''Alter Ego'' is part roleplaying and part life simulator released for AppleII, {{Commodore 64}}, {{MS-DOS}} and MacOS and created by {{Activision}} in 1986. It was first released with a male version and later re-released with a female version. The game is all about [[AnAdventurerIsYou you]] and how you live your life, making decisions that will make or break you as you grow up. The game begins with a personality test featuring a series of true and false questions to make up your personality. Afterwards, you will constantly make decisions of how you feel or act to scenarios, starting from your birth and continuing off through your Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence, Young Adulthood, Adulthood, Middle Age and Old Age chapters of your life. The goal is to live your life as long and as fulfilling as possible, although [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential it certainly doesn't stop you from trying to off yourself as early and painfully as possible.]]

Not to be confused with [[BeneathTheMask tropes]] [[ADarkerMe pertaining to]] [[EvilTwin an alter ego]], nor with a different game of the same name released for the PC and {{Wii}}.
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!!! This game provides examples of:

* {{Abandonware}}: Both the female and male versions are now distributed for easy download as this. There's even [[http://www.playalterego.com/alterego/ a version playable online]].
* [[spoiler: AccidentalPervert]]: [[spoiler:The man who gropes your spouse. He had cerebral palsy and the groping was an accidental involuntary movement for which he would've apologized if you don't make a scene.]]
* ActionGirl: You (played more straight in the female version).
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Mentioned once or twice. 
* AloneWithThePsycho: In the Childhood chapter, it is possible for you to get kidnapped by a man who had a history of torturing and killing children. [[spoiler:There is just as good a chance of you being tortured and killed as there is of the police catching the guy and saving you.]]
* {{Angrish}}: Your dad during the Childhood chapter against the lawnmower. As you are very young at the time [[ChildrenAreInnocent and none the wiser to bad language yet]], you can choose to mimic the typical angrishness your dad would show to his lawnmower named [[SymbolSwearing $@*%#]].
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:The very last scenario in the Old Age chapter makes you live the memories of your life as you go through this.]]
* AxeCrazy: During an after-school fight with a violent boy in your Childhood stage, there is a chance the boy will pull out a knife after you punched him and attempt to stab you with it, being stopped in doing so by a teacher who rescues you. [[CurbStompBattle However, in the times this doesn't turn violent, the boy will instead be laughed at and run away crying upon being punched.]] Also, in your Adult stage, there is a maniac driver who will nearly crash into you [[spoiler:and further attempt to kill you by either running you off the road or shooting you if you provoke him]].
* BeYourself: What the narrator encourages you to do, especially if you made a choice of following the popular crowd.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: You can be a very nice character and yet, if your stat fits, wipe the floor with bully-blood. Your mom also applies, especially beyond Infancy.
* BigFun: Louis, a big boy you meet in your Adolescence stage. [[spoiler:The fun comes when you choose to be nice to him and invite him to your party despite your Jerkass friends saying otherwise due to his weight, where you become good friends with him and his mother will invite you and him to a trip to Hawaii.]]
* BreakTheCutie or BreakTheHaughty: Both you and numerous other characters you'll directly influence.
* CanonDiscontinuity: Within the game. You can do a lot of really huge events from being hailed as a hero to being a beloved rock-star in a band, or to have been arrested for selling drugs or setting your house on fire. Other than alter your stats, most of what you do will rarely ever be mentioned again beyond the scenario they took place in.
* {{Casanova}}: You, especially during your Childhood, Adolescence and Adulthood chapters.
* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: One of the scenarios involve your friends asking whether you've seen a show you weren't able to watch. You can then bluff them either on how you've seen the show or the reason why you didn't, but if your stats don't meet up it leads to this.
