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.


 * 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 VRs, 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:.