Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Jul 23, 2022

  My playtime on record undersells how long I've played. I spent maybe 6-8 hours on the Demo before release. This game is SO good, it rocks my world, I need to set aside more time to play it. I'm trying so hard not to ramble because I got a veritable flood of happy brain chemicals from the game. TLDR this game has all the features I want it to have, I consider it a diamond in the rough. The core mechanic, "hopping" between hosts, is awesome. It may look like a psychedelic trip in the screenshots but it's quite smooth. You use this to find all sorts of vantage points and solve puzzles, resulting in great "a-ha!" moments. It goes hand-in-hand with the exploration that is also incredibly rewarding. The exploration is great. The levels are big, but not overwhelmingly so. You are not picking up everyone's crap like in a Bethesda game, but the environment is just as interactable. There are about 4 types of items for you to find: your hp/energy pickups, which I have no trouble keeping topped up all the time; and disks and worms, which you spend on permanent upgrades. Each of these upgrade "paths", there are around 8 I think, promises a unique power for you to use. I went straight for the flight power which later upgrades to include a "ramming" ability, which is pretty fun. Physics objects are all over the place for you to use in creative ways. (i.e. for navigation or combat) It reminds me of my limited knowledge of Half Life. Don't be put off by the cliche of "x meets y" when the store page references Portal, there really is a strong brain-bending element to this game that rewards ingenuity. You know how in Zelda you get a key item every dungeon and then all the remaining puzzles are obvious? Well, this game's approach to environmental puzzles and permanent upgrades is like a more clever spin on that, since the various tools can be used for various problems, it's not a 1-to-1. There are pacifist, killer, and total stealth objectives. There is a clear outline of how to achieve these challenges (actually the tutorial system and new player experience is good overall) and a tracker at the end of each level, so when you reach the tracker, you can go back and get the bits you missed. I am REALLY curious to see some challenge runs, maybe that mix-n-match the playstyle challenge with other restrictions. You really can "play the game your way", something that is often promised but almost never delivered. Your goal is basically to clear the level by reaching various sub-objectives. But despite being a game full of robots, there is nothing robotic about this, as you are constantly treated to humorous quips from the (somewhat sentient?) bots you inhabit. There is some really good voice acting that helps brings the world to life. We get humorous names for technology in this world like DADs and CATs. Though the themes are kinda serious, the experience is whimsical too. I got tired of being an edgy assassin boi in Dishonored/Deus Ex, or being deeply alone with the dead in Prey 2017. No, this game has more room for lightheartedness in its fun, I think. I came for the gameplay, stayed for that plus everything else. It is obviously gameplay-first so I was impressed by the depth of everything beyond those technical aspects. This is clearly a passion project, and I'm in awe of it, I hope maybe I can make something similarly inspiring one day. Give it a try if you like its contemporaries or you are just curious, you won't regret it!
• gamedeal user

  Jul 25, 2022

  Excellent game, excellent dev. Probably one of the best immersive sims I've played in a long time. The puzzles in particular were done very well, with many different 'solutions' which give the player a lot of freedom to play how they would like. This may be the inner developer in me talking, but the sound design and overall polish are both top-notch as well.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 25, 2022

  Game presents you with a simulated environment, where almost every element is interactible. It presents you a sandbox, and then offers numerous tools to achieve your goals whichever way you want. It's reminiscent of immersive sims like System Shock, but instead of focusing on rpg-like character progression (the way most modern sims went) it leans more into puzzle-game-like territory, with one major difference - the focus is not, (like in for example Portal) to figure out the one right solution. The game pushes you to employ your creativity instead, making it, i feel, the most similar to Thief 1/Thief 2 in how it encourages you to experiment with tools at your disposal. The most prominent is the ability to possess objects - both enemies, and things like computers or doors, with possessions giving you different opportunities. There is still a character progression system in place, in form of BUG-s, multipurpose bots you can upgrade with collectible floppy disks, giving them new tools such as ability to fly or shoot, a tool that works as a vacuum cleaner, or telekinesis. This system can however be safely ignored if one wishes to do so. There is even an achievement for finishing the game with no BUG upgrades - open ended level design means there are a lot of ways to achieve your goals with minimal BUG usage. I really enjoy the voice acting and writing - it's both funny (my favourite so far being "wrong kind of emu" pun) and engaging (for example, every possessed object can introduce themselves to you, giving you both engaging bits of worldbuilding and presenting a kind of personality) It's worth mentioning how the game rewards exploration. A lot of optional places require you to be creative with how you get inside, and reward you with collectibles that actually feel rewarding - each one has their use, unlike with collectibles in some mainstream games. There are already mentioned floppy disks, but also EGO points you can use for possessing enemies, and many more i won't list here.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 26, 2022

