Gateway (video game)

Gateway

DOS cover art of the first game

Developer(s)| Legend Entertainment
Publisher(s)| Legend Entertainment
Designer(s)| Glen Dahlgren
Mike Verdu
Series| Heechee
Platform(s)| DOS, Windows
Release| June 1992[1]
Genre(s)| Interactive fiction, Adventure
Mode(s)| Single-player

Frederik Pohl's Gateway is a 1992 interactive fiction video game released by Legend Entertainment, and written by Glen Dahlgren and Mike Verdu. It is based on Frederik Pohl's Heechee universe. It was followed by a sequel Gateway II, in 1993.

In 1996 Legend Entertainment made the game available for free download from its website.[2]

## Contents

* 1 Gameplay
* 2 Synopsis
* 2.1 Setting
* 2.2 Plot
* 3 Relationship to the novels
* 4 Reception
* 5 References
* 6 External links
* 7 Features
* 8 History
* 9 See also
* 10 References
* 11 External links

## Gameplay

Screenshot of Barracks and Main interface in Gateway I

## Synopsis

### Setting

A century in the future, humans land on Venus and colonize it. Below the surface, thousands of miles of artificial tunnels are discovered. They are believed to have been built thousands of years ago by an alien species known as the Heechee, but little else is known about them until an explorer discovers a Heechee ship, intact and operational, in one of the tunnels.

Rather than report his findings, he climbs in and activates it. The ship launches and goes into "TAU Space," a faster-than-light travel method. It arrives at a huge space station carved out of an asteroid floating halfway between Venus and Mercury, which is full of thousands of similar ships, but otherwise empty. However, the explorer is unable to figure out how to return to Venus, and faced with a lack of supplies, figures out how to detonate the fuel cell of the ship he came in. The detonation kills him, but also attracts the attention of a NASA tracking station, who send an expedition to investigate.

The discovery of the station and its ships allow humanity to travel into deep space. Although they were unable to reverse engineer the Heechee technology, they can use the ships' stored destinations and the station becomes humanity's "Gateway" to outer space, hence the name. This almost leads to war among the superpowers of Earth over ownership, until a compromise is finally worked out. A co-operative called the Gateway Corporation is formed, with the superpowers each holding one quarter of company stock.

The alien ships that are found still function, but their built-in destinations are a mystery. Navigation is accomplished by using 5 digit codes with the ships' computers, but there is no way to tell what codes go where. Volunteers called prospectors come to Gateway to test the codes and pilot the ships to their destination, explore and report back what they find (as well as bring anything interesting back). A large majority of the prospectors return with little or nothing, a tenth never return, but the remaining 1.5% return with artifacts or knowledge that make them incredibly rich.

### Plot

The player character has won a one-way ticket to Gateway, membership as a prospector in the Gateway Corporation and 10 days of provided life support along with a small amount of money. The player begins as a Prospector and follows procedures in order to know Gateway better and afterwards begin exploring Heechee coordinates. The findings are important enough to get him secure 'Green Badge' status; prospectors of that status are sent to explore only known destinations, with considerably higher probabilities of Heechee finds.

Exploration in one such planet brings a Heechee 'computer' which makes him rich; however, after being analyzed by the Gateway Corporation, it reveals that a hostile alien race, dubbed the Assassins threatens all advanced civilizations in the universe, and the Heechee managed to evade them. Leonard Worden, the deputy chief of the exploration program, informs the player that even after all those years, reactivation of the Heechee technology by humans would only make them detectable to the Assassins. However the same computer provides coordinates to an interplanetary shield device.

The game plot then sends the player to four planets in order to activate a shield device that would 'cloak' the technology signal from the Assassins.

The game's climax occurs on a world of the Assassins, dubbed "Watchtower" where the player is sent to activate the mechanism. There he will meet a Heechee artificial intelligence entity and also an electronic Assassin entity which will trap the player in a VR environment. Following the Heechee AI's guidance, the player is tasked to escape them by creating paradoxes and afterwards upload the Heechee AI.

The game ends with the player's return as a hero and the fear that the threat of the Assassins still exists.

## Relationship to the novels

The games are based on Frederik Pohl's novels, but deviate significantly.[citation needed] Gateway shares its premise with Pohl's first book, of a poor space prospector who arrives on the eponymous space station with the intent to use the dangerously poorly understood alien crafts that are based there to explore distant worlds and strike it rich. The similarities soon end as the game introduces original elements, changes (in the novel's terms: travel times are negligible, Gateway has Earth-normal gravity, all ships are ones and bastard control panels are the norm) and material from the later books.

## Reception

Computer Gaming World's Charles Ardai stated that "Pohl's influence is felt throughout" Gateway except in the puzzles, which were "pretty good" but based on "the last decade of adventure game design ... most would not be out of place in a golden oldie like Starcross or Planetfall", especially the "jarring and inappropriate" logic puzzles. He approved of the game's graphics and sound but stated that he mostly ignored them because "Gateway is essentially a text adventure with amenities". Ardai disapproved of the game's small number of locations, which the large number of puzzles and repetitive "stall tactics" obscured, and the possibility that a player might never die (which "seems to directly contradict the premise of the game"). He concluded that Gateway was "good enough" but "nothing about the game makes it compelling", predicting that it "will most likely join Rendezvous with Rama, Fahrenheit 451 and their like in a dusty corner of adventure game history".[3] Writing for Computer Games Strategy Plus, Greg Ellsworth found the game easier than Timequest and Spellcasting 101, but enjoyed its graphics, music and story. He concluded that for those "looking for weeks of game play and puzzle solving it may seem a disappointment, but for an entertaining story it hits the spot."[4]

## References

1. ↑ "LEGEND Company Information". http://www.legendent.com/compinfo/compinfo.html.
2. ↑ Yee, Bernard (August 1996). "Joyriding". Next Generation (Imagine Media) (20): 28.
3. ↑ Ardai, Charles (October 1992). "Pohl Position: Legend's Gateway". Computer Gaming World (99): pp. 32–33. http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1992&pub=2&id=99. Retrieved 4 July 2014.
4. ↑ Ellsworth, Greg (September 1992). "Gateway; A Virtual Venus". Computer Games Strategy Plus (22): 44.

## External links

* Legend Entertainment Company - The Lost Adventures - download the complete production version of Frederik Pohl's Gateway
* MobyGames is a commercial database website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes over 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms.[1] Founded in 1999, ownership of the site has changed hands several times. It has been owned by Atari SA since 2022.

## Features

Edits and submissions to the site (including screenshots, box art, developer information, game summaries, and more) go through a verification process of fact-checking by volunteer "approvers".[2] This approval process after submission can range from minutes to days or months.[3] The most commonly used sources are the video game's website, packaging, and credit screens. There is a published standard for game information and copy-editing.[4] A ranking system allows users to earn points for contributing accurate information.[5]

Registered users can rate and review games. Users can create private or public "have" and "want" lists, which can generate a list of games available for trade with other registered users. The site contains an integrated forum. Each listed game can have its own sub-forum.

## History

Logo used until March 2014

MobyGames was founded on March 1, 1999, by Jim Leonard and Brian Hirt, and joined by David Berk 18 months later, the three of which had been friends since high school.[6][7] Leonard had the idea of sharing information about computer games with a larger audience. The database began with information about games for IBM PC compatibles, relying on the founders' personal collections. Eventually, the site was opened up to allow general users to contribute information.[5] In a 2003 interview, Berk emphasized MobyGames' dedication to taking video games more seriously than broader society and to preserving games for their important cultural influence.[5]

In mid-2010, MobyGames was purchased by GameFly for an undisclosed amount.[8] This was announced to the community post factum , and the site's interface was given an unpopular redesign.[7] A few major contributors left, refusing to do volunteer work for a commercial website.{{Citation needed|date=June 2025} On December 18, 2013, MobyGames was acquired by Jeremiah Freyholtz, owner of Blue Flame Labs (a San Francisco-based game and web development company) and VGBoxArt (a site for fan-made video game box art).[9] Blue Flame Labs reverted MobyGames' interface to its pre-overhaul look and feel,[10] and for the next eight years, the site was run by Freyholtz and Independent Games Festival organizer Simon Carless.[7]

