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Alternate Reality (computer game)
Encyclopedia
Alternate Reality is an unfinished computer role-playing game (RPG) series that has achieved cult status among many fans of RPGs. It was created by Philip Price
, who formed a development company
called Paradise Programming. Published
by Datasoft
AR: The City was released in 1985 and AR: The Dungeon was released in 1987. Price was unable to complete the second game in the series, so The Dungeon was actually finished by Ken Jordan and Dan Pinal. Gary Gilbertson
created the music for both games.
The end of the series was supposed to conclude with the player discovering everyone's true bodies on the ship cocooned and effectively frozen, and that the ship is really a "pleasure world" of some kind for the aliens, leading to the player's ultimate decision of what to do to the ship, to the aliens, or even whether to return to Earth. However, the series was never completed.
During the late 90s, Price intended to produce an MMORPG
version of the game called Alternate Reality Online or ARO, and teamed with Monolith
. The deal ended due to lack of funds to start serious development on the project. Monolith originally had funds, but needed the funds for existing games in the pipeline. Monolith tried to find an external publisher to fund the game, but the number of technical innovations, coupled with an unknown market for MMORPG's, made it difficult to find publishers willing to risk funding. The publication deal ended and the rights to the game were returned due to no funds. Monolith went on years later to create The Matrix Online
.
The first break from this outline was when Datasoft forced the release of The City early, and The Dungeon which would have been included, became its own release. Nonetheless, the design ambitiously planned to allow the player to move between these games, so that, for example, when one attempted to leave the confines of The City, one was prompted to "Insert disk #1 of Alternate Reality: The Wilderness". Unfortunately, the planned seamless migration never worked out, in large part because the Datasoft developers did not implement the idea, so only the Atari 8 Bit city had the ability to boot sequels. Since the final coding of the sequels was done by Datasoft, the matching code was not put into any of the sequels, including the Atari 8 bit dungeon.
Although The Dungeon was completed and released, work on the remaining 5 installments never moved beyond theoretical outlines. A brief summary of these outlines follows:
, only years earlier).
The ships computer can even permit the images to interact with solid/material components of the ship. The player would learn that his or her own body was itself just an image, with the actual body lying in a cocoon. The question of the nature of reality would be raised, leading to questions such as what is a soul? What is experience? The player has experienced the entire ordeal through the illusionary image ever since the kidnapping.
In the end, the player would be left with many choices. One could continue to live on as the image body, a nearly immortal life, but knowing that these aliens have done this and can watch, feel, and experience whatever is done. In essence, the player is their entertainment. They have become jaded by luxury, power and knowledge and use lesser beings to regain some of the passions of life. Hence, one could instead cut off this channel, though the alien beings may destroy the ship, or even Earth itself. One could escape in a smaller ship (as compared to the massive Alternate Reality entertainment world) and go back to Earth. One could even destroy the planet, or bring it back to earth to let scientists learn from it. There would be many choices (including selling out humanity), but these would be the decisions the player would have to make at the end of the journey.
first-person perspective, with a small window taking up about 1/9 of the screen at the center. The player controlled one character who had an absolute minimum of visual representation—the closest to a character image to be found was when one encountered a "doppelganger" monster. The 3D used was not like other contemporary 3D graphics either. Most other 3D first-person games used static graphics to represent the walls, meaning the player could only move one tile at a time. However, in this game the rate of travel depended on the character's speed, and moved incrementally along the tile. Distant walls would slowly come in to focus rather than suddenly appear.
Alternate Reality had a raycasting engine equalling that of Wolfenstein 3D
, which came seven years later, but was recognized for popularizing the system. However, the design implemented right-angle movement only, thus hiding the revolutionary technology.
Another upshot of the fact that the graphics were rendered rather than simple images is that while the sun
was setting, the entire palette of colors changed convincingly. Distant waterfall
s moved, and the rain was realistically rendered.
The first game, The City, also featured a novel anti-copying technique. The program disks could be copied though the standard methods and the copy would appear to work. However not long after the player began the game, their character would become weaker and weaker and then die from an apparent disease. The Dungeon, if loaded with a pirated copy, featured two "FBI agents" as encounters during the beginning of the game, who attacked with "the long arm of the law". The two agents were overly powerful and unbeatable, so as to kill the character before being able to play the game. Unfortunately due to a bug the other way to run into these characters was to try to transfer over a character from the city. (So in effect it was impossible to actually transfer a character over from the city to the dungeon without mailing in the disks to be exchanged for a fixed version.)