  A Fantastic Game, With Some Rough Edges

  In short, Ctrl Alt Ego is a great game with a unique concept, executed brilliantly, and a worthy buy. The body hopping mechanic combined with its immersive sim elements allows for the player to make up creative solutions to problems on the fly, with each robot's strengths and weaknesses complimenting one another to ensure that there is no one solution that becomes a dominant strategy (at least for now in my playthrough) The level design, while not starting off on its best foot, really starts hitting high points as soon as you get through the levels that were available in the demo, with a ton of really clever moments, especially when attempting to play pacifist. However, some design decisions and/or oversights have left me annoyed at times, and while they are in no way dealbreakers, i feel like i should at least point them out, in a hope that the developer gives an update to the game to make any future players lives just that bit better For context, i am attempting a pacifist/ghost playthough, very slight spoilers ahead, mostly mechanical not story THE ISSUES/GRIEVANCES THAT I HAVE HAD, ORDERED BY HOW EASY THEY COULD BE SOLVED - The stats screens are treated like the unimportant bots in that you can only hop to them when very close, which is quite annoying when you just accidentally exploded a room full of bug traps and are trying to find out if you added to your bots broken counter - Letting the player know that attempting to use a locked door, while controlling a bot that has the key, wont actually let you unlock the door will help alleviate the disappointment for when they actually try - Bug bots do not explode when thrown or have object thrown at them, but explode when landed on by non bugs, which is an annoying lack of consistency - There appear to be some holes in the sound design, most notably being DAD's that make AFAIK no sound at all when idle, even when turning, leading to too many situations of me going into a room looking around for friendlies to get ego from, and next thing i know theres a DAD beam hitting me in the back. on top of that, it would be really really helpful if the enemies made some kind of windup sound indicating when theyre gonna change direction, because there is otherwise no way to tell when an enemy is going to turn if they are turning from a dead stop (cameras, DAD's, etc) - The delay on changing direction when controlling MOM's is really annoying, and doesnt even make sense when changing direction by moving the camera holds no penalty - The hexagonal projection given off by cameras seems unhelpful at letting you determine the actual boundaries of its vision - The wobbling of your aim when firing a MOM's beam feels unfair when your enemies fire at you with perfect aim - Please include the bother meter for enemies while controlling unsafe bots. I think that the scrambled ego perk has some effect on unsafe bots, but am unsure. regardless, there have been a couple too many times where i am in line of sight of a bot, they arent reacting to me, i think im in the clear, and then all of a sudden they can see me. - When engaging with an enemy, there have been a couple of occasions where it just has not been obvious that they are being healed by a matterboy which means you cannot win. I would suggest a change to the enemy energy bar that shows not only are they currently being healed by a matterboy, but that there is a matterboy nearby pre fight, so you dont get into a dad fight only to find out that you literally cannot win - Virtual program counts 'warning' as 'being attacked', which again was disappointing to find out. I would actually suggest splitting the upgrade that lets you go invisible while under attack into 2 parts; a 1 worm upgrade that lets you go invisible while enemy is in 'warning' state, and a 2 worm upgrade that lets you go invisible while being actually attacked - The ego drain function is way too expensive, and is basically useless stock. Keeping it as is while making it cheaper would be broken tho, so i propose that a new upgrade tree be added that determines how much ego you can drain off a single target, starting at 10% of their starting ego, then going 25% 50% and 65%, with the worm cost of the whole program readjusted to accommodate - Picking up objects feels kind of unfinished, and for whatever reason the thing your holding will just occasionally decide its not being held anymore , which is really not fun when the thing youre holding is an impact explosive - Even with filters, selecting what bot to control while in ego mode is just Not A Good Experience. More often than not it treats where youre looking as mere suggestion that it can prompty ignore while it selects a bot thats halfway off the screen and 100 meters away. On top of that friendly bots are often completely ignored when not exclusively filtering for them, and even then it takes a lot for the game to decide to reveal some of them - On both of the levels available in the demo, i attempted to do a clean sweep for the achievement, but in both cases could not find 1 ego remaining in the level, and going around and around a level with a fine tooth comb leads me to believe that either this is a bug and i did find everything, or the final object in both levels is unreasonably difficult to find. In either case, a nice quality of life improvement would be giving the emu itself a skilltree that let you narrow down the remaining bits of friendly ego, and possibly other collectables. - Remote Debugging could have done with a complete redesign. Launch control sufferes a bit from this too, but Remote Debugging really feels like a level from a demo that was made months before the rest of the levels and never got revisited. Ideally the first levels of the game should be the last levels you make, as it means youre putting your best foot forward. But having a linear corridor with the same stationary enemy over and over again is not exactly what i would call 'your best foot forward', which is really a shame because like i mentioned this game past that point has some REALLY good level design, and it would be a shame if someone got turned off from the demo because the last moment they had in it was just going through a corridor and never picking up the full release To anyone that got through this to the end, please note that none of these are real deal breakers, and that the game easily justifies the price (especially during the opening week sale) and i am Absolutely having fun with it, its just that as a hobbyist imsim game dev myself (coming soon 2090), i cant help but notice some things that i felt the need to speak up on, if only to try to help
• gamedeal user