On November 24, 2021, Atari SA announced a potential deal with Blue Flame Labs to purchase MobyGames for $1.5 million.[11] The purchase was completed on 8 March 2022, with Freyholtz remaining as general manager.[12][13][14] Over the next year, the financial boost given by Atari led to a rework of the site being built from scratch with a new backend codebase, as well as updates improving the mobile and desktop user interface.[1] This was accomplished by investing in full-time development of the site instead of its previously part-time development.[15]

In 2024, MobyGames began offering a paid "Pro" membership option for the site to generate additional revenue.[16] Previously, the site had generated income exclusively through banner ads and (from March 2014 onward) a small number of patrons via the Patreon website.[17]

On February 13, 2025, Freyholtz stepped down as the site lead to move onto new projects, leaving operations to Tracy Poff, a veteran coder on the site, and Atari staff.[18]

## See also

* IGDB - game database used by Twitch for its search and discovery functions

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Sheehan, Gavin (2023-02-22). "Atari Relaunches The Fully Rebuilt & Optimized MobyGames Website". https://bleedingcool.com/games/atari-relaunches-the-fully-rebuilt-optimized-mobygames-website/.
2. ↑ Litchfield, Ted (2021-11-26). "Zombie company Atari to devour MobyGames". https://www.pcgamer.com/zombie-company-atari-to-devour-mobygames/.
3. ↑ "MobyGames FAQ: Emails Answered § When will my submission be approved?". Blue Flame Labs. 30 March 2014. http://www.mobygames.com/info/faq7#g1.
4. ↑ "The MobyGames Standards and Practices". Blue Flame Labs. 6 January 2016. http://www.mobygames.com/info/standards.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Miller, Stanley A. (2003-04-22). "People's choice awards honor favorite Web sites". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
6. ↑ "20 Years of MobyGames" (in en). 2019-02-28. https://trixter.oldskool.org/2019/02/28/20-years-of-mobygames/.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Plunkett, Luke (2022-03-10). "Atari Buys MobyGames For $1.5 Million". https://kotaku.com/mobygames-retro-credits-database-imdb-atari-freyholtz-b-1848638521.
8. ↑ "Report: MobyGames Acquired By GameFly Media". Gamasutra. 2011-02-07. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/report-mobygames-acquired-by-gamefly-media.
9. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (December 31, 2013). "MobyGames purchased from GameFly, improvements planned". http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/31/5261414/mobygames-purchased-from-gamefly-improvements-planned.
10. ↑ Wawro, Alex (31 December 2013). "Game dev database MobyGames getting some TLC under new owner". Gamasutra. https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/game-dev-database-mobygames-getting-some-tlc-under-new-owner.
11. ↑ "Atari invests in Anstream, may buy MobyGames". November 24, 2021. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-24-atari-invests-in-anstream-may-buy-mobygames.
12. ↑ Rousseau, Jeffrey (2022-03-09). "Atari purchases Moby Games". https://www.gamesindustry.biz/atari-purchases-moby-games.
13. ↑ "Atari Completes MobyGames Acquisition, Details Plans for the Site's Continued Support". March 8, 2022. https://www.atari.com/atari-completes-mobygames-acquisition-details-plans-for-the-sites-continued-support/.
14. ↑ "Atari has acquired game database MobyGames for $1.5 million" (in en-GB). 2022-03-09. https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/.
15. ↑ Stanton, Rich (2022-03-10). "Atari buys videogame database MobyGames for $1.5 million". https://www.pcgamer.com/atari-buys-videogame-database-mobygames-for-dollar15-million/.
16. ↑ Harris, John (2024-03-09). "MobyGames Offering “Pro” Membership". https://setsideb.com/mobygames-offering-pro-membership/.
17. ↑ "MobyGames on Patreon". http://www.patreon.com/mobygames.
18. ↑ "An update on MobyGames leadership". 2025-02-13. https://www.mobygames.com/forum/3/thread/269628/an-update-on-mobygames-leadership/#post-269628.

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