, drunkenness and disease tricked the perceived stats, or temporarily or permanently changed them. In fact, the player never chose an alignment, but came to learn it through how other characters treated them in the game.
Among these hidden stats were things to keep track of how hungry, tired, thirsty, hot or cold, or encumbered the character was. Fifteen years before The Sims
, this game managed the character's well-being by tracking more than just their hit points. In fact, this game shared many game play aspects with The Sims.
The Sims uses several constantly diminishing stats: hunger, happiness, etc. and balances the player's ability to fulfill them with the length of time it takes to accomplish tasks. Alternate Reality, similarly, required the player to balance all of these things. While food and water could be carried, supplies were limited and the player would have to find or purchase new packets. The character could only sleep in an Inn, so if the player was off adventuring and the character started to get hungry and tired, they'd have to return to a safe area before the player could fulfill these needs.
Another feature was the non-linear game play, and extremely large game world that could be explored at will, rather than according to how the game expected.
Due to budget constraints, the first game was released, essentially, without a plot. Only in the second installment were any elements of a traditional RPG plot added in, but the player could (and probably did) spend days playing before realizing the importance of any of their actions. This was nearly two decades before Grand Theft Auto III
would be called revolutionary for offering the same feature.
The bottom of the screen alternated depending on user choice and situation between consumables like food, water, money, and torches, equipment, combat options, spells, and other things. The sides held the compass
at left (when the player had one) and directional arrows at right.
The gameplay of both games is reminiscent of other RPGs but more sophisticated than its peers—while the player wandered around gaining levels and equipment, there were things like a finite number of items in the world, and items stolen could be regained. Near overflows of memory from possessing too many items resulted in an encounter with The Devourer, a fearsome creature that sucked items from the player, and thus removed them from memory. Death was permissible and mostly uncheatable since the game cleverly marked the character as dead as soon as the user started and only let the character to become "alive" once they saved. (It was possible to "revive" a lost character, but it caused a loss in one of the character's stats.)
to produce more sophisticated sounds than it was designed to do. AR used them to produce an FM orchestra with several tunes, complete with karaoke
-type lyrics that the player could sing along to. Audio cues were also used for simple things like indicating a street was crowded, or the sound of the blacksmith
's hammer striking a sword
.
of home computer
s, but were ported
to other platforms
as well. http://www.eobet.com/alternate-reality/alt-reality_FAQ.txt
. The graphics were praised for its attention to detail, as was the expansive city to explore. On the other hand, the game has no goal; once the city is painfully mapped out, the only thing left to do is monotonously battle enemies in preparation for The Dungeon. A later review of The Dungeon described the game as "a big improvement over City, but it is still ultimately unsatisfying." While the graphics were much-improved, especially on 8-bit versions, the game lacked any sense of accomplishment. The review noted starting characters from scratch is nearly impossible, and several aspects of the game arbitrarily punished the players, such as the unbeatable Devourer which eats items if the player has too many, and the reduction of stats when playing from a backed-up save.
Alternate Reality: The City received a mini-review in 1988 in Dragon
#131 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the Macintosh version of the game 3 out of 5 stars, and the Atari ST version 3 stars. Alternate Reality: The City and Alternate Reality: The Dungeon were both the subject of the feature review Dragon #135. The reviewers gave Alternate Reality: The City 3 stars, and Alternate Reality: The Dungeon 2½ stars.
Philip Price
Philip Price is best known for computer game designs and creative programming done using the Atari 8-bit family of home computers, and was one of the founders of Paradise Programming...
, who formed a development company
Video game developer
A video game developer is a software developer that creates video games. A developer may specialize in a certain video game console, such as Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3, or may develop for a variety of systems, including personal computers.Most developers also...
called Paradise Programming. Published
Video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....
by Datasoft
Datasoft
Datasoft, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher founded in 1980 by Pat Ketchum. Based out of Chatsworth, California, Datasoft ported games from arcade systems to personal computers and acquired licenses for games from famous movies and TV shows....