  Aug 3, 2022

  I've been meaning to write a review of this game since I finished the tutorial level and immediately knew I had found something special, but wanted to spend some time engaging with the systems and narrative so I could be sure I was able to really, properly articulate how spectacular Ctrl Alt Ego really is. I think I'm about halfway (or maybe closer to three-fourths) through the game now, and I feel fairly confident in calling this game a genuine landmark in the long-neglected, amorphously defined immersive sim genre. Immersive sims are complex and difficult (which is probably why they're so rare) so I think it also bears pointing out the scale of the developer's accomplishment doing this as an indie dev on their own. The amount of care, effort, and creativity that went into this experience is fucking staggering, and the level of polish feels consonant with something a multi-person, well-budgeted studio would put out. In Ctrl Alt Ego, you're yourself - an identity that exists discretely, and, presumably, a sui generis manifestation of an actual individual (though questions about the substance and materiality of the player's identity is woven throughout the systems and narrative) in a post-singularity world dominated by a robotics company that manufactures devices disembodied egos such as yourself can - or must - inhabit and control. Mechanically, this manifests itself via a possession system that is reminiscent of the Dishonored skill scaled up and extrapolated to it's logical conclusion, where you float around, jumping from one controllable object/robot/item to another in order to interact with the environment. It sounds pretty straightforward and in many ways it is, and, in the tradition of the great immersive sims of eras past, it can be as complex as your level of engagement; you can elegantly, stealthily, and harmlessly complete challenges or brute-force your way through with your weaponized BUG. To that end, Ctrl Alt Ego offers the player a pretty wide range of skills and instruments designed to navigate the fairly large, wonderfully layered levels. While you'll inhabit a number of different robots (there are four that move around and have major utility) you'll mostly spend your time as, appropriately, a BUG. The BUG you occupy can be upgraded via disks, which unlock useful abilities like the shotgun, teleportation, flight, the capacity to remotely move large objects, etc. The disk abilities, in turn, can be upgraded by WORMs, which (in true imsim style) are cleverly scattered around the levels and help incentivize exploration and planning. The primary resource is EGO, which is gathered from user-friendly robots and accessories (like the adorable wee motor, little cameras for selfies, and a bunch of other charming little allies). The secondary resource, which is consumed when using abilities unlocked via disks, is juice - shotgun blasts and flight, for example, expend juice. Taking CTRL of puzzle-relevant hosts like doors, hostile robots, cameras, etc costs EGO and creates a delightful, classically game-y dynamic where balancing your juice, EGO, and health inform decisions about puzzle approaches and routes. It's really just an excellent, thoughtfully fleshed out mechanic that makes engaging with the environment both critical and rewarding. A mysterious narrator guides you via terminals, and the dialogue associated with those terminals is clever, useful, and has a surprisingly well-manifested voiceover. Prompted by tips from the good Doctor