My Evil Twin

The review title is the response to X ME in My Evil Twin. But it also clues a roadblock later in the game. Because of your evil twin, it matters that you look more like yourself your twin, who exists in a world on the flip-side of a Vinculum Gate. And as you look around, you find evidence your evil twin is up to no good. How to stop them?

The game logic takes you to odd places, even though it's not big. In your world, there's a photo booth, but in your twin's, the location is walled off because it's a mind-control ray. Your neighbor's lawn in your world is a weapons shop in your twin's. (I won't spoil the theme of the weapons. It's pretty funny.) Navigating things so you can enter your evil twin's apartment is the main thrust of the game. The main mechanic is that not only does every room have a twin across the gate, but every object does, too. So if you drop something in Hyde Park and cycle through the gate, it'll be something else when you come back to Jekyll Park.

MET is filled with funny jokes and odd items that tie into the theme, from the statue of Grover Cleveland to a game of hangman. They'll slip if you don't notice them, and playing MET for the first time in over a decade, I got to see them afresh and definitely wanted to examine anything. And while I'd forgotten the precise walkthrough, MET clued the puzzles well, so it was a neat experience of rediscovery both of the world and solution and the conspiracy theories that make total sense in-game. It even gets a small bonus for even using XYZZY practically! XYZZY acts as a way to flip between your world and your twin's, if you're able to, which is handy to save a few keystrokes but obviously not critical to completing the game.

I'm not sure why I didn't review MET when it came out. Maybe I had nothing to say about it beyond "I hope to write something as cool and compact as this one day." Over ten years on, now's a good time. It takes you somewhere neat and new and dazzling so you can get lost a bit, and the fun wastes your time so efficiently. Due to the economy with which it uses the twin mechanic and throws out sly jokes, I think it's my favorite of all the Apollo 18/20 games.

It feels like a much bigger game could be made with MET's mechanic. But I am a bit greedy. I just remember thinking "oh, man, I wish I'd written something this good" on playing the pre-release version. Years later, I don't know if I have, but playing it certainly reminds me that there must be relatively simple ideas that can open up something like this. I'd be glad to uncover just one.