#ego rex

ALTER EGO (clicker game)

ALTER EGO (clicker game)

(My draft didn’t save so this is kinda scuffed :c)

I needed a place to rant about this app. It's this "self discovery tapping game" where you talk to two entities Ego Rex and Es while reading (or, well, tapping) books to progress the game.

I’m not familiar with most of the books, but the ones I am familiar with have themes of humanity, madness, and existence in general. (Ex: No Longer Human, Alice in Wonderland, Works of Edgar Allan Poe, etc)

As you progress the game, quotes from your personality quiz results and the books you’ve read show up on the screen. There’s six personality quizzes.

The two entities, Es and Ego Rex, represent the duality between impulse and conformity. As you talk to Es, they tell you about a being called Façade who you eventually learn to be Ego Rex.

Along with the two conflicting views, the questions you’re asked reflect that as well. The personality quizzes don’t affect the plot, but on casual chats with Es, they would ask you questions about the world inside the game. The options are between three things: 1. Give in to impulse, 2. Conform to society, and 3. A vague middle ground.

I…can’t remember the point of me ranting about all of this, but I just wanted to share this cool game. The personality quizzes aren’t 100% accurate, but when you get an answer that matches you, it reads you to filth.

Fandoms: Gravity Falls (tv show) and Alter Ego (game/app by Caramel Column) (one of these is wildly more popular than the other but both are worth checking out) (There's no way I'm the only person who likes both GF and Alter Ego, right?) (spoilers for both fandoms btw)

:readmore: So, I think that Es' realm operates a lot like the GF's mindscape, because Es' realm is her mindscape. The biggest indicator is the greyscale coloring of it all, however now that I'm thinking about it there are many, many things that prove my point. In this essay I will.....(yeah you get the point) Like in Gravity Falls, Es' mindscape is empty unless someone enters it, which explains why there are only 3 entities: Es, Ego Rex (whom we'll get to later), and the player (known to both as the wanderer.) Es explains that she's been alone with Ego Rex for a long while, and wasn't expecting anyone else when the wanderer arrives. The next thing that points to the game being set in Es' mindscape is the thought bubbles. They take on physical form like memories and other things can in GF mindscapes, and as the game progresses the thought's form and words adapt to Es' mental and emotional state. During the game, Es stays in her room, which is nothing but filled to the brim with bookshelves full of books. In GF, mindscapes contain things that are important to a person, such as Stan's mindscape containing the Mystery Shack. Books are obviously important to Es, as whenever she is not talking to the wanderer she is reading constantly (as is the wanderer, but that's another thing.) and in both the ID and Super Ego paths of the game she loses the ability to read, which obviously distresses her. In GF, anyone can manipulate things/summon items in the mindscape. No where in the game is a sink and soap shown, yet during the Super Ego path Es feels like her hands are dirty and remarks to the wanderer that she has washed her hands myriad times.