Alter Ego

As interesting as Alter Ego can be, several limitations and absent features of the game end up dragging it down, and combined with its length and price, I don’t really think I can recommend it at the time. To elaborate, for a text game made in the 80s, it really is extensive for its time, covering a lot of the basics of what one expects to do in “life,” like start a relationship, go to college, or get an education. At times, the text can even genuinely be humorous, heartwarming or tragic (or a combination of these), and some unexpected events can throw the player for a loop. Sadly, there are still a few big limitations in playing the game that add up. The fact that each life stage has a limited amount of turns before automatically continuing can mess up one’s plans for how to go through the game, leading to sudden interruptions and maybe even things going too fast. Certain choices feel like they only have a right and wrong choice, and the inability to return to earlier stages or to even redo choices make the game more annoying rather than feel like one is making important choices (sure, maybe not being able to redo choices is meant to imitate real life, but it’s still annoying). Alter Ego is indeed pretty ambitious and remarkable enough for a game made in 1986. However, it’s limitations and annoyances add up and interfere with its “life-sim” aspects, meaning at the end of the day, it’s just not interesting enough to replay. While I wouldn’t recommend Alter Ego due to these factors and what I feel is a relatively high price, I still think, at the very least, it serves as a functional prototype for what could be a unique and fun experience, if one can make some small but crucial quality-of-life improvements.

Its fun the first time. The second time you realise that its pretty biased and judgemental. Its flows are somewhat repetitative and educational and jobs are oversimplified and boxed in. Its pretty obvious that this is a North Amercian game. Sad

I first found this yesterday as a free to play web browser game. I had a lot of fun, except for the fact that after every chapter, I had to wait a set amount of time before the game would let play again. The game linked me to its Steam page where I could buy it and not have that problem, so here I am. There is no audio, which is fine with me. This is also mostly a text game, so you'll have to do a lot of reading. From what I can tell, this game was originally released in the time of the C-64, so it's also a classic.

It's an old game, and it holds up in some ways, and does not in others. Overall, the actual writing and general "gameplay" are solid, the frustration comes from it having an excess of random instant-death choices sprinkled in a game that is otherwise a calm, fairly serious, even intellectual life simulator. There is no save feature, and the game is both quite long and not very randomized, so you can easily be reading for an hour or so and having a good time, then suddenly plot from something wholly unrealistic and have to start over from the beginning and try to replicate your choices going over the exact same things in order to get back where you were. The UI also leaves something to be desired. It is actually a downgrade from when this game was hosted on its own website, it now uses a modified Choice of Games format that makes the statistics far less intuitive to reference and which cannot even go full-screen, which seems like the bare minimum that would be expected. It still is an interesting work and enjoyable, but the frustrations of random stupid instant-deaths that require a full restart are more than enough to make it (for me, at least) more trouble than it is worth. This is not Dark Souls, you're not supposed to 'git gud', and that they did not even bother to add a 're-do' option or save feature when porting this casual life simulator really cripples an otherwise good work.

Yea, this guy does not know what it's like to be chronically suicidal. There is a difference between contemplating suicide and actually killing yourself. There are absolutely no options for methods, level of ideation, etc. Even if you pick the "seek help" option, the game is over. What the hell is this debauchery. When you try to OD, there are not even options for how to do it. Also, who dies of liver failure without being discovered first? Liver failure is typically a slow and painful process There is no save option either. I get it, I get it, it's supposed to symbolize the finality of our actions. But instead of having to live through two entire stages of life all over again why not implement a save button?

This is honestly more of a psychological examination than it is a story, but that doesn't take anything away from it. This story has an incredibe amount of replayablity. I would strongly recommend it if you need a change of pace from the normal Choice titles. It is definitely for a certain crowd though. I would give this an 8/10.

Alter Ego. Live your entire life over in endless ways. Want to drink bleach as a baby and die? Go ahead. Feel suicidal enough to end your life? Not the best way to go, but it's an option. Attempt to run away from a child kidnapper? Too bad, he catches up with you and you're killed. Play with a gun? Your friend shoots you. Or instead of dying before middle age, try getting married. Get stood up at a date? Sure! Want to try to get married or engaged? Be prepared to be stood up multiple times and even left at the altar! If you're lucky, you'll end the game a married man/woman, have kids, a house, whatever. Or die of cancer. Or at a baseball game for senior citizens. This game is complex, deep, and what most modern games lack for "choice and consequence". It's a proper life sim that lives up to its 1986 original. 1986/1986: Would have an affair with the landromat girl again.

I think that I would really, really, enjoy this game, if at it's current state wasn't so unrefined.

I played this on an old 8 bit system and had a lot of fun. This is a great creation for the PC/Steam, just like the original. There was a male and female version, not sure if this has the female version.

Pretty damn accurate to the original MS-DOS version from what i saw from Jerma's stream with a few big improvements. Worth it for a small time killer.