These are 40 computer games, tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), journaling games, or live action role-playing (LARP) games where the player character is inherently nonhuman, and that is important to the story and play. Try out being a ghost, an elf, a dragon, a robot, a plant, a car, or even the number three!
If you want to play as nonhuman animals, of species that live or have lived on Earth, then see my other collection: "Animal protagonists."
I hand-curate these collections of other people's creations to celebrate and bring attention to them, as part of a series of curated collections of itch.io creations for alterhumans. If you want to ask me to add or remove your creations from my collections, or if you have other comments, you can email me.
TTRPG. You are a member of a hive mind.
TTRPG. You are a computer program.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A physical game. Narrate your role-playing actions and use colored glass pebbles.
Number of players: Two players. Can be adapted for as many as four players.
About: You are gay dragons seeking treasure. Will it end in romance or battle?
Content: Rated G. Warning for fantasy body horror.
Medium: Live Action Role Play (LARP).
About: You are a sentient severed arm. You are being examined by alchemists and necromancers (the other players), who hope that you will help them answer their mysteries about how life is in a body.
Medium: TTRPG for any number of players.
About: You are a werewolf. Your whole pack has lost the ability to shift into wolf form. To regain that ability, you need to reconcile your conflicts with one another.
Keywords: partly human, partly animal, canine, shapeshifter, fantastical entity
Medium: Solo TTRPG.
About: You are a vampire. Write the story of your long existence.
Keywords: undead, former human, monster, fantastic entity
Medium: TTRPG.
About: As described by the game designer,
"YOU are a HALF-HUMAN, HALF-BEAST creature from the DEEP DARK of the WOODS. You are a MIGHTY CHAMPION and you are getting MARRIED. As is TRADITION, you and all your peers are to be wed to THE ARBOREAL SOW: a beautiful and sacred pig the size of a transit van. You emerge, STEAMING and GLORIOUS, into the forecourt of a PETROL STATION. It is the night before the ceremony and, as is TRADITION, you must secure tribute for your queen from the LANDS OF MAN. You have until dawn to claim something worthy. MAKE HASTE!"
Keywords: partially human, partially animal, fantastic entity, monster
Medium: Computer game.
About: You are a golem. Reshape your clay to escape the room in which you first awoke.
Keywords: monster, fantastic entity, construct, artificial
Medium: TTRPG.
About: You are werewolves in a punk band.
Keywords: partially human, partially animal, shapeshifter, fantastic entity, monster
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A solo tabletop role-playing game. Pull playing cards for random prompts, and make a drawing of your land without using words.
About: You are a body in a bog. You are preserved there, safe and unchanging. As centuries pass, watch the people and land change around you. This educational game suggests some organizations to donate to or volunteer with to protect the world's bogs. All proceeds from this game goes to the top surgery fund of the designer, who is indigenous to Aotearoa New Zealand.
Keywords: former human, dead body, mundane entity
Content: Unrated.
Medium: A visual novel.
About: You are a werewolf. "A narrative video game about the last night of a biblical werewolf [...] Benjamin, the youngest of Jacob's sons, is destined to die after turning into a werewolf. Despite this, he can now explore the Judean mountains with his new body and have experiences that his family and friends could never have. Play Benjamin during his last night and explore a wild and rich environment while discovering memories of his past life"
Keywords: fantastic entity, monster, former human, partially human, partially animal, shapeshifter
Content: Unrated.
Medium: A lyrical game.
About: You are a Hanukkah goblin. This is inspired by the picture book Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins. Go on an adventure to spread cheer among the other Hanukkah goblins before the season is over. The game itself is cute and fun. On the more serious side, the game explains how it is meant to subvert antisemitic stereotypes that tend to appear in fantasy stories, particularly about goblins. People who aren't Jewish are welcome to play this game too, and it offers guidance on how to use that as an educational opportunity. The game designer is Jewish and has created other games about Jewish folklore too.
Keywords: fantastic entity
Content: Rated R.
Medium: A tabletop role-playing game for two (or more) players.
Accessibility: Screen reader friendly.
Length: A 2-3 hour session.
Genre: Comedy.
About: You are a skeleton. As described by the game designers,
"Sometimes when two people meet, sparks fly. Sometimes two of those people meet guarding a sorcerer’s castle, being called to arms on an ancient battlefield, or emerging from a damp and musty crypt. When you met, you were both skeletons. You’re both down to bone. Unfortunately, while you remember puns, you can’t quite remember how to do sex. You’ve been dead for eons, and barely remember what sex is like, let alone how to make it happen. [... This game] is a very silly, surprisingly deep, and safe way to explore sex, consent and gender together."
Keywords: fantastic entity, monster, undead, former human
Vibe: Laugh-out-loud funny.
Content: Rated R.
About: "You're all consenting skeletons, come to the Bone Down to smash into one another and come out with something new that's part of you."
Keywords: fantastic entity, monster, undead, former human
Content: Rated PG. Some suggestive language and flirting. Warning for screen shake in certain scenes.
Medium: A computer game. It can run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.
Length: 37,000+ words long, with 23 different endings. 2 to 3 hours for a full play through.
Genre and subject: A visual novel. Romance.
About: 23-year-old CiCi can hardly choose which of her hobbies is her favorite. Help this mermaid get ready for a festival and maybe even find love under the sea. Recommended by The Dialog Tree: A Dating Sim Zine, which praised the character design and world building, and noted that you can play it with or without romance.