* CutAndPasteEnvironments: Only a few scenarios (not including gender-specific ones so you won't have cases like all female characters having odd penile health scares) were unique or changed between the male and female versions. An in-story version also applies to some of the scenarios you had as a child and your own child will have growing up, only you're viewing them in different perspectives.
* DarkAndTroubledPast: You can do a ''lot'' of dangerous things in your childhood that can lead you to nearly getting yourself killed or harming or injuring others. However, beyond stat-reasons, they'll hardly ever be brought up again.
* DeadpanSnarker: The Narrator and sometimes you. 
* DespairEventHorizon: [[spoiler:In the Middle Age chapter, a scenario involves your spouse trying to impose a specific diet on you to keep you healthy. If you cheat on your diet with too many things on the side, you'll die. What adds more insult to injury, however, was at the time your spouse isn't home and thus didn't receive the call from the police about your death, and she had to learn of your death and cause of death from her neighbors. Afterward, your spouse was so broken that she needed to be rehabilitated and medicated to move on.]]
* DiedHappilyEverAfter: [[spoiler:You at the last scenario in the Old Age chapter.]]
* DidNotDoTheResearch: Sometimes the narrator to the player. It is very much possible to play a chapter of your life as someone who [[ArsonMurderAndJayWalking lies, cheats, steals, picks constant fights, and was late watching the Superduck marathon special]], and yet your final review for that chapter describes you as "a kid who[m] your mom can trust in a crowded department store" and "very gentle and respectful to others".
** In some scenarios where you make yourself suicidal, you are given the option of either going through with it, or changing your mind and getting help. No matter which you choose, the narrator informs you that suicide is an act of anger and revenge. [[SarcasmMode Because, you know, mental illness and depression totally don't play a part at all.]] Granted, the game ''was'' written in the eighties when the psychology behind the reasons for suicide wasn't as widely understood as it is today, but it still comes off as ''very'' ignorant of what survivors of depression and suicide actually go through.
* DisproportionateRetribution: In some instances where some NPC screws you over, you have the option of getting back at him. However, sometimes what the character did to you (such as a girl giving you "the look" because she's secretly having a crush on you yet shows it in a way a 5-year-old {{Tsundere}} would) and what you do to them (such as shoving said girl so hard from behind that she injures her face when she fell), well... 
* DrivenToSuicide: You can drive yourself into a suicidal mood and kill yourself, accidentally or intentionally. [[spoiler: There is also the old lady you meet in your Adolescence, whom previously lost her husband and son in an accident that you won't know of unless you befriend her. Taunt her instead, and she'll wish herself to die, passing away a week later]]. Johnny, your suicidal friend in Adolescence, also counts [[spoiler:who can be saved if you act quickly, or successfully kill himself if you fail]].
* DoesNotUnderstandSarcasm: Your date's father [[spoiler:averts this trope amazingly if you respond to his questions about his child by implying you'll spend all night feeling her up and hope to have sex before the night ends. [[YouBastard Whether you were really sarcastic or not]]]].
* MrFanservice: Both you in certain events (the boy-band scenario, for instance), and the wish fulfillment your spouse would dream up, especially in Adulthood and Middle Age.
* FakeDifficulty: Some of the scenarios are a bit more difficult to go through without a bad result because either vital information was withheld from you, or because the result is luck-based. [[spoiler: Such as how when you decide to chat with your date when it's mentioned forward attempts cause them to clam up, you aren't told until after you talk that you've had your hand on their leg the entire time, or when you're supposed to guess the color of a car between white and red, unaware of what color the car was or that it was snowing at the time.]]
* FamilyVersusCareer: Certain events ask whether you want to make major moves or choices in your career that'll improve your job but cause you to neglect your family. Your spouse also has a potential event of attending college even if it means spending less time with you or her work (thus you can feel neglected and you'll have fewer resources).
* CampGay / [[spoiler:CampStraight]]: Mr. Andre, whom you and your friends mistake for [[CampGay an obviously gay man]]. [[spoiler:If you choose to help him after school, you learn he is, in fact, straight, and has a wife and a daughter around your age at the time who the narrator puts great effort in pointing out she is incredibly attractive.]]