AR: The City was released in 1985 and AR: The Dungeon was released in 1987. Price was unable to complete the second game in the series, so The Dungeon was actually finished by Ken Jordan and Dan Pinal. Gary Gilbertson
Gary Gilbertson
Gary Gilbertson was a music composer for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. His music made use of the AMP engine for the Atari POKEY chip which was programmed by Philip Price...
created the music for both games.
Concept
The basic concept for the game is intriguing: aliens capture the player from Earth, and suddenly the player is in front of a gate with a slot-machine-like row of rotating numbers of statistics. Stepping through the gate freezes the numbers and turns the player into a new person, putting them into an "alternate reality", hence the name.The end of the series was supposed to conclude with the player discovering everyone's true bodies on the ship cocooned and effectively frozen, and that the ship is really a "pleasure world" of some kind for the aliens, leading to the player's ultimate decision of what to do to the ship, to the aliens, or even whether to return to Earth. However, the series was never completed.
During the late 90s, Price intended to produce an MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
version of the game called Alternate Reality Online or ARO, and teamed with Monolith
Monolith Productions
Monolith Productions is a Kirkland, Washington-based computer game developer. Monolith is also known for the development of the graphical game engine Lithtech, which has been used for most of their games...
. The deal ended due to lack of funds to start serious development on the project. Monolith originally had funds, but needed the funds for existing games in the pipeline. Monolith tried to find an external publisher to fund the game, but the number of technical innovations, coupled with an unknown market for MMORPG's, made it difficult to find publishers willing to risk funding. The publication deal ended and the rights to the game were returned due to no funds. Monolith went on years later to create The Matrix Online
The Matrix Online
The Matrix Online was a massively multiplayer online game developed by Monolith Productions created by Richard Carroll. It was the official continuation of the storyline of the Matrix series of films. The game began closed beta-testing in June 2004 which was then opened for people who pre-ordered...
.
The "Lost" Games
The original outline for the game series included plans for 6 games:- The City
- The Arena
- The Palace
- The Wilderness
- Revelations
- Destiny
The first break from this outline was when Datasoft forced the release of The City early, and The Dungeon which would have been included, became its own release. Nonetheless, the design ambitiously planned to allow the player to move between these games, so that, for example, when one attempted to leave the confines of The City, one was prompted to "Insert disk #1 of Alternate Reality: The Wilderness". Unfortunately, the planned seamless migration never worked out, in large part because the Datasoft developers did not implement the idea, so only the Atari 8 Bit city had the ability to boot sequels. Since the final coding of the sequels was done by Datasoft, the matching code was not put into any of the sequels, including the Atari 8 bit dungeon.
Although The Dungeon was completed and released, work on the remaining 5 installments never moved beyond theoretical outlines. A brief summary of these outlines follows:
The City (and its sewers, which became The Dungeon)
The player is thrust into a new environment (the city of Xebec's Demise) and must learn to survive. While The City is mostly an open area planned to serve as the hub for the game series, The Dungeon was made up of four concentric levels, each one smaller than the one above.The Arena
Slavers would be added to the City/Dungeon in order to capture new gladiators and force them into combat. This was similar to how the player was captured from Earth in the first place, causing the player to once again be thrust into a new environment. The plan also included provisions for players to enter the arena in other ways, e.g., as a spectator or a free man. A limited "character vs. character" mode would allow characters from other saved games to be loaded in and pitted against the current character. Lastly, there would be one or more ways to retire a character into a life of luxury, thus "winning", but players would need to start a new character if they wanted to continue on in the series. Retired characters would then return as opponents faced by any new characters.The Palace
Planned to feature courtly intrigue and the ability to purchase land in the city, with the capability to alter the map and building layouts if one built new sections or tore down walls. Players could climb the ladder of power and responsibility, and eventually choose to rule the city as its new king. This was intended as another way to retire a character and thus "win". New characters created would be able to meet the previously crowned king, or even attempt to overthrow him.The Wilderness
The Wilderness was to be a pilgrimage to find the truth concerning Alternate Reality. There would be traps, tricks to waylay the adventurer, and diversions to turn him or her away from the true quest. This expansion would feature a vast expanse of outdoor terrain and new areas to explore.Revelation
With the illusion broken, the player would find his or her way onto the alien ship and out of the holo-world upon which he or she was previously trapped. There was to be a way into the ship through the bottom of The Dungeon (on the 4th level), as well as in the distant wilderness.Destiny
Now armed with high tech equipment and making allies of certain alien factions sympathetic to the player's cause, the player could take the fight to his or her captors. Searching further within this immense ship, the player would discover a chamber filled with metal cocoons. Using wits and the knowledge gained through other locations, the controls for the cocoons could be manipulated to discover what was contained within. It would be revealed that these cocoons hold bodies, the bodies of all of those captured. The machines keep the bodies physically alive and fit, but imprisoned. The minds of those entrapped are tapped and fed with images (ala The MatrixThe Matrix
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
, only years earlier).
