawlers”

For no js solution, I think some sort of using optical illusion as captcha could works, especially [LINK] or something like [VIDEO] which could cleverly hide captcha answer within animated noise mess. However these methods are not really accessibility-friendly tho.

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@Syntonicles2025 · in “Show HN: The text disappears when you screenshot it”

I first saw this effect in a video from Branta Games. [VIDEO] The effect is disrupted by introducing rendering artifacts, by watching the video in 144p or in this case by zooming out. I'd love to know the name of this effect, so I can read more about the fMRI studies that make use of it. What I've found so far: Random Dot Kinematogram Perceptual Organization from Motion (video of Flounder camouflage) [LINK]

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@rzzzt2026 · in “A font that humans can read but AI cannot”

Related work (all involve noise and flickering images, photosensitive eyes/brains beware): - "This game disappears if you pause it": [VIDEO] - "Illusion: If You Pause, The Image Will Disappear": [LINK]

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@vunderba2026 · in “I created a font called Ghost Font that only humans can read”

There was a pretty popular video showing this exact concept (hiding shapes/text in high frequency noise ) about a year ago, for those interested: [VIDEO]

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