* DrillSergeantNasty: Mr. Black
* FinalExamBoss: Some of the intelligence scenarios in the Childhood and Adolescence chapters are tests that raise or lower your intelligence stat if you get the answers correct or incorrect.
* FirstNameBasis or LastNameBasis: You, depending on what name you enter and if you chose to enter one or both names.
* ForTheLulz: Some of the instances you want to do something stupid or bad can lead to this.
* GayOption: So far averted, but the online version may add it in. Eventually. 
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: When visiting the fortune teller, (who has a vaguely Eastern European Accent),you are not prompted with the usual responces of "Yes or "No", but instead, "Da" or "Nyet". 
* HelloInsertNameHere 
* HighSchoolSweetHearts: In the male version, if you dated with or went steady with a girl during your Adolescence years.
* InfantImmortality: Can get [[AvertedTrope averted hard]] several times throughout the Infancy and Adolescence years.
* InnocentInaccurate: Your experiences with the death of your pet fish and the dishwasher's or lawnmower's "name".
* {{Jerkass}}: You, if you feel so inclined.
* JerkassFacade: Sometimes if you pull off jerkish moves and either fail to act tough or follow up with a not-so-jerkish move, the narrator is convinced this is you.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: It is possible to be a complete dick the majority of the game and still perform key events that would either make you a hero or save someone else's life.
* KidsAreCruel: The encounter with Louis/Louise in your Childhood years. You can either play this straight, or subvert it. [[spoiler: Subverting it will earn you a more uplifting ending to the scenario than playing it straight.]]
** Another example of this takes place in infancy when you are playing in the sandbox. Another, more aggressive, child will come up to you and attempt to steal your toy. In the resulting fight, it is possible for the kid to start beating you over the head with your own toy. (Which is made of metal.) It's quite brutal, and the kid can ''beat you to death''.
** An even better example: the "witch" woman. [[spoiler: You can end up bullying her to death. Or not, of course.]]
* TheManyDeathsOfYou: It's possible to die of old age, it's possible to be buried in a landfill by a child molester, it's possible to commit suicide. HaveANiceDeath.
* MissConception: This can be [[InvokedTrope invoked]] and then {{lampshaded}} in a scenario with your boyfriend/girlfriend in your adult years, wherein you don't have a condom and have to decide whether to go through with sleeping with them or not. If you choose to assure your boyfriend/girlfriend that it's okay as long as you use the "pull out" method, the narrator will lecture you on it.
* MoodWhiplash: It is possible for you to play a character who is very happy and upbeat about life, and yet still encounter scenarios portraying you as clinically depressed. You can also have the inverse, as there are no penalties for playing a suicidal character who is extremely happy or responds happily during a specific scenario.
* NeverGotToSayGoodbye: If you died prematurely, the narrator sometimes remarks that your family and friends felt this way (especially during the more sudden deaths).
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: A lot of the times you try to fix something, like an appliance, you either make it worse before it gets better (if your stats meet the mark) or make it guaranteed to be impossible to repair afterward. You can also break ''yourself'' in the long run [[spoiler:and at one point if you get brave enough to set a piece of paper on fire, you have a chance of burning your house down]].
* NoFairCheating: If your character does something bad, such as shoplift or literally cheating (on tests), and he either has [[CantGetAwayWithNuthin a very strong reputation of being bad]] or [[VillainBall never had a history of being bad up till now]], the player will very likely be caught for anything and be punished.
* NotSoHarmless: Even as a baby, you are perfectly capable of punching a drunk man hard in the nose or biting a big bully on the hand to defend yourself (even though the narrator makes an effort to point out that at your age you shouldn't ignore the fact your family can protect you as well).
* PlayingDoctor: As a boy in the childhood stage, you can do this with a girl [[spoiler:it goes bad for you if you go with it]].
