Psychological horror is meant to make you feel uneasy. Foreboding, creepy atmospheres are the genre’s main selling point rather than the scares and spooks of traditional horror. “No, I’m Not A Human” perfectly encapsulates this idea. The game features no heart-stopping jumpscares or chase segments, just an unsettling atmosphere that has you on edge until the game’s credits roll. 

The game’s mechanics are nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Taking place in a post-apocalyptic world where the sun has become so intense it becomes impossible to step outside, you must invite strangers into your home lest you remain alone in your own house. Unfortunately, not all of these strangers are friendly; some are doppelgängers–known as Visitors–under the guise of humans. 

This makes up the main premise of the game, with your gameplay primarily consisting of weeding out any Visitors in your home through physical examinations and conversations, then eliminating them. It shares some striking similarities with other social deduction games that have you searching for doppelgängers, such as “That’s Not My Neighbor,” a game that also gained significant popularity about a year ago. But how “No, I’m Not A Human” sets itself apart from other psychological horror games isn’t through its gameplay, but through its artistic direction and overall messaging. 

The most eye-catching part of the game for me is definitely the characters. Each character you meet has something that seems a little off about them. From the getgo, the first person who attempts to seek asylum at your home is a man so unnaturally tall and stretched out, his face doesn’t fit in the screen. It’s only natural that anyone’s first thought would be, “There’s no way this guy is human.” At least, it was my first thought, until you realize that he is, in fact, entirely human and that every character looks a little unnatural. The game tricks you from the very start.

The game’s character models are derived from preexisting pictures of real people, which are then contorted and given exaggerated features to give them a sort of uncanny feel to them. It’s such a great addition to the overall vibe of the game because it points out one of my biggest problems with other doppelganger-type games; clear, physical deformities spotted at a first glance aren’t a telltale sign of an alien identity, and “No, I’m Not A Human” seems to be pretty self-aware of that. It doesn’t just stop at physical looks, either; most characters have relatively unpalatable personalities, ones that diverge from how you might expect a “normal” person to act.

As such, the player is forced to rely on other clues to identify Visitors, small details said to signify Visitors by the government. Unfortunately, if you put a little more thought into it, you’ll recognize that these marks of identification are all vague, circumstantial pieces of evidence. 

White teeth aren’t a surefire sign of evil intention. Neither are bloodshot eyes, dirty fingernails or clean armpits—all of these being clues said to identify Visitors. The position the game puts you in invites feelings of paranoia and skepticism that makes every character one of suspicion. A sleep-deprived student might have red eyes, and a prepubescent child will certainly have hairless armpits, but on the other hand, so might a Visitor.

What I found especially compelling was how the game handled each individual character’s background. Even the most unsettling characters have a story you can’t help but feel sympathetic for, and it humanizes them to a point you really can’t tell who is not a human—as the name implies. My personal favorite character was a foreign man who shows up at your doorsteps with his mouth wired shut. You can’t communicate with him due to a language barrier, portrayed by the fact that his conversations are entirely coded in Atbash cipher (encrypted by mapping out the alphabet in reverse). He’s creepy at a first glance—and he’s supposed to be creepy—but as you learn more about him, you realize he, like many others in the game, is a tragic victim of his circumstances, his mouth having been sewn shut because people couldn’t understand him.

The game holds up an unpleasant mirror to very real-world prejudices happening today, and the topic of discrimination is handled surprisingly well. Features you might perceive to be unnatural or out-of-the-ordinary based on your idea of normalcy will affect your decision-making, forcing you to make life-or-death choices based on your own biases. There were often times I found myself turning away strangers who looked monstrous or uncanny. The catch is, most of the game’s characters have a randomized chance of being a human or a Visitor, which tells us a lot about judging people based on appearance alone.

Ultimately, while the gameplay isn’t anything extraordinary and the endings fall a little bit flat, “No, I’m Not A Human” is a refreshing take on psychological horror games. Though the repetitive nature of the game doesn’t lend itself to multiple revisits, it’s an intriguing one-off experience that will leave a lasting impression on you.

On this blog, members of the Carmel High School chapter of the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists (and the occasional guest writer) produce curations of all facets of popular culture, from TV shows to music to novels to technology. We hope our readers always leave with something new to muse over. Click here to read more from MUSE.