Alter Ego

For a long time I've wanted to play a game that simulates a whole life. I'm not sure why, I suppose to play out the fantasy of being someone else, or making different choices. Alter Ego is the closest game I've found that does what I had in mind. This game was originally made in 1986 for the Commodore 64. It's almost as old as I am! And it was written by a doctor of psychology. In the game you play through the various stages of life from baby to old age to death. The gameplay consists of addressing you with a problem, asking you how you feel about it, and then what you want to do about it. Then the game will tell you the results of your actions. The game often doesn't give you many choices, however. Either in how you feel, or in what you do. So, despite there being a large volume of life experiences, you might not feel like you're really forming the kind of person you had in mind. Also, as far as I can tell, the choices you make don't actually affect the life experiences that you have, so at age 50 you're going to have trouble with your boss no matter how you play the game. Also, this game is really played through the lens of the writer's own biases on how to live your life. He will literally tell you when you've made the 'right' or 'wrong' choice. And sometimes you get chided for the stupidest stuff, like choosing not to steal, or for doing what you're told, when developmentally you're at the age that you should be rebelling. Anyway, so it's not so much a life simulator as it is life according to some doctor from the eighties. Overall, I really didn't enjoy this game. I give it 1.5/5 stars. The guy's smarmy tone really bugs me.

This is a fun game, but I'm disappointed by the rigidity of your lifestyle. You HAVE to be straight, there's nothing about being rich or poor or other certain varying life circumstances that would have made the game more in-depth. I'm not sure if it's worth $8, but it's definitely fun to play.

Having played this a bit, I can say that this game really needs a continue mode. Some choices are a bit too rigid and final, and it is not fun to replay just because you didn't realize how draconian the game can be. There needs to be more games like this of course, and the execution can be better. Ultimately this is a game about the psychology of "what is normal," with a little "awareness of how life is tough" thrown in. However, it could go further in allowing greater variation in life stories. Some choices seem to lead to the same result every time, where they would serve better as likelihoods. This limits playthrough value. Without giving spoilers, there are some options that will always lead to get-rich-now situations if taken. Life isn't like that, and this damages repeat playthrough value. Most choices are therefore not really different for different protagonists. The game becomes routine and mundane very quickly.

I like this game, however it is rather unfortunate and annoying how it forces you to be heterosexual. it doesn't let you explore your sexuality at all. That's not realistic.

The choices that are of good moral standing are the bad choices. If you make those good choices the "Doctor" that wrote this game repremands you, such as advising a teen friend to have the baby and out it up for adoption. I am quite amazed that this "Doctor" received a Ph.d. He doesn't seem to no much about how life works. BTW, You can't be gay or lesbian. No matter how hard you try this "Doctor" moron doesn't get it.

Good concept that was badly executed. The narrator who apprently is some "doctor" chastizes the player if the player does not act in accordance to some pre defined notions. Very bad game design. Thats why someone without game design knowledge should not make games.

I have two gripes with this game that made me uninstall A) More than once, I ran into the issue of making a choice and having the actions from that choice be entirely different from the way I believe it was worded. I can understand why you aren't allowed to go back on your choices, but the lack of that feature makes incidents like this really sting. B) Not having any idea of how long you have left in a given period of life (or even the fact that there's a choice limit at all) is a huge problem. Just doing college will completely ruin your chance at anything else in young adulthood, and that is both unenjoyable as a player and unrealistic. It's a very cool premise and a well written game, but a few parts made me go from loving the game to not even finishing

В подобную игру играю впервые. Текстовая RPG, да ещё и симулятор жизни. Прошёл её, дожил до старости и увидел закат. Есть вопрос и варинты ответа. В некоторых вопросах ещё и выбираешь эмоциональное состояние персонажа. Каждый ответ влияет на последующие вопросы. Я дожил до старости и умер одиноким стариком, без жены и детей. Но всю игру был мудр, честен и благороден ко всем. Советую. Мне понравилось.

No reset button Just go to the website if you really want to play its free

First and foremost: The price of this game is obscene. It was published in 1986. I know how little work it took to slap this together with copy/paste and some simple illustrations. It was released before I was born, by all rights it should be total abandonware. I don't begrudge anyone a bit of grift, but 9 CAD for something that was developed by people who might be dead by now? That said, this is a pretty interesting slice of "gaming" history. You'll find there are some very dated social mores demonstrated by both your character and others, though the narrator is generally quite passive and neutral about such things. Call it an caricature of middle-class life in the 1970s and 80s, with frequent winks and nudges at human frailty. Basically, you get a whole bunch of tiles to choose from in each stage of life. You pick tiles, events happen, choices are made; consequences are suffered. There's a primary tree of one-use tiles, plus two flanks of persistent tiles that will grow in number and complexity as you age; these secondary event tiles attempt to store some information about a particular facet of your character's life, and provide opportunities to explore new activities and decisions. It has a fairly impressive degree of flexibility for what it is. Having said the best about it, here's the worst: some of the persistent tiles, such as marriage, vocation, finance, education, etc. are not well cross-integrated; that is, events which can occur (sometimes very unexpectedly) from selecting those tiles often do not account for the status of other tiles. You might "help a friend paint their house" as an activity, and suddenly find yourself cheating on your spouse, only to have their existence functionally overwritten with your new love interest. Sometimes this is presented as a decision, while other times a player is blindsided by a sudden loss of character control. The time investment involved in getting through a run of this game is not insignificant, and so I can't say just how common this sort of problem is. I can say, however, that you should expect to run into it.