* PleaseWakeUp: In the Childhood stage, you own a pet goldfish named Gabriella, whom you find one morning to have stopped moving. You can choose to tell your mother about it who will explain to you that she died, but you can also choose to keep her where you will hide her body in your drawers, occasionally put her back in the tank to see if she moves, and even try to forcefeed food in her mouth before you eventually understand she'll never move.
* PopQuiz: The game begins with one made entirely of true/false questions.
* PrecisionFStrike: Although you never say anything explicit outright ([[SymbolSwearing it's always symbol-censored]]), you can make precision swear strikes as young as in the Childhood chapter (although with punishment) onward, where in Adulthood it is used for wittier remarks with fewer backfires.
* RapeAsBackstory: Only in the male version, but [[spoiler:you can apply for a job that involves you starring in adult movies, actively engaging in sex in Adolescence. However, it turns out the studio owner is a crook and you are constantly raped and humiliated while he rolls the tape, ending with your boss kicking you out without pay while telling you you're lucky he's letting you live, followed by him disappearing without a trace if you tell your parents or the police.]] How straight this trope plays, however, varies because [[CanonDiscontinuity it is never brought up again after the scenario ends]].
* RatedMForMoney: The game didn't sell well as most parents had raised eyebrows of the game's very visible warning that it has strong sexual themes. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin It's right]], but the game immediately gives you a heads up if you try to trigger a scenario with said sexual themes (and won't penalize you if you skip them), and the content you see isn't anything worse or any more explicit than you can find in a sex-ed class (besides sexual encounters with your spouse or someone else, for instance, a lot of these events involved you just beginning to learn about sexuality as you're growing up).
* SelfDeprecation: A lot of the instances you become depressed are when you chose depressing or degrading responses or focus on your lack of self-worth or self-confidence rather than from after-results of wrong choices.
* ShotgunWedding: If you play as a female, in your Adolescent years you will have a friend who will get pregnant, marry her boyfriend, and invite you to the wedding. It's never really stated as to whether the wedding was the couple's decision together, or if was a totally straight shotgun wedding decided by their parents.
* SupremeChef: You can potentially be one in Adulthood where you try to think of the right ingredient to add to make a dish your family and friends rave about. [[spoiler:If the RandomNumberGod agrees with you, you can become an overnight fast food sensation as well.]]
* SmugSnake: Sometimes you, other times the narrator.
* TakeThat: Sometimes, if you try to go against something the narrator really, ''really'' tries hard to make you go for, the narrator will pull this on you to either [[ButThouMust make your path null or to make you go to their path anyways.]] [[spoiler:An example is in Childhood, where you can choose to watch a new ''Superduck'' epsiode or help your dad with yard work. Insist on doing the former instead of bonding with your dad with the latter, and the narrator will say, "The episode was a ''repeat'', so there!"]]
* TemptingFate: So many, ''many'' times you can do so that some choices are outright labeled "push your luck".
* ThisIsForEmphasisBitch: The crazy driver in the Adulthood chapter in the female version [[spoiler:right after he runs you into a ditch and before he shoots you to death]].
* {{Tsundere}}: You have certain scenarios where you can first make hostile responses and then follow up with more gentle ones, or you can choose to be hostile to some and gentle to others.
* VideoGameCaringPotential AND VideoGameCrueltyPotential: Either can be invoked. You can either play as a totally caring person with a great life, or consistently screw yourself and others over for the lulz.
* WombLevel: The very first scenario you play involves your birth [[spoiler:and whether you want to be born peacefully, to be born as painfully as possible, or to stay inside your mother for so long that you force her to have a C-section]].
* YouWouldmakeAGreatModel

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7th Mar '12 11:47:29 PM DragonQuestZ

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That's just a mom getting angry at a costume choice at the time, not looking at it through hindsight.

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28th Feb '12 4:35:17 PM Blatch

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Just a minor correction.

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17th Feb '12 10:40:47 AM Goldstone

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