5 AI companion apps that go beyond chat: stories, games, scenes

Desk research: official sites, help centres, product documentation, company blogs, app-store listings and documented user reports, checked in September 2026. AI Companion Radar takes no money from any app and uses no affiliate links.

If you want more from a companion app than a message box, five are worth your time in September 2026. MyBabes has the most structured modes (an episodic story studio and roleplay games with a referee and a score), Character.AI has the most finished ones and charges the least for them, and SpicyChat gives away the best scene-direction tools free. Candy AI and Nomi complete the list with unlockable interactive video and group rooms that can run themselves.

The MyBabes Story Creator landing page, one of the few episodic story studios inside a companion app, September 2026.

How we picked

To qualify, an app had to offer at least one structured mode that is more than one-to-one messaging: episodic stories, scored or goal-based roleplay, director or scene tools, scenes with several characters, or interactive video. We then ranked on three questions, in this order. How much structure is there (rules, episodes, goals, a cast) rather than a chat with a different label? How finished is it: documented, out of beta, with a catalogue worth browsing? And what does it cost to use properly, including any token or credit layer? Adult content was not a criterion, but we say where it is and is not allowed because it decides who can use each mode. Overall Radar scores are quoted for reference only; this ranking is about this angle.

Summary table

1. MyBabes

MyBabes is first because it is the only app here where roleplay can be won or lost, and the only one with a studio for episodic stories. Adventures, new in 2026, turn a character into a game: the creator sets a premise, a target with “good moves” and “bad moves”, a difficulty and a prize (an image or a video) for winning or losing. An AI referee scores every message, a journal records established facts, and reaching the target unlocks the prize. Story Creator is a drag-and-drop canvas: you cast characters with voices, build scenes from images, video clips, dialogue, voiceover and music, group scenes into episodes and episodes into a series, then publish free or behind a token gate.

Community events on MyBabes, each with a token prize pool and a public entry count, September 2026.

Around those sit two interactive video games played level by level, and themed events with token prize pools: three were listed during our research, with 64 to 755 entries and pools of 200 to 500 tokens.

What it costs. The free tier needs no card and refreshes with daily token claims. Premium is €14.99 a month (€9.99 on the 3-month plan) and Ultra €34.99, with 200 or 600 monthly tokens plus daily claims. Creators price their own episodes, from 0.1 tokens.

The catch. This is the least finished entry on the list. Story Creator is labelled beta, the Adventures catalogue is a few dozen games, and there are only two interactive games. It is web only and built for a desktop. We found no group chat mode and there are no live voice calls, so it loses the multi-character category to every other app here, and loses on price to the two free options below. The pricing page dresses its euro-only prices as countdown “sales”. It is 18+ and the wrong pick for SFW use.

Who it is for. Adults who want to play roleplay with rules, or build and sell a series. Radar score 8.3.

2. Character.AI

Character.AI has more finished modes than anyone, and almost all of them are free. Stories, launched in November 2025, is guided interactive fiction: pick two or three Characters, choose a genre, write or auto-generate a premise, then steer a visual narrative through frequent choices. It is also the only mode open to under-18s since that month. Scenes (June 2025) drop you into pre-built storylines with a Character of your choice; Streams put any two Characters together on a topic to debate, roast or vlog; group chats hold up to ten Characters and ten people; and AvatarFX, the company’s own image-to-video model, makes a still avatar speak or sing.

Character.AI’s blog post introducing Stories, its guided interactive-fiction format, September 2026.

2026 added a second layer of studio-made formats: (c.ai) books on 16 April (classic novels playable as a character), (c.ai) series on 4 August (three vertical microdramas, “Last Summer”, “The Nighttime Game” and “Eden Fall”, whose characters users aged 18 or over can chat with afterwards) and (c.ai) Comics on 2 September.

What it costs. The core modes are free. c.ai+ is $9.99 a month or $94.99 a year and removes ads, swipe caps and slow mode. Images, animated clips and comic pages run on Charms, a reward currency that is mainly earned through quests.