The ships computer can even permit the images to interact with solid/material components of the ship. The player would learn that his or her own body was itself just an image, with the actual body lying in a cocoon. The question of the nature of reality would be raised, leading to questions such as what is a soul? What is experience? The player has experienced the entire ordeal through the illusionary image ever since the kidnapping.
In the end, the player would be left with many choices. One could continue to live on as the image body, a nearly immortal life, but knowing that these aliens have done this and can watch, feel, and experience whatever is done. In essence, the player is their entertainment. They have become jaded by luxury, power and knowledge and use lesser beings to regain some of the passions of life. Hence, one could instead cut off this channel, though the alien beings may destroy the ship, or even Earth itself. One could escape in a smaller ship (as compared to the massive Alternate Reality entertainment world) and go back to Earth. One could even destroy the planet, or bring it back to earth to let scientists learn from it. There would be many choices (including selling out humanity), but these would be the decisions the player would have to make at the end of the journey.
Technology
Among other things, AR contained some revolutionary technology and ideas for its time. It worked from a 3D3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
first-person perspective, with a small window taking up about 1/9 of the screen at the center. The player controlled one character who had an absolute minimum of visual representation—the closest to a character image to be found was when one encountered a "doppelganger" monster. The 3D used was not like other contemporary 3D graphics either. Most other 3D first-person games used static graphics to represent the walls, meaning the player could only move one tile at a time. However, in this game the rate of travel depended on the character's speed, and moved incrementally along the tile. Distant walls would slowly come in to focus rather than suddenly appear.
Alternate Reality had a raycasting engine equalling that of Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded by critics and gaming journalists as having both popularized the first-person shooter genre on the PC and created the basic archetype upon which all subsequent games of the same genre would be built. It was created by id Software and...
, which came seven years later, but was recognized for popularizing the system. However, the design implemented right-angle movement only, thus hiding the revolutionary technology.
Another upshot of the fact that the graphics were rendered rather than simple images is that while the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
was setting, the entire palette of colors changed convincingly. Distant waterfall
Waterfall
A waterfall is a place where flowing water rapidly drops in elevation as it flows over a steep region or a cliff.-Formation:Waterfalls are commonly formed when a river is young. At these times the channel is often narrow and deep. When the river courses over resistant bedrock, erosion happens...
s moved, and the rain was realistically rendered.
The first game, The City, also featured a novel anti-copying technique. The program disks could be copied though the standard methods and the copy would appear to work. However not long after the player began the game, their character would become weaker and weaker and then die from an apparent disease. The Dungeon, if loaded with a pirated copy, featured two "FBI agents" as encounters during the beginning of the game, who attacked with "the long arm of the law". The two agents were overly powerful and unbeatable, so as to kill the character before being able to play the game. Unfortunately due to a bug the other way to run into these characters was to try to transfer over a character from the city. (So in effect it was impossible to actually transfer a character over from the city to the dungeon without mailing in the disks to be exchanged for a fixed version.)
Gameplay
At the top of the screen were character statistics, such as game-world time, Strength, Health, etc. This brings up some of the unique aspects of the game: the character is not omniscient with respect to himself, but has some attributes that stay hidden except in special cases—for example, the player never knew the character's alignment (good/evil/neutral), and poisonPoison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
, drunkenness and disease tricked the perceived stats, or temporarily or permanently changed them. In fact, the player never chose an alignment, but came to learn it through how other characters treated them in the game.
Among these hidden stats were things to keep track of how hungry, tired, thirsty, hot or cold, or encumbered the character was. Fifteen years before The Sims
The Sims
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
, this game managed the character's well-being by tracking more than just their hit points. In fact, this game shared many game play aspects with The Sims.
