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Title screen of GATE

Emulators and Fantasy Villains: Case Study on GATE (Bright Software 1991) #2

by Eugen Pfister, Aurelia Brandenburg, Adrian Demleitner, Arno Görgen, Addrich Mauch, and Kevin Negele. Additional research and editing by Corinne Hirter

GATE (Bright Software 1991 / Apple IIgs) is a Gauntlet-inspired action game that was developed by the Swiss studio Bright Software for the Apple IIgs in 1991, towards the very end of the platform’s lifespan. In this part two of our case study, we analyse the story, audio-visual aesthetics and game mechanics of the  game as a historical source, its reception and conclude our case study.

This is the second part of our two-part case study on the game GATE. You can find the first part here.

In the first part, we reported on how we came across the game and in particular about its interesting production history. In this second part, we will analyze the game itself and its aftermath. Before that, however, we want to briefly reflect on the medium and the initial major challenges we faced in getting the game to play. The question of reconstruction of historical gameplay is central for our research. When we play a thirty-year-old game today, we must always bear in mind in a research context that this gaming experience is fundamentally different from a historical gaming experience from 1991. It starts with the problem of personal bias. Playing GATE today, we will for example have in mind all the games that came out later. It should be self understanding for instance not to measure GATE against Diablo (Blizzard North 1996, Windows a.o.). The question thus arises to what extent emulations of the game on newer computers differ from the original gaming experience, simply because the input devices feel different, as do the output devices, not to mention different processor speeds.

Table of Contents

  1. Reenacting GATE through emulation and on the mac
  2. Product Analysis
    1. Paratext: Box and Manual
    2. Narrative
    3. Gameplay and Game Mechanics
    4. Visual Aesthetics
    5. Music
  3. Reception & Synthesis
    1. The Rise of Fantasy
    2. Digital games as an introduction for young men to the world of computer science

Reenacting GATE through emulation and on the mac

In addition to the original version for the Apple IIgs described in the first part, a version with better graphics for the Macintosh, revised by Jörg Kienzle with the help of Valérie Kienzle, appeared later in 1994. This provoked the question which version we should focus on, or if we wanted to analyse both, and if so, what would merit such an effort. Despite both being Apple computers, the Apple IIgs and the Macintosh are fundamentally different machines with different operating systems and different processor architectures. This was in fact the initial inspiration for Jörg Kienzle to port GATE to the new platform. But, since this is our first case study for the Apple platforms, it also meant that we needed to get two different systems running, which frankly, is always connected to some frustration. Adrian, who was in charge of getting an emulation to run, has found the state of emulation for older Apple devices especially troublesome. There are quite a lot of different emulation projects out there, but many of them are in disarray and a rotting state1. The best candidate for our needs was “kegs”, but setting it up was Adrian’s own kind of hell. Thanks to the Infinite Mac project and a still-running, though somewhat erratic, iMac G3, getting the Macintosh version running was definitely easier. Using the latter allowed us a comparable easy start: we only had to copy the game files on a USB-stick, unpack the archive, and run the game.

Playing GATE in the Bern GameLab
Fig. 9: Playing GATE on original hardware in the CH Ludens GameLab in Bern.

Because most of our work is spent apart from each other, and not everyone in our team has the luxury of owning their own spare iMac, this was the moment where Infinite Mac was introduced to our project, in an attempt to make “classic Macintosh and NeXT system releases and software”2 accessible to our whole team. It is as easy as opening the website, selecting the desired version of the classic Mac operating system, and clicking ‘Run’. A simple drag and drop of the game files, and the experience is close to playing the game on the original iMac—at least for those with a fast computer. Emulating a whole operating system, even an old one, and a game on top within a browser, takes a toll on the host machine. We tried many different setups and attempted to get other Mac emulators running, to no avail. Adrian’s eight year old IBM Thinkpad, for example, wasn’t fast enough to run a 34 years old game.

We had more luck in kegs, an emulator specifically made for the Apple IIgs. This open source project has been going on since the mid 1990s and is probably the most advanced emulator for that system. But setting it up was certainly no joy for Adrian. To boot, he needed to obtain proprietary files, the original firmware of the Apple IIgs and disk images containing the operating system. Both firmware files and disk images had to be legally sourced from original hardware or authorized distributors due to copyright restrictions. Many different versions of these files exist, and it was not an easy process to find the correct ones. Let us leave it at that.

Once up and running, we were able to play the original GATE version. But there was one last hurdle: our inability to reconfigure the input keys to play GATE. It was meant to be played on a numpad to indicate directions, which is tough to reproduce on a laptop. Luckily, we had a spare keyboard that could help out in this case. So that was the moment when we could finally immerse ourselves in the game.

Product Analysis

Paratext: Box and Manual

The box of the game published by the French publisher Toolbox in 1991 is very simple. It is white and is dominated by the publisher’s logo in the upper third. The third O is in the colors of the tricolore. It is also wavy, which in turn is strongly reminiscent of the Pepsi logo. The middle half shows a screenshot of the loading screen, a pretty pixel graphic of a gray castle with the word “GATE” written in flames in the background. It is therefore incomprehensible to us why the title of the game is printed again in a boring font in the lower third.

