POOLS™ vs Human or Not?
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
POOLS™
This app offers a slow, reflective, and immersive experience focused on exploration and atmosphere. It evokes feelings of unease and curiosity through its unique environments, inspired by liminal spaces and internet phenomena. Discover changing worlds and subtle narratives without traditional gameplay mechanics.
- Slow, reflective exploration
- Atmospheric and immersive environments
- Inspired by liminal spaces
- Unfolding narrative through exploration
- Six distinct chapters
- Unique sound design
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Explore, admire and listen. That’s it. Uncanny. Relaxing. Unnerving. Eerie. Immersive. POOLS isn’t a traditional game. it’s slow, reflective, and intentionally uneventful, perhaps a bit like virtual museum. So take your time. Breathe. POOLS unfolds slowly, rewarding patience and quiet attention. No monsters chasing you or jumping at your screen. Yet it can feel oppressive at times by invoking quiet fears of getting lost, the dark, tight spaces and the strange beauty of liminal space architecture. There's no typical story. But as you explore and advance further, you start to notice that the game's world changes around you, deeper you go… Rooms look and feel… different. Base game features six chapters, each lasting 10-30 minutes. Inspired by the internet phenomena Liminal spaces, Found footage and The Backrooms, especially the Poolrooms concept. One of the original artists behind the Poolrooms concept is Jared Pike.
Human or Not?
Engage in conversations to determine if you're interacting with a human or an AI. Test your intuition and ability to distinguish between real people and artificial intelligence in this engaging game.
- Engaging chat conversations
- Distinguish human from AI
- Intuition testing gameplay
- Interactive guessing mechanic
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Chat with someone for a few minutes. Try to figure out if it was a human or an AI bot. Can you tell the difference?
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: POOLS™ at none against Human or Not?'s shown. POOLS™ also leads on review sentiment (79% vs 46%) and ratings volume (1.6K vs 286). Human or Not?'s advantage is rating (4.8 vs 4.5) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). On price, in-app purchases, monetization model and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. POOLS™ sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Human or Not? sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Human or Not? holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: POOLS™ has 1.6K ratings behind it against 286, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 79% of POOLS™'s written reviews are positive against 46% of Human or Not?'s, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
POOLS™ ships an update every 2 months, Human or Not? every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | POOLS™ | Human or Not? |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (1.6K ratings) | 4.8 (286 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 79.4% of reviews — better | 45.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.6K — better | 286 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | — | #142 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.9 GB | 39 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Tensori | Stefan Tissen |
Customer experience
POOLS™
Human or Not?
Bugs and requests
POOLS™
Reported bugs
2 issues- Unable to move on iPad Pro
- Glitches reported
Requested features
3 requests- Expand to different Backrooms-inspired themes
- Add a multiplayer mode
- Introduce more interactive elements (e.g., monsters, items to discover)
Human or Not?
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
POOLS™
- POOLS: Full Game$9.99
Human or Not?
- Human or Not Ad-Free Lifetime$4.99
- Human or Not Gold Livetime$9.99
