‘family’, ‘work’, ‘physical’, ‘social’ or ‘intellectual’ – and their outcome depends on the combination of player decisions (usually, the player must pick both an action for the character and their emotional reaction to the event), stats (keeping in line with the game’s psychology theme, most of them describe the character’s personality and social skills) and random chance. These belong to different categories – e.g. Each of the icons represents a single scripted event.

It is also possible to tell the game to roll a completely random character.Īfter the character is created, the player is taken to the main gameplay area: a scrollable tree graph depicting a series of connected icons. This, combined with a bit of randomization, determines the initial statistics for the character. In some ways, it’s more similar to modern Japanese ‘life sims’, ‘raising sims’ and ‘dating sims’, although with the scheduling/time management aspect downplayed significantly.Ĭharacter creation in Alter Ego is done through a simple psychological test consisting of several true/false questions regarding personality, ethics and attitudes, followed by short choose-your-own-adventure segment taking place as the character is being born. Where Little Computer People had players interact explicitly with the characters and The Sims made them some kind of unseen force ordering the characters to talk with each other, watch television or burn their house down, the character in Alter Ego is controlled directly in a choose-your-own-adventure fashion.

Instead of daily routine, it focused on memorable events and emotional responses toward them.

Instead of animations depicting a character waling around the house, Alter Ego went for minimal (even for a Commodore 64 game from 1986) graphics and a lot of text.

A year later Activision would release a very different take on the life simulation genre: Alter Ego. This style of gameplay with no defined victory conditions, focus on daily activities and the player giving tasks to the characters who may or may not actually go through with them can be traced back to a Commodore 64 game known as Little Computer People released in 1985 by Activision. The life simulation genre has gained a decent following in the West (especially among casual gamers) with the hit series The Sims and its imitators.

Alter ego game personality test