Everyman, the player-as-a-disembodied-ego needs to take CTRL of their environment and unravel the mysterious circumstances aboard the beautifully rendered retro-aesthetic space station where the game is set. I'd like to specifically recognize the clever writing and worldbuilding - Ctrl Alt Ego manages to strike a fine narrative balance between humorous and sinister implications that left me hungry for more exposition and delighted whenever I found it. I'd just like to articulate an example of a puzzle that I thought stumped me. I had to open a special door that I couldn't possess. I had scoured all of the adjacent rooms for clues and come up empty. I knew where I had to go and why, but couldn't quite figure out what the solution was. After trying a bunch of things - possessing every camera, maneuvering a little PUP robot (which barks!) to just the right spot, swapping through my various powers, etc, with no success. Finally, in a fit of pique, I picked up an explosive barrel and chucked it right at the offending door - and the blast revealed a special lock that had been stacked underneath some crates I couldn't move manually. Ctrl Alt Ego is essentially a series of "voila!" moments like that and it makes for immensely satisfying moment-to-moment gameplay. I could go on and on - the cleverness of the descriptions associated with various hosts, the spectacularly free-form puzzles and sense of accomplishment associated with progression, the on-the-nose-but-somehow-not-derivative retrofuturistic style, the clean and legible graphics, etc, but I'll close with this: Ctrl Alt Ego is an exemplar of the imsim genre. It's characterized by the sort of accelerating complexity of puzzles matched by the player's capacity to engage with them, the necessity of careful observation and interaction with the game world, and substantial, genuinely creative exposition and worldbuilding that makes these games so distinct. It hits the perfect medium between contemporary tutorializing, with all it's overexplaining and unnecessary waypoints, and old-school inscrutability. The UI is slick and intuitive, though not particularly fancy. It has a few, barely perceptible rough edges - I've only had to load a save due to a glitch once, and the only real persistent issue is it can sometimes be hard to select the right host in EGO mode (but there are filters that facilitate that). There are tons of difficulty options, both direct (easy-hard selection) and indirect (tool-tips, waypoints, etc can be toggled), the former of which has a major effect on resource accessibility and the likelihood a player who isn't good at puzzles (like me) will be frustrated. I'd also like to give a shout-out to the dev for being so responsive to feedback - the wobbly robots caused some motion sickness for other players and they immediately added a stabilization option that removes it, which I actually found helpful myself from time to time. In summary, this game is a rare, singular work of artistic vision that understands the importance of both narrative and mechanical substance. It feels like something a dedicated team with a unique vision spent years building. I don't usually bother writing reviews, but this game deserves it. Buy it at full price. Buy it twice! If you like Deus Ex, Dishonored, and thoughtful science fiction that asks genuine questions about selfhood, identity, and time, you'll find this game is a lot more than the sum of it's parts. 10/10.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 13, 2022