The Sims uses several constantly diminishing stats: hunger, happiness, etc. and balances the player's ability to fulfill them with the length of time it takes to accomplish tasks. Alternate Reality, similarly, required the player to balance all of these things. While food and water could be carried, supplies were limited and the player would have to find or purchase new packets. The character could only sleep in an Inn, so if the player was off adventuring and the character started to get hungry and tired, they'd have to return to a safe area before the player could fulfill these needs.
Another feature was the non-linear game play, and extremely large game world that could be explored at will, rather than according to how the game expected.
Due to budget constraints, the first game was released, essentially, without a plot. Only in the second installment were any elements of a traditional RPG plot added in, but the player could (and probably did) spend days playing before realizing the importance of any of their actions. This was nearly two decades before Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto III
Grand Theft Auto III is a 2001 open world action computer and video game developed by DMA Design in the United Kingdom, and published by Rockstar Games. It is the first 3D title in the Grand Theft Auto series. It was released in October 2001 for the PlayStation 2, May 2002 for Microsoft Windows,...
would be called revolutionary for offering the same feature.
The bottom of the screen alternated depending on user choice and situation between consumables like food, water, money, and torches, equipment, combat options, spells, and other things. The sides held the compass
Compass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...
at left (when the player had one) and directional arrows at right.
The gameplay of both games is reminiscent of other RPGs but more sophisticated than its peers—while the player wandered around gaining levels and equipment, there were things like a finite number of items in the world, and items stolen could be regained. Near overflows of memory from possessing too many items resulted in an encounter with The Devourer, a fearsome creature that sucked items from the player, and thus removed them from memory. Death was permissible and mostly uncheatable since the game cleverly marked the character as dead as soon as the user started and only let the character to become "alive" once they saved. (It was possible to "revive" a lost character, but it caused a loss in one of the character's stats.)
Music
One final remarkable note about AR is its music. The game designer, as he did with the graphics, managed to cleverly hack the AtariAtari 8-bit family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
to produce more sophisticated sounds than it was designed to do. AR used them to produce an FM orchestra with several tunes, complete with karaoke
Karaoke
is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...
-type lyrics that the player could sing along to. Audio cues were also used for simple things like indicating a street was crowded, or the sound of the blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
's hammer striking a sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
.
Ports
The games in the Alternate Reality series were developed on the Atari 8-bit familyAtari 8-bit family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
of home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s, but were ported
Porting
In computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
to other platforms
Platform (computing)
A computing platform includes some sort of hardware architecture and a software framework , where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run...
as well. http://www.eobet.com/alternate-reality/alt-reality_FAQ.txt
The City
- Atari 8-bit familyAtari 8-bit familyThe Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
- Commodore 64Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
- Apple II
- Apple Macintosh
- Atari STAtari STThe Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
- AmigaAmigaThe Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
- DOSDOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
on the PCIBM PC compatibleIBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to... - Tandy Color Computer 3
Reception
Alternate Reality: The City was given a mixed review in Computer Gaming WorldComputer Gaming World
Computer Gaming World was a computer game magazine founded in 1981 by Russell Sipe as a bimonthly publication. Early issues were typically 40-50 pages in length, written in a newsletter style, including submissions by game designers such as Joel Billings , Dan Bunten , and Chris Crawford...
. The graphics were praised for its attention to detail, as was the expansive city to explore. On the other hand, the game has no goal; once the city is painfully mapped out, the only thing left to do is monotonously battle enemies in preparation for The Dungeon. A later review of The Dungeon described the game as "a big improvement over City, but it is still ultimately unsatisfying." While the graphics were much-improved, especially on 8-bit versions, the game lacked any sense of accomplishment. The review noted starting characters from scratch is nearly impossible, and several aspects of the game arbitrarily punished the players, such as the unbeatable Devourer which eats items if the player has too many, and the reduction of stats when playing from a backed-up save.
Alternate Reality: The City received a mini-review in 1988 in Dragon
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
#131 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the Macintosh version of the game 3 out of 5 stars, and the Atari ST version 3 stars. Alternate Reality: The City and Alternate Reality: The Dungeon were both the subject of the feature review Dragon #135. The reviewers gave Alternate Reality: The City 3 stars, and Alternate Reality: The Dungeon 2½ stars.