Queer themes: Women loving women. Tagged by the game designer as lesbian and LGBT.
Vibe: Cute, uplifting, innocent, and sweet.
Content: Rated PG. Swear words.
Medium: A computer game created with Bitsy. It can run in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Comedy.
Length: About ten minutes.
About: "You're a rock. And a dude." Wander and talk with your inanimate object neighbors. You're the only one who isn't nonbinary. They don't get it.
Keywords: inanimate object, mundane entity
Vibe: Silly.
Content: Rated R, 18+. Warnings for police violence, PTSD, werewolf sex scenes, deaths of transgender people, discrimination against transgender women, and violence.
Medium: A lyric game.
Genre and subject: Fiction. Erotic horror.
About: You are a werewolf. Draw a map of your subways and document your efforts to love and survive in your city. Remember the other werewolves who you have lost or could lose any day. The narrating character is a trans woman werewolf. This game was written as a metaphor for some of the experiences of transgender women.
Keywords: partially human, partially animal, shapeshifter, monster, fantastic entity
Vibe: Urban gore. Grief. Sensual. Tender. Visceral. Aesthetically powerful. Cathartic.
Content: Rated G. Friendly for all ages. Warning that this is about mortality.
Medium: Live action role-play (LARP).
Story: You are a star. A group of players stand apart from one another in the dark with flashlights, whispering to one another, to play as stars in space as the millennia pass.
Keywords: inanimate object, mundane entity, space, natural
Vibe: Somber.
Content: Rated R, 18+. Implied horror and gore.
Medium: Solo TTRPG.
Story: You are a machine. You do things and you print logs.
Keywords: inanimate object, robot
Vibe: Unsettling, satirical, horror.
Content: Rated PG or PG-13. Mentions of alcohol, drugs, and sex.
Medium: Text game.
About: You are a god. Start a monotheistic religion to worship you and follow your commandments. Then watch what happens with them as the centuries pass.
Vibe: Satirical, edgy.
Content: Unrated.
Medium: Physical game.
About: You are a Forest. Win back land usurped by a threatening civilization.
Keywords: plants, region, gestalt, mundane entity
Content: Unrated.
Medium: Physical game.
About: You are a Fae. "You're a queer, neurodivergent Fae, though you haven't quite figured that out yet. The queen has appointed you to a diplomat post — in the Seelie court. You're traveling there now with a retinue of Fae who don't understand you. [This] is a game about discovering your identity when you're queer, neurodivergent, and gender roles / social norms don't make any damn sense."
Keywords: fantastic entity
Content: Rated PG-13. Consensual physical intimacy and desire.
Medium: An interactive fiction story created in Twine.
Duration: Each play through is a few minutes long. Replay with different choices to see each of the story paths.
Accessibility: This game is text only, so it should be accessible for players who have impaired hearing or vision.
Story: You are a creature. You are trying to choose a dance partner at a party for monsters while navigating social cues and sensory overload as a queer autistic creature.
Vibe: Tense.
Content: Rated PG. Violent references in the game's opening prologue Appearances of mall and airport security.
Medium: Computer game.
About: You are a creature born of a child's nightmares. Take a vacation in a colorful city, meet strange characters, and turn nightmares into dreams.
Keywords: fantastic entity, anthropomorphic
Content: Rated G. You can get hurt, but there is no death, hunting, or combat.
Medium: Computer game. WASD controls with mouse.
Story: You are an anthro dragon who explores randomly-generated caverns to discover the lost history of her people.
Keywords: fantastic entity, partially human, anthropomorphic
Vibe: Curiosity, wonder, puzzlement, dread.
Content: Rated PG-13 or R. Animal death and reproduction.
Medium: Computer game.
Story: You are a dragon, an animal balanced between wild carnivore and sapient intelligence. You have a multitude of choices that can shape every aspect of how you grow up and explore your world as dangerous humans encroach upon your wilderness.
Keywords: fantastic entity, monster, animal-like
Vibe: Elegant, mystical.
Content: Unrated. I haven't played this yet, so explore with caution.
Medium: Computer game, science fiction romance visual novel.
Story: You are an android woman who has many options for men to fall in love with.
Keywords: robot, human-like, artificial
Content: Rated PG. Content warnings for: Partial nudity, styled in art. Human cannibalism. Hunting and eating animals. Starvation and over-eating. Violence and battle.
Medium: Computer game. This genre is called a "god sim," where you play as a god and guide the development of whole civilizations.
Duration: Hours for a play through. This is a sandbox game, so each play through can be very different.
Story: You are a god who created the people in your image. You try to guide them and design their religion, but they have free will and may take your commandments in ways that make sense to them and weren't what you meant. This is an Afrofuturist game set in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Vibe: Funny, frustrating, somber, puzzling.
Content: Rated G, friendly for all ages, so far as I've seen when I played it.
Medium: Computer game. A text adventure created in Twine.
Duration: About ten minutes for a play through, depending on how long you survive or how soon you choose to land.
Story: You are the artificial intelligence of a ship full of the last humans, who are in cold sleep. Find a planet good enough for them to live on... if you make good enough choices to survive the way.
Keywords: robot, star ship, space, artificial
Vibe: The enormous void of space feels lonely, and dotted with wonders and dangers that are not so much hostile as indifferent. Somber, haunting, mysterious, tense, hopeful, awe.