  I'm completely blown away that this entire thing was made by just two people. I normally don't review games, but since I completely lucked into finding this game I'm leaving a review in hopes that it helps more people find it. This was a surprisingly long (my first playthrough was a hair over 13 hours), absolutely incredible immersive sim wrapped up in a funny "you're in a computer" style world. The core loop has you transferring your consciousness through various entities around the world to gain access to new areas/defeat enemies/read "eyepads"/etc, but you'll spend most of your time in a robot called Bug 22. They're the only bug with a disk drive and therefore the only one that can accept upgrades. The upgrades are all available from the start so it's up to you to decide which you want first. I know I missed a few upgrade disks in my playthrough but I still managed to get every upgrade. You can also power up each upgrade with "worms" to reduce to cost to use or increase the effectiveness or even otherwise enhance the upgrades. Aesthetically the game isn't going to win any awards. It's consistent and everything fits within this world, but don't expect AAA sub-surface scattering and ray tracing. Don't let the visuals distract you from the absolutely incredible gameplay, however. The story was surprisingly good, touching on the nature of consciousness without taking itself too seriously. There were a lot of inside-programming/IT jokes (merging commits, visiting the cloud via port 80, bad password management, etc.). I also really enjoyed how the controls actually were part of the joke: in order to take "control" of other entities, you push CTRL; if you want to "shift" objects around, you push SHIFT; to download an "alternate" version of yourself (aka teleport) you use ALT. I really appreciated how if you were thorough you could discover many different solutions to the same problem. For example to get through a locked door, you might find a vent that only a certain type of robot can fit through to get around it, but the vent is blocked by a heavy box that you can move (if you have the right upgrade) or destroy (if you have the right upgrade, or you could take control of a hostile robot to use their weapon to remove the box), or you can use the grate on the ceiling (if you have boosters), or you could take control of a camera and jump around from entity to entity to try to get an angle on the door lock and open it from the other side. According to the achievements the entire game should be playable without any upgrades, completely pacifist, or ghost. I was not skilled enough to do any of those, but it's a sign of a quality immersive sim that those are all available. I'll definitely be coming back to this to try levels again with different tools. tl;dr: I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the immersive sim genre.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 17, 2022

  Narratively it makes sense that transferring your consciousness between objects is disorienting and nauseating. Causing the player to be disoriented and nauseated every time you do so, which is often, is a bold artistic choice. Not many are willing to intentionally harm their audience as part of the piece. This is partly because most audiences do not enjoy being harmed. If you are strong of will, and stomach, give this game a look. You'll find me lying in a dark room until I stop feeling sick.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 28, 2022

  Nota 9: Excelente. A idéia de assumir outros corpos e com isso ter acesso a diferentes habilidades, me lembrou um pouco do Space Station Silicon Valley (N64). É um jogo inteligente, que mostra que para inovar é preciso correr riscos, e que em um videogame, as mecânicas são mais importantes do que os gráficos. Uma grande surpresa e digno de ser incluído no rol dos melhores "immersive sims".
• gamedeal user

  Sep 8, 2022

  Great game, holds up well against other imsims. Really flexed my creativity, and it wasn't until I realized that I wasn't going for a pacifist run that I really opened up. Goodness, I already feel nostalgic for the early levels. If you're playing on Strict, enemies regen their health fairly quickly, so it's a game of "you come at the king, you best not miss." Which actually isn't THAT difficult; you can do a lot of damage with a fair bit of preparation. This ain't your pappy's wave shooter, you gotta scout out your enemies, see if they've got any supporting healers, hack the healers, isolate your prey. Lock them in a transparent room of containers. May be tempted to scratch at the walls, make them know fear, but that'll activate their onboard shields, making it that much harder. No, the prison is the FINAL step in executing these lesser beings. The moment they glanced even the slightest hint that something was wrong was the last moment of their pathetic life. They bump into the box to get around it, boom. Box blows up, rest of the walls blow up, they blow up, you blow up, you load a save and take a few steps back beforehand, they blow up, you rush in with a shotgun and cap their head clean off, then cannibalize their "corpse" for that sweet, sweet fuel. Lesser difficulties you'll have great success chucking boxes and explosive barrels at people, no tricks, but on Strict they'll heal the damage you do by the time you've picked up a second box to throw. I also ended with well over 200 ego stashed away, so as long as you're not "wasting" it with excessive revives, you'll not need to fret too hard over currency. All in all, this is a great game worth your time and worth your mind.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 11, 2022

  I've played a good number of immersive sims and this stands comfortably among the best of them. The visuals are simple but consistent and fit the setting well, and that's about the only vague complaint I have. There's a good amount of variety as well, and some of the environments in the back half of the game get very big and twisty. Generally speaking, the game feels very smooth to play; the little interactions and UX elements feel refined and honed to keep the player moving. I also ended up liking the story, script, humor, music, and even the vast majority of the vocal performance. It stayed charming and intriguing the whole way through. Definitely check out the demo. If you like the demo, I bet you will like the whole game.