Boxshot of the Toolbox Edition
Fig. 1: Boxshot of the Toolbox Edition. (Source: https://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/files/GATE/CoverScan_Highres/GATE.jpg)

GATE later was (re-)published as physical copy with a 12-pages game manual under Seven Hills Software – who were well aware of copying traditions at the time. The publisher states:

“We don’t believe in copy protection. All it does is impair the honest user’s ability to use software to its fullest. […] We hope you will support our efforts by not allowing your family or friends to copy this software.”3

Among a few other legal and instructive pages such as the publisher’s contact details, feedback, a warranty, the manual introduces GATE as a “stimulating adventure game for the [Apple] IIgs”4, which “blends action, adventure, aesthetic pleasure and intellectual challenges”5.

The actual manual text features typical characteristics of the video game manual genre6: A functional distinction between merely instructional and more immersive flavour text, the use of different fonts, visual separations of instruction and immersion. The manual represents an initially complementary necessity to the game itself. What the manual of GATE clearly lacks, however, is an effective style that would evoke the game’s theme. In fact, the manual generally falls short in terms of immersion. While most of the pages are dedicated to explanations of game mechanics such as strategy, items, and controls, only three initial sentences introduce the game’s lore. In a 2018 gameplay video from YouTube7, Jörg Kienzle’s read.me file features a more extensive elaboration of GATE’s lore in six paragraphs, which hints at an already ongoing “decentralisation”6 of original game manual information to other services (read.me files, the game itself, later online fora or wikis). GATE itself is seen to not include any kind of instruction, hence the complementary necessity of the manual and read.me file.

Although most of the manual contains instructional text, the tone is held rather casual: “[…] you can take all the time you need […]”, “It is up to you to make the best choice.” It could be argued that the authors emphasise the importance of exploration, by which they make up for the lack of immersion. Nevertheless, the information provided is generally simple and aimed directly at the player. Headers and important in-game concepts are written in bold, while side notes are written in cursive. “Yellow keys open doors.”, “NOTE: There are a few spaces that have a special effect when you pass over them.”, “To collect objects you just need to pass over them.”

Narrative

According to the manual, “Darg the Firemaster” has brought war and turmoil upon the land of “Divesia”, where GATE takes place. The game starts with an unnamed hero waking up in the prison cell he shares with his father. The door is locked, leaving nowhere else to go for the time being. There are inscriptions on one wall that reaffirm “Darg” as the story’s villain, but the only way to progress for players is by talking to the hero’s father, who is lying in one corner and dying from a fatal wound. The father asks if the hero will fight Darg for him and restore peace in Divesia. When players agree through a written prompt – i.e. “y” or “n”, he gives them a key to the prison cell’s door and dies quite abruptly. If the player refuses, the father remains alive and does not hand over the necessary first key to start the hero’s escape. Both remain trapped indefinitely in Darg’s prison in a failed state.

Map of GATE’s first level
Fig. 2: Map of GATE’s first level (Source: Seven Hills Software. GATE (Solution), p. ii.)

In the first castle, Darg’s prison spans over seven levels, followed by four additional regions with multiple levels, according to the read.me file provided with GATE 1.3 from 1996. The same read.me also offers a roughly 600 word “Prologue” that sketches out the game’s backstory and provides an off-screen explanation about how the hero is fighting with the “Bow of Many Arrows” he has inherited from his father, a famed archer, in the game’s beginning. While this narrative seems to be aimed to fill in some of the gaps in GATE’s world building, the text is not crucial to understand the general logic the game follows on-screen and could have also been simply an afterthought to the actual level design. Jörg Kienzle later told us that GATE was inspired by Gauntlet (Atari Games Corporation 1985, Arcade et al.).8 Gudat, Kienzle and Le Tensorer sought to replicate a similar experience on the Apple IIgs. While the first levels are a mere replication of the Gauntlet mechanisms, the team “got tired of it”8, and opened the formula towards a larger world map, in which the player has to fulfil different goals in order to succeed, a nod to classic RPGs of the time. The world map encompasses the entire island of Divesia, where the player must first pass three more castle levels9 before they can defeat Darg in the fire plains.10 provided to us by Jörg Kienzle.))

A detailed map of Divesia from GATE's solution.
Fig. 3: A detailed map of Divesia from GATE’s solution11.
Map of Divesia from GATE's solution in colour.
Fig. 4: Map of Divesia from GATE’s solution in colour12.

