Caramel Column Inc. is a Japanese indie game development company led by Maki Ono and is well known for some of its indie titles such as “Insectarium Alternative March,” a game about investigating strange creatures called Urbanites and “Aznana,” a game about a boy and a disconnected head named Aznana attempting to leave the town they find themselves in. However, their most successful game is “Alter Ego,” a self-introspection game about identity.
The base premise of the game is that of the player, known as the Wanderer, finding themselves inside of a monochromatic library world, with its librarian, Es. There is also a separate character, named Ego Rex, who seems to be some form of higher power that the player interacts with at several stages of progression through the game. The game progresses in conversations between the player and Es, where she may perform personality tests for the player.
The game’s symbolism borrows strongly from that of Freudian psychology, with Es representing the ID, which is the source of instinctual needs and desires. As the game progresses, the player learns of the chaotic nature of Es and her violent impulses. If the player makes choices that appeal to her impulses, she grows more aggressive and eventually leads to her destroying the library world of the game. Ego Rex is representative of the SuperEgo, which internalizes ideals and values, acting like a moral compass. If the player makes choices that appeal to him, Es will slowly be driven into a depressive state and eventually leads to her being erased from the world.
The Wanderer is representative of the Ego, which is the conscious self and balances between the ID and the SuperEgo. If the player makes choices that are more compromising, it leads to the game’s true end where Es doesn’t need to conform to Ego Rex’s demands, nor give into her violent urges. Through this structure, the game explores Es and the rest of the game’s cast as characters and every bit of their personalities in a way that creates a truly interesting and introspective character dynamic.
