In Other Words

Alter Ego

Good link! Here is a link to a life simulator called ‘Alter Ego’, which allows you to simulate life from birth till death. It’s a very old ‘game’ (sixties?), but that makes it even more impressive. It might not have the replayability of the Sims, for instance, but it is certainly more interesting the first time through (though no snazzy graphics).

It has been provided by The Underdogs, which is a great organisation that provides abandoned games for free on the internet (as in those games that are no longer in print, but people still might want to play).

Alter Ego is great in that it keeps track of your ‘health’ in a huge number of stats, based on the decision you make and decides, based on those, how successful you are in the things you want to do. You spend your childhood running around being irresponsible, experiencing life and, most importantly, shaping yourself for the future. Then later you can experience how well you do.

It is often tempting to take the ‘right’ choices (which aren’t always obvious, but can be spotted), but I’ve found the game is far more entertaining when you take the realistic choices (that you, or the person you’re trying to be, would take). If you decide to try to play as yourself (and try to be honest with yourself) you just might find out some interesting things about who you are.

I played it the ‘best’ way once and ended up with nearly full stats in all disciplines (except physical health, I could never manage to by physically fit). Then I played it honestly and the flawed pathetic creature that resulted was far more enjoyable and formed a far more emotional attachment (I was a bit pissed that he couldn’t get himself hitched, though. Ah, the choices we make).

Interesting fact: The first computer game ever invented was a game called ‘Space war’ which required a computer the size of a small car to run it. The first arcade game was called ‘Computer Space’ while the first commercially available game for the home computer was ‘Pong’ (by the same designer) and it came out in 1981.

posted by Symbol @ 14.9.04