Games and the mostly young people who played them would come to dominate Favaro’s years at Hofstra.Īs arcades and the Atari VCS grew in popularity over the course of those years, an anti-videogame hysteria grew in response. One of the last things we said about video games that day was that they would be fun to study in some small research projects. I also wondered what kinds of motor and reflex skills the games were training in us. They took us away from the pressure of graduate school for a short time and gave us a chance to act out some of our competitive urges. In his first year as a graduate student of Clinical Psychology at Long Island’s Hofstra University, he and another student developed an obsession with the early standup arcade game Space Wars (a direct descendent of that granddaddy of all arcade games, MIT’s Space War).ĭuring one of the many psychological discussions which developed around those sessions, I wondered whether the games served some kind of therapeutic function for us. Favaro started blending computers with psychology some eight years before Activision published his groundbreaking “life simulator” Alter Ego. Every little bit helps keep this excellent game alive.Peter J. You can play it for free in your browser right here! If you play the game and like it, please do consider donating some to keep the game online. This game sounds interesting! Where can I get it? I'm going to skip over most of the "Are you sure?" choices, just to speed things along. When I come to a choice in the game (and there are a lot of those) I'll wait for a few forumites to weigh in, and go with the most popular choice. I'm modeling the thread after anowack's excellent Let's Play Lone Wolf series. There's a wishlist of things that aren't in the game that would be added if the developer had time, though the wishlist hasn't changed at all since I first played the game when I was in high school, so I doubt the game is going to get much of a rewrite. There are also a few things that seem pretty mainstream today that didn't make it into this 80s-era game, like being a single parent or being homosexual. I also don't believe that you can die suddenly, though I could be wrong. You can't sell all your possessions and go parasailing around the world. That is to say, there's no option to join the mafia and shoot up a bank. The game is pretty focused on "normal" American life. I love playing the game by myself, and now I'm interested to see how the decision process changes when a group is running things. There are also little things like making something for dinner or petting your neighbor's dog. There are big things like getting married or becoming seriously ill. Between those times, you play through a series of experiences, choose-your-own-adventure style. The game starts shortly before you are born, and ends with your death. I hope you all enjoy the thread! Here's my intro spiel.Īlter Ego is a life simulation game that came out way back in '86, where you create an alter ego of your very own and re-live life. Hello and welcome to my very first let's play thread! I'm pretty excited, since Alter Ego is a very unique game, and still holds a spot as one of my favorite games of all time.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |