Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure

Last updated

Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure
Gadget Invention, Travel, & Adventure coverart.png
Developer(s) Synergy Inc.
Publisher(s) Toshiba-EMI
Synergy Interactive
Cryo Interactive Entertainment
NTT Resonant (iOS)
Designer(s) Haruhiko Shono
Hirokazu Nabekura
Artist(s) Haruhiko Shono
Minoru Kusakabe
Isao Konaka
Engine Macromedia Director
Proprietary (PlayStation, iOS)
Platform(s) FM Towns
Mac OS
Microsoft Windows
Apple Pippin
PlayStation
iOS
Release
November 1993 [1] [ better source needed ]
  • Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure
  • FM Towns
    • JP: November 1993
    Mac OS
    Microsoft Windows
    Apple Pippin
    Gadget: Past as Future
  • Mac OS, Microsoft Windows
    • JP: 27 November 1997
    • EU: 1998
    PlayStation
    • JP: 27 November 1997
    iGadget [3]
  • iOS
    • WW: 23 March 2011
Genre(s) Adventure, interactive movie
Mode(s) Single-player

Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure (or Gadget: Past as Future) is an adventure game designed by Haruhiko Shono and first released by Synergy Interactive in 1993, following his earlier works Alice: An Interactive Museum (1991) and L-Zone (1992). Like Shono's earlier titles, Gadget uses pre-rendered 3D computer graphics and resembles a point-and-click adventure game similar to Myst (1993), but with a strictly linear storyline culminating in a fixed finale. It thus sometimes tends to be classified more as an interactive movie rather than a video game. The story centers around a future dominated by retro technology from the 1920s and 1930s, especially streamlined locomotives and flying machines.

Contents

Plot

Screenshot from shortly after the start of the game. Gadget screenshot.png
Screenshot from shortly after the start of the game.

The game's plot takes place in an unspecified (albeit vaguely Eastern European) nation headed by the dictator Orlovsky. The protagonist is a government agent tasked with discovering the whereabouts of a missing scientist named Horselover Frost. He begins his quest in a third-floor room of a luxury hotel (which is in fact the headquarters of the government's intelligence arm). After collecting his belongings in a suitcase, the protagonist takes an elevator ride to the lobby, during which a boy replaces the case with another identical one containing various spy-related paraphernalia. In the lobby, the government's intelligence chief briefs the protagonist on his mission. The protagonist then moves to the central railway station. From this point on all the events of the story take place on trains or at the various stations (which include the national science institute) along the nation's main rail line. The player must engage in scripted conversations with various individuals, each of whom reveals pieces of information that advance the protagonist in his quest.

Release

The game was originally released on 1 CD in 1993 by Synergy Interactive, based in Tokyo, Japan. [4] A special edition of the game, Gadget: Past as Future, was later released on four CDs in 1997 by Cryo Interactive for Windows, Macintosh, and the PlayStation home console. A remastered version of Gadget: Past as Future was released for iOS by NTT Resonant Inc. in March 2011. [5]

Reception

The game was reviewed in 1994 in Dragon #212 by Ken Rolston in the "Eye of the Monitor" column and gave it a positive review. [6] In 1996, Billboard described the game as a sleeper success and noted that it had attracted a cult following in America, leading to the re-release of earlier Shono titles Alice: An Interactive Museum and L-Zone . [4] Shono was heralded as a pioneer by America's Newsweek and Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry. [7]

According to Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (director of Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth ), Gadget was influential on films like Dark City and The Matrix . Del Toro mentioned Gadget as one of his favorite games, along with Cosmology of Kyoto , Asteroids and Galaga . [8]

A tie-in novel titled The Third Force, subtitled A Novel of Gadget and written by Marc Laidlaw, was released in 1996. [9] A companion volume of additional art and background plot material, Inside Out with Gadget, was also available, [10] as well as a DVD entitled Gadget Trips/Mindscapes and an auxiliary CD-ROM containing videos, stills, previews and interactive 3D models under the title 'Preview and Reprise'.

Related Research Articles

<i>Myst</i> 1993 video game

Myst is an adventure video game designed by Rand and Robyn Miller. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and first released in 1993 for the Macintosh. In the game, the player travels via a special book to a mysterious island called Myst. The player interacts with objects and traverses the environment by clicking on pre-rendered imagery. Solving puzzles allows the player to travel to other worlds ("Ages"), which reveal the backstory of the game's characters and help the player make the choice of whom to aid.

