You are in a warm, dark, comfortable place. This has been your place since you became aware that you are alive. It's almost time to enter a different world now.
In 1986, Activision published a roleplaying computer game called
Alter Ego. Unlike the action and fantasy titles that ruled the day, this game simulated the course of a single ordinary life. Beginning at birth, players navigated a series of vignettes: learning to crawl, reacting to strangers, getting a first haircut. The outcome of each scenario subtly influenced one's path, and with every choice players slowly progressed through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
Graphically minimalist -- one's lifestream is represented by simple icons, and the scenarios are all text -- the game was nevertheless engaging, describing the world in a playful, good-natured tone tinged by darkness and melancholy. And it had quite a pedigree; developer and psychology PhD
Peter Favaro interviewed hundreds of people on their most memorable life experiences to generate the game's 1,200 pages of material. Unfortunately for Dr. Favaro, the game didn't sell very well. But it lives on through the web --
PlayAlterEgo.com offers a full copy of the game free to play in your browser, and the same port is available as a $5 app for
iPhone and
Android.
More: Port discussion group -
Wishlist -
Vintage review - Original game manual (
text or
scans)
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 31, 2010 -
46 comments
Long before Chelsea Piers was a sporting complex and the South Street Seaport a mall, the city was lined with active piers. The city's residents were amply employed by the shipping trade, but containerization needed more land than would ever be available in the city: Massive ports sprouted in Elizabeth and Newark, and ships disappeared from the city. Efficient cranes replaced longshoremen, and the time in port for ships shrank from about a week to about a day.
"The technology changed the geography," says William Fensterer, a chaplain who has been with SIH almost since its new building opened in 1964. "It doesn't look like On the Waterfront anymore," he adds. When he started out, he says, he would wander on foot from pier to pier in Manhattan and Brooklyn and board ships, with nary a guard in site. But those piers have largely vanished.
And along with them, the seafarer, once ubiquitous in New York, has become invisible.
posted by jason's_planet
on Dec 18, 2009 -
14 comments
Your iPod is Doomed! Or it can be, it can also be
Zelda'ed if you prefer!
ipodlinux.org has ported Linux to the iPod (for Linux, Windows and Mac) and, once its installed, you can load up all
kinds of good stuff including the aforementioned Doom, as well as the entire
Wiki or use your iPod as a
Gameboy! And all without screwing up your existing music files (though there are no guarantees).
posted by fenriq
on Jun 21, 2006 -
32 comments
Stop Wining Laddie - And Pass the Macallan! Why bother with sissy wines and beers when you can have whisky all through your meal? A new trend in dining is pairing
spirits and cocktails with food. Russian aristocrats still refuse to drink vodka unaccompanied by comestibles while modern Italians and Americans
cook with it. The Japanese love their straight Cognac and Chivas with everything bar sashimi and eccentric old Englishmen
stick with Port from start to finish. I guess they're all on to something, no? In case they're not, here, by way of consolation, is a wonderful interactive
food and wine matcher for the dullards and traditionalists among us. Cheers!
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Nov 5, 2002 -
15 comments
Got a windows box? Think your machine is secure?
You're probably not. This is a nice free port scanner utility for wintel boxes, give it a test and make sure you don't have any weird services running.
posted by mathowie
on Dec 7, 1999 -
0 comments
