Challenge, relaxation, escape f𝕴rom a stressful roꦬutine — games serve different purposes to different people. That said, most gamers tend to play as characters with whom they identify, as wishful versions of ourselves with more power to affect our surroundings, more competence in crisis, a stronger sense of purpose, or simply more time and energy.
Expressive cus🌟tomization systems can indulge such daydreams. They can also encourage us to play as characters radically unlike ourselves — to see strange worlds through strange eyeಞs. Either way, they allow for much of the imaginative work that leads us to invest hundreds of hours in our favorite games. Here are a few indie gems that allow for incredible character customization despite any budget limitations.
10 ꦕ ༒ Death Trash
Expressive and inclusive character options shouldn’t be limited to wholesome games about cute animals. Death Trash is ꦕa gory role-playing game in which your character can vomit with a button press, then add it to the inventory as a useful biological resource.
The in-progress build populates gross locales with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:mystery meat demons. The character creator w🍎as originally bare-bones, but has since expanded to accommodate more styles and body types. Death Trash also features dialogue choices that can shape quest outcomes, although pacifism is not fully possible.
9 Robots Need Love Too 🐬
Robots Need Love Too is a sliding puzzle game on mobile platforms. G꧟ames in this genre are not usually k꧅nown for their character creators or narrative elements, but Robots Need Love Too is an exception.
The game lets you specify your robot’s pronouns — from the standard he, she, and they, to the more recent zie, ey, and xie. You can also select the pronouns of your robot’s love interest, allowing for a wide variety of attractions. Although🔯 such options do not alter the game’s mechanics, they give its puzzles a more personal context.
8 Bonito Days 𒅌
In Bonito Days, it’s difficult to make a character that resemble🐈s you. The game stars fish who take to the skies, collect hearts, then attempt risky landings on floating platforms.
While human characteristics such as hair and clothing are not applicable, Bonito Days does allow you to customize your fish’s color and pattern from a wide selection. It then randomly assigns a name, with delightful possibilities such as Strawberry, Apple Pie, and Aunty 𝔉Trudy. Sometimes, games really encourage you to step out of yourself and into a new persona.
7 ♏ Sunless Skies
Set after the New British Empire has colonized space, Sunless Skies is a role-playing game about a captain on an interstellar locomotive. The game centers narrative and player𝄹 choice, so its customization system is naturally expressive.
You first decide your captain’s background — options include poet, priest, and auditor — as well as their greatest ambition. Then you design their appearance in Sunless Skies’ sur𓆉prisingly extensive portrait creator. Lastly, you decide if other characters will address your captain as citizen, archivist, reverend, or something else. Gender is left to the player’s imagination.
6 Calico
Calico is a sugary game about rebuilding a cat café. Along with its impressive interior decoration system, Calicℱo’s character designer has an abܫundance of shapes, colors, and options.
Body type is conveyed through an elegant slider system instead of binary presets. Elsewhere, menus let you customize details such as EyeShine, Blush, and Gloves. As more clothes and accessories become available throughout Calico, the pote๊ntial for self-expression grows. All these 𝓡options are strictly necessary for a game in which cats can perch on your character’s head.
5 Wildermyth 🔥
Wildermyth combines procedural generation with handcrafted stories, to magical effect. It’s hard to care about your generic-seeming party 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:at the start of each playthrough, b𝓡ut they accumulate friendships, rivalries, injuries, and characteristics as the narrative engine fires u📖p.
Wildermyth’s flexible character creator works well with its narrative systems. The e♑xtensive visual customization options are complemented by options around your character’s gender, sexuality, and willingness to bear children. As Wildermyth follows your party over generations, such choices could have long term effects in the game’s unpredictable world.
4 Sable
Sable doesn’t begin with a character creator, nor does it allow you to adjust parameters like height and eye color. Instead, the game is about collecting masks that represent various pro꧙fessions and deciding which you would like to wear.
Most masks have to be earned. Complete enoughꦰ favors for the Machinists, and you’ll receive parts for a Machinist’s mask. This quest structure ensures that you understand what each profession involves before claiming it for the long term. Sable also hides some 🧸beautiful clothes throughout its desert world.
3 Book Of Travels ☂
The developers of Book of Travels call it a TMORPG — a tiny multiplayer online role-playing game — as opposed to the more familiar MMORPG. Becauไse ea꧟ch online world hosts a handful of players, they will rarely meet, so it’s meaningful to see another player-created character.
Book of Travels’ wondrous character creator has all the expected options like eye color, voice, and form (appearance). Then it moves into wind affinity, family name, knot-tying ability, and traits such as oversleeping and dyslexia. The soft-edged and colorful artwork completes 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:an enchanting introduction to Book of Travels’ world.
2 Cattails
Cattails is a canonical title in the growing genre of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:cat role-playing games. Cattails has a familiar gameplay loop of exploring, gathering, hunting, fighting, mining, an🤡d rꦦomance, except that you play as a cat.
Human gender norms are not part of the game — every cat has access to a variety of clothing, eye colors, and coat colors and patterns. A pirate hat and a medieval surcoat are two examples of Cattails’ eclectic fashion sense. The game also fe💮atures den decoration and pets that will follow your cat around.
1 ⭕ OlliOlli World 🦩
Skate culture has long been associated with transgressive🌱 style. While OlliOlli World is more lo-fi chill than punk, it’s transg🎉ressive in its breadth of fashion options and cheerful willingness to let anyone wear anything.
A bee suit, a propeller hat, a vintage sundress — these are some of the abundant clothing choices in OlliOlli World. You can also choose your character’s pose as they start runs, end runs, and loiter online. The constant st🥂ream of new ways to ౠexpress yourself softens the game’s occasionally steep challenge.