<i>The Journeyman Project</i> (video game) 1993 video game

The Journeyman Project is a time travel adventure computer game developed by Presto Studios.

<i>The Incredible Machine</i> Video game series

The Incredible Machine (TIM) is a series of video games in which players create a series of Rube Goldberg devices. They were originally designed and coded by Kevin Ryan and produced by Jeff Tunnell, the now-defunct Jeff Tunnell Productions, and published by Dynamix; the 1993 through 1995 versions had the same development team, but the later 2000–2001 games have different designers. All versions were published by Sierra Entertainment. The entire series and intellectual property were acquired by Jeff Tunnell-founded PushButton Labs in October 2009. PushButton Labs was later acquired by Playdom, itself a division of Disney Interactive, so as of now the rights are held by The Walt Disney Company.

<i>The Lost Treasures of Infocom</i> 1991 video game

The Lost Treasures of Infocom is a 1991 compilation of 20 previously-released interactive fiction games developed by Infocom. It was published by Activision for MS-DOS, Macintosh, Amiga, and Apple IIGS versions. It was later re-released on CD-ROM, and in 2012 on iOS.

<i>Cosmology of Kyoto</i> 1993 video game

Cosmology of Kyoto is an adventure game developed by Softedge and published by Yano Electric. It was released for Japan in 1993, and then in North America, for the Macintosh in 1994 and then for the PC in 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryo Interactive</span> Former French video game development and publishing company

Cryo Interactive Entertainment was a French video game development and publishing company founded in 1990, but existing unofficially since 1989 as a developer group under the name Cryo. The company gained recognition for its adventure games, such as the commercially successful titles Dune, Dragon Lore and Atlantis: The Lost Tales, along with the racing series MegaRace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Laidlaw</span> American writer

Marc Laidlaw is an American writer. He is a former lead writer for the video game company Valve, where he worked on the Half-Life series before his departure in 2016. Before joining Valve, Laidlaw was a novelist working in the fantasy and horror genres, and in 1996 won the International Horror Guild Award for his novel The 37th Mandala.

<i>Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe</i> 1995 video game

Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe is an adventure game created by Adventure Soft, and released in 1995 for the MS-DOS. It is the second installment in the Simon the Sorcerer series of games, and the sequel to 1993's Simon the Sorcerer. The game's story focuses on a young teen named Simon, who is transported into a parallel universe of magic and monsters that he visited before, via a magical wardrobe created by an evil sorcerer he defeated in the last game. Players engage in a quest to help him find more fuel for the wardrobe by searching a vast world, consisting of parodies on popular fantasy novels and fairy tales.

<i>Jackie Chan Adventures</i> (video game) 2004 video game

Jackie Chan Adventures is a video game based upon the animated series of the same name, which focuses on a fictionalized version of Hong Kong action film star Jackie Chan.

<i>Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars</i> 1996 video game

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is a 1996 point-and-click adventure game developed by Revolution Software. It is the first in the Broken Sword series, co-written and directed by Charles Cecil. The player assumes the role of George Stobbart, an American tourist in Paris, as he attempts to unravel a deep conspiracy involving a sinister cult and a hidden treasure, seeing him travel to various locations around Europe and the Middle East. The game's storyline was conceived to feature a serious tone and heavily influenced by research on Knights Templar by Cecil, but was also interlaced with humor and graphics in the style of classic animated films.

<i>Spy Fox in "Dry Cereal"</i> 1997 video game

Spy Fox in "Dry Cereal" is an adventure game developed and published by Humongous Entertainment, part of their "Junior Adventure" line and the first entry in the Spy Fox series of games. The game follows the heroic Spy Fox as he attempts to stop a supervillain from stealing the world's dairy milk supply. The game was released for computers in October 1997 to positive reception and was ported to several other systems over the following decades.

<i>The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time</i> 1998 video game

The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time is a computer game developed by Presto Studios and is a sequel to The Journeyman Project and The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time.

