Gateway (video game)

A pair of Science Fiction Interactive Fiction games:


 * Frederik Pohl's Gateway (1992)
 * Gateway II: Homeworld (1993)

Both games are loosely based on Frederik Pohl's Heechee Saga. The first game begins by the protagonist entering the titular Gateway, a hollow space station created by the now disappeared Heechee, in search of riches. Eventually, a more complex plot develops as it turns out that the Heechee left for a reason. Cue adventures, dangerous situations and of course, clever puzzles.

The games were written by Glen Dahlgren and Mike Verdu and published by Legend Entertainment, and both feature a poweful parser and a graphical interface similar to the popular Spellcasting games. Unlike Spellcasting, Gateway games feature little comedy and are mostly serious stories.

The Gateway series provides examples of:

 * Aliens Are Bastards: Averted with the Heechee,.
 * Button Mashing: The humans have very little knowledge on Heechee ships, so this is (in-universe) the way they're operated. In-game, the player has a set of safe coordinates and following them is enough.
 * The Call Knows Where You Live: The second game only has the hero embark on another space voyage because of the violent terrorists that are killing everything in the launch station.
 * Chekhov MIA:.
 * Chekhov's Gun: In the second game, the player will have to Later in the same game,.
 * Chekhov's Skill: Early on in the first game, the player is taught how to recognize and escape virtual realities. It's going to be extremely useful.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: There are dozens and dozens of useful, interesting or just funny interactions all around both games.
 * Empty Room Psych: Here and there, there are places that don't have to be visited nor do they even feature anything interesting.
 * Everything Trying to Kill You: Usually not, but.
 * Failure Is the Only Option:.
 * A Glitch in the Matrix: Discussed a few times. They are common in Virtual Realities.
 * The Greys: Heechee resemble the typical Grey in appearance, but aren't into the abduction thing -
 * Inside a Computer System: The Virtual Realities.
 * Karmic Jackpot: Quite literally:.
 * Lecture as Exposition: The player has to attend some expositionary lectures to get flight badges.
 * Logic Bomb: The player has to confuse several VR programs to complete the first game.
 * MacGyvering: As in many text-based games, the player has to do some crafty stuff to win.
 * In the first game, the escape from.
 * In the second game, the player has to win a.
 * Moon Logic Puzzle: Most of the games' puzzles make a lot of sense, but there are a few instances where the solutions seem weird - at first, at least.
 * The deep psych VR program.
 * Stealing the Heechee tuning fork.
 * Plot Leveling: After the first game, the player character is rich and . What could the second game offer to the protagonist?
 * Precursors: Heechee,.
 * Red Herring:
 * In the second game, on the Kord planet,.
 * VR appears in the same place with two plot-important V Rs, but is itself not necessary to complete.
 * Some of the games in.
 * Religion of Evil: The Phoenix Sect is the Big Bad of the second game.
 * Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: Invoked in the first game. The Big Bad buys time by locking the player up in a . Being delayed for too long will result in a Game Over.
 * Solve the Soup Cans: Many puzzles feel intuitive and good, but some... less so. Consider, for example, the . The player is in a Heechee ship with six coloured buttons. One of them must be pressed. . Makes one wonder why the Heechee even bothered to put such mechanism on a rescue ship.
 * Take Your Time: Subverted in the first game..
 * Timed Mission: Very common in the second game - in fact, the second game even begins with two consecutive ones. The first game also has some.
 * To Hell and Back:.
 * Unwinnable by Design: Screwing up a timed mission and saving can result to this. Also, not picking up crucial objects - but thankfully, most are glaringly obvious.
 * Video Game Time: Every action takes at least one minute.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: In the first game, . There are several subquests that must be completed to . In addition, there are two different ways to complete each subquest - the easy way and the ethically sound way. will angrily remind the player of the bad choices, if any, taken by the player.
 * Win to Exit: Inverted -.