The catch. Nothing here has a score, a referee or a win condition; Stories branch, but you cannot fail one. The platform filters explicit content on every tier, so adult roleplay is out, and age assurance is mandatory. Availability is uneven: Scenes launched on the mobile app, creator tools for building your own Scenes were promised for “later this summer” in 2025, and books sit in c.ai Labs. Free users see mid-chat ads.

Who it is for. Anyone who wants the widest choice of polished, SFW story formats on a phone, at no cost. If you do not need adult content or scoring, this is the safer choice than our number one. Radar score 6.8.

3. SpicyChat

SpicyChat does not have stories or games. It has three documented tools that turn a chat into a directed scene, and the basics of all three are free. Group Chat puts 2 to 10 chatbots in one thread; free users choose who speaks next, and paid users can switch on Auto Response, which picks the speaker from context. The documentation admits that groups of “fewer than 6 characters” stay more coherent. Director Mode is a /cmd line placed under your message: the model reads it, the characters do not, and you can use it to add a twist, withhold information or break a repetition loop. Lorebook stores world detail in up to 5,000 keyword-triggered entries that load only when relevant, capped at about 20% of context.

SpicyChat’s public documentation for Group Chat, which supports 2 to 10 characters per thread, September 2026.

What it costs. Free covers group chat with manual turns, Director Mode and a lorebook budget of around 740 tokens. From 8 September 2026 the paid tiers are Get A Taste at $5.95 a month, True Supporter at $19.95 and I’m All In at $29.95. The tiers matter for scenes because context is set by tier: 4,096 tokens on Free and Get A Taste, 8,192 on True Supporter and 16,384 on I’m All In, with lorebook budgets of roughly 1,600 and 3,080 tokens on the top two.

The catch. Everything is text. Group chats do not support text-to-speech or image generation, there is no video anywhere on the platform, and a ten-character scene inside 4,096 tokens of context forgets quickly. The documentation warns that some models follow /cmd better than others. Prices rose this month, the iOS app was withdrawn in August 2025, and NSFW needs a third-party age check in the UK, France, Italy, Australia and 26 US states.

Who it is for. Text roleplayers who want an ensemble cast and a director’s chair without paying. For pure text scenes it beats MyBabes outright. See our roleplay ranking. Radar score 6.6.

4. Candy AI

Candy AI’s answer to “beyond chat” is video you unlock or watch rather than scenes you write. Live Action, in beta, is a gamified mode on selected characters: chatting earns XP, and XP unlocks scripted video actions. The help centre lists Interactive Stories, with one named title, “Neon Run”, alongside Live Action as Premium Plus features. Candy Shorts is a scrolling feed of pre-produced cinematic shorts, including multi-episode Series for named companions (Eda, Piper, Mona and Emilia); first episodes are free and later ones are unlocked with tokens.

Candy AI’s public homepage, captured September 2026.

Reviewers also describe a “Story Mode” with structured romance, adventure and drama scenarios and images timed to the narrative, reportedly added in spring 2026. Candy’s own help centre does not document a feature under that name, so we treat it as reported rather than confirmed.

What it costs. Premium is €13.99 a month, about €8.99 a month on the 3-month plan, with annual promotions advertised at around €3.99 a month. Premium includes about 100 tokens a month and Premium Plus 330; Premium Plus is where Live Action, Interactive Stories and live audio sit, and its price is not published anywhere we could read. Candy does not publish per-item token rates, which makes the cost of unlocking a series hard to predict.

The catch. It is the most lean-back entry here. You cannot build a story, set a goal or publish anything; the interactive content is whatever Candy’s studio has produced, on the characters it has chosen, and the catalogue is short. There is no group chat and no lorebook. Third-party claims of freely generated 120-second Live Action clips are marketing, not documented. The free trial is a handful of messages, so you cannot sample these modes before paying.

Who it is for. Subscribers who already like Candy’s polished characters and live voice calls, and want something to watch and nudge along between chats. Radar score 8.0.