<i>Space Quest IV</i> 1991 video game

Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers is a 1991 graphic adventure game by Sierra On-Line, and the fourth entry in the Space Quest series. The game was released originally on floppy disks in March 1991, and later released on CD-ROM in December 1992 with full speech support; an Atari ST version was announced via Sierra Online's magazine, Sierra News Magazine, but was later canceled. The game sees players assume the role of Roger Wilco, who is thrust into a new adventure across time and space where he must thwart the plans of an old foe that is seeking revenge against him.

<i>Spaceship Warlock</i> 1991 adventure video game

Spaceship Warlock is an adventure game created by Mike Saenz and Joe Sparks. The game was released in 1991 for the Macintosh and in 1994 for Windows.

<i>Mini Ninjas</i> 2009 video game

Mini Ninjas is a 2009 action-adventure game developed by IO Interactive and published by Eidos Interactive for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. A Mac OS X version of the game was released on July 8, 2010, by Feral Interactive. In December 2011, it was announced that the game would be also made available as a browser game for Google Chrome.

<i>Alice: An Interactive Museum</i> 1991 video game

Alice: Interactive Museum is a 1991 point-and-click adventure game, developed by Toshiba-EMI Ltd and directed by Haruhiko Shono. It uses elements and ideas inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and pioneered the use of pre-rendered 3D computer graphics, being released two years before 1993's highly notable The Journeyman Project and Myst. It was initially designed for Mac computers and later released for the Windows 3.x and Windows 95 platform. In 1991, Shono won the Minister of International Trade and Industry's AVA Multimedia Grand Prix Award for the game, and in 1995, Newsweek coined the term "cybergame" to describe games such as Alice and Shono's second game, L-Zone. They were followed by Shono's third title, Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure, in 1993.

Haruhiko Shono is a Japanese computer graphics artist for films as well as a video game director. He has served as director for numerous computer games and has provided CG work for motion pictures with Will, Ltd. (有限会社ウイル), where he serves as corporate representative. He is best known to Western audiences for his steampunk-inspired visual novel, Gadget, and for his work on the 2004 film, Casshern.

An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, such as literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of genres. Most adventure games are designed for a single player, since the emphasis on story and character makes multiplayer design difficult. Colossal Cave Adventure is identified by Rick Adams as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include Zork, King's Quest, Monkey Island, Syberia, and Myst.

Graphsim Entertainment was founded in 1991 as Graphic Simulations Corp. to develop and publish simulation games. Graphsim's first product was Hellcats Over the Pacific for the Macintosh. It was released in 1991 and developed by Parsoft Interactive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Synergy (video game company)</span> Japanese video game company

Synergy Inc., which went by the trade name Synergy Geometry Co., Ltd., was a Japanese video game developer and publisher headquartered in Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo. The company is best known for its point-and-click adventure games, which employed pre-rendered 3D computer graphics, including Alice: An Interactive Museum (1991) and Gadget: Invention, Travel & Adventure (1993), both of which were designed by Haruhiko Shono.

References

  1. "Gadget: Invention, Travel & Adventure (1993) release dates". MobyGames.
  2. "Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure (ガジェット) - Macintosh Garden".
  3. "GADGET -Past as Future-". game.goo.ne.jp. Archived from the original on 5 April 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
  4. 1 2 "Billboard - Google Books". 5 October 1996. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  5. Eric Caoili (23 March 2011). "Gadget: Past as Future Brought To iPhone, iOS". Archived from the original on 5 May 2011. Retrieved 26 March 2011.
  6. Rolston, Ken; Murphy, Paul Murphy; Cook, David (December 1994). "Eye of the Monitor". Dragon (212): 55–59, 62.
  7. McSwain, Ryan (25 April 2011). "Gadget: Past as Future". Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 22 October 2015.
  8. "Hellboy Director Talks Gaming – Edge Magazine". Next-gen.biz. 26 August 2008. Archived from the original on 12 August 2010. Retrieved 27 October 2011.
  9. Laidlaw, Marc (1996). The Third Force: a novel of Gadget. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction. ISBN   978-0-684-82245-7. OCLC   34691094.
  10. Nabekura, Hirokazu (1995). Awata, Masanori (ed.). Inside Out with Gadget: An Art Book for the New Millennium . Graphics by Haruhiko Shono. Book and Cover Design by Isao Konaka. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN   978-0-684-82396-6. OCLC   34184259.