5. Nomi

Nomi earns the last place for the most developed group rooms in a relationship-style app. A room holds up to ten Nomis, each with its own personality and memory. Since 2024 rooms have had an autoplay button: press it and the Nomis carry on the scene among themselves without prompting. Backchanneling keeps each Nomi aware of what was said in the group when you talk to it privately, and the other way round. Each room has its own memory and its own Mind Map, a graph of people, places and topics you can inspect and edit, and rooms support group selfies and art. The community wiki also documents narrators and NPCs inside group roleplay.

Nomi’s feature overview on its public site, September 2026.

The bigger promise is Nomiverse, a persistent, opt-in roleplay world with NPCs and a narrator. As of the summer 2026 developer streams it was still in alpha and waiting on Cambrian, the beta chat model the company has been iterating since January, to stabilise. Do not subscribe for it yet.

What it costs. Group chats are a paid feature. Standard is $15.99 a month, $39.99 a quarter or $99.99 a year, and includes up to 10 Nomis and 10 group rooms; extra rooms cost 25 credits. The free tier is one Nomi, text only, with a daily message cap reported at about 50.

The catch. There are no stories, episodes, scores or prizes, and no creator marketplace. The structure in a Nomi room is whatever you bring to it, held together by good memory. Adult content is least restricted on paid, age-verified web accounts, and the iOS and Android builds are tighter. Nomi publishes no pricing page, so the figures above are the US App Store prices.

Who it is for. People who want a standing cast of companions who know each other, on a native phone app with voice calls. On both of those points it beats MyBabes. Radar score 6.9.

Also considered

• Kindroid (Radar score 7.6): group chats of up to ten Kins with a shared-memory toggle, up to 500 keyphrase-triggered journal entries and live avatar video calls. Strong plumbing, but no scenario packs, stories or games, and groups are paid. It lost fifth place to Nomi only because Nomi’s rooms can run on their own.

• OurDream AI (Radar score 7.8): group chat with a reported cap of 12 characters, and a character builder that lets creators script phased progression with status bars. That is the nearest thing to a game outside MyBabes, but it lives inside an ordinary chat, and group chat is paid.

• Talkie (Radar score 5.7): a card-collecting layer with gems and event currencies on top of SFW character chat. It is a game mechanic, but a gacha one attached to chat rather than a story mode, the pricing is unpublished, and the minimum age is 14.

• Janitor AI (Radar score 6.7): Scripts (lorebooks, weighted random events, state engines) and public chats that anyone can fork from any message. Inventive and free, but there is no native group chat and nothing beyond text.

Questions people ask

Which AI companion app has actual games?

MyBabes is the only one in our directory with scored roleplay: Adventures have a target, a difficulty, an AI referee and a prize. It also has two interactive video games. Candy AI’s Live Action uses XP to unlock scripted clips, which is a lighter form of the same idea.

Does Character.AI have a story mode?

Yes. Stories, launched in November 2025, is a guided format with two or three Characters, a genre, a premise and frequent choices. Scenes offer pre-built storylines, and since 2026 there are playable books, studio-made series and Comics.

Which AI chat apps have group chat with several characters?

Character.AI (up to ten Characters, free), SpicyChat (2 to 10, free with manual turns), Nomi and Kindroid (up to ten, paid) and OurDream (reported at up to 12, paid). MyBabes and Candy AI do not document a group chat mode.

Is there an NSFW AI app with a story mode?

MyBabes is 18+ and its Story Creator and Adventures allow adult content within its Blocked Content Policy. Candy AI’s Shorts and Live Action are adult-oriented too. Character.AI filters explicit content on every tier. Our adult-friendly list covers the wider field.

What is Director Mode in SpicyChat?

It is a /cmd instruction written on a new line under your message. The model follows it but it does not appear in the conversation, so you can change a character’s mood, add a plot turn or stop a loop without breaking the scene.

Are these story and game modes free?

Character.AI’s and SpicyChat’s mostly are. MyBabes has a card-free tier with daily tokens and free daily episodes, but some episodes are token-gated by their creators. Candy AI’s interactive modes need Premium Plus, and Nomi’s group rooms need a subscription. See best free apps.