Gameplay and game mechanics

After our hero opens the prison cell with his dead father’s key at the beginning of the game, he wanders through a labyrinth of hallways and rooms full of Darg’s soldiers, ghosts, and other monsters, looting chests and collecting treasures, potions, lightnings, and most importantly, keys in the process. Keys are the items that are probably most crucial to progress through the game since they open up doors—or rather gates—throughout each level. Without the right kind of key, there is no way to move forward. Treasures and chests serve as a source of gold coins, which can then be used to purchase items such as armour or food at a merchant’s shop. Meanwhile potions simply refill health points on collection. It can therefore make sense to not collect a potion now but revisit the place where it can be found once the hero’s health points have decreased below a certain level. Lightnings, on the other hand, serve a specific purpose in combat: Once collected, each lightning can be used once to kill all enemies visible on the screen and therefore making it easier to cross, for example, rooms with many enemies and/or respawn points through the eponymous “monster generators”. As with Gauntlet, the gameplay in GATE also lives from a latent, constant overtaxing of the players. In particular, the generators constantly spitting out new enemies ensure that players rarely have a moment of peace to think.

The lightning also points at how GATE uses a variety of popular fantasy props in a manner that is not always in line with what the game tells in its other elements: For example, both the 1991 and 1994 version of the game depict its hero as a man holding a sword, but the attack the avatar carries out when players push the attack button is a ranged attack that sends off a missile in a straight line into the direction the hero is currently facing. Similarly, the game does not offer an explanation why the hero can wield lightning if needed, and simply treats that as part of its vague fantasy setting.

Players move through each level from a top-down point of view by progressing through different rooms and hallways. Once enemies appear on the current screen, they start moving towards the player, even if there is a wall or another barrier between them. This means that players can sometimes use this to their advantage, for example by quickly moving around a corner to attack enemies before they can turn around and reach the avatar. Apart from that, there are some optional and some mandatory puzzles that players can or must solve. The former focus on additional rooms, offering more loot to collect while the latter—like the first one in the prison cell—need to be solved to open a once-blocked path. However, some of the additional loot gained from such puzzles can still be important, since it can translate either in potions, lightnings or simply gold pieces that can be spent for better gear or food to regain health points, and save the hero from death.

Given the game’s frequently placed rooms filled with traps or crowds of enemies that sometimes even respawn, surviving long enough to progress throughout the levels, and encounter some of the more difficult puzzles alone can be quite a challenge.

Visual Aesthetics

Visually, GATE is also strongly oriented towards its role model. The left 2/3 of the screen is dedicated to the game itself. Here we see the hero’s character in the dungeon from a top-down view. Overall, the sprites are somewhat less detailed than in Gauntlet. They have the same model as the hero and differ only in hair or clothing colour. Monsters are sometimes abstract or stylised representations, as is typical for arcades: for example, lips with vampire fangs. Or the depictions are taken from the animal world, such as caterpillars or stylized birds. Overall, the game appears uniform in its color palette, especially in the first level, which uses rather warm colors such as yellow, orange, red and brown.

Overall, the GUI is structured in a clear way that did not change much between both versions on this structural level. About two thirds on the left are reserved for the game map while the other third on the right is reserved for a status display which once again bears similarities to Gauntlet. Both areas are surrounded by a black border with the current score and the number of Gold a player currently has placed above and a red health bar placed below. However, a large part of the status display dominated by a portrait of the hero.

Screenshot of the 1991 version of GATE
Fig. 5: Screenshot of the 1991 version of GATE and its GUI.
Screenshot of the 1994 version of GATE
Fig. 6: Screenshot of the 1994 version of GATE and its GUI.

In the original Apple IIgs version, this is a partly animated cartoon drawing of a warrior with sword and shield, but otherwise more reminiscent of an ancient legionnaire.13 For the Mac revamp GATE (1994, Macintosh), the image has been replaced by a high-resolution graphic by Valérie Kienzle. Her clothing and rapier are reminiscent of those worn by a Renaissance hero. The aesthetics of the former remind more of an Asterix comic and the latter of the European cloak and dagger films from the post-war period. The graphics in the revamp for the Macintosh are higher resolution, but at the same time much less colorful. The first dungeon appears in a realistic but very monotonous gray due to the color of the stones,although we do not know the reasons for this.

Music

As the original version of GATE for the Apple IIgs was designed to fit on a single floppy disk, there was limited space for sound and music. Those were created using the SoundSmith music tracker by Huibert Aalbers of Seven Hills Software14. This allowed sampling several instruments in different pitches and applying oscillators assigned in separate tracks without taking up too much precious storage space. The result of the main title was a forward driving synth-disco/pop track with a pressing bassline and the all present and frequent looped sample of the spoken word “GATE”. The team developed quite a unique style of music, incorporating distinctive instruments which were often digitized on their own into musical styles of that time. This becomes evident in comparison with the soundtrack for SpaceFox (Bright Software 1992) developed by Jörg Kienzle and Yann Le Tensorer one year later, which used mostly the same synthesizers. Not only did they take great inspiration in contemporary pop music, but they sometimes recreated songs to the very detail using the Apple IIgs software. Blue Monday by New Order (Factory Records 1983) on the SpaceFox soundtrack (Song 6) is one example. Although the technical possibilities were quite limited, one can clearly hear the fun the team had playing around with oscillators and the panning of the instruments, as Jörg Kienzle emphasized:

“And then what we did is basically we used always two oscillators for one instrument because then you could place it in a stereo between left and right and […] if you play the game with the earphones, you can hear sounds going left and right because we had a lot of fun with it.”15

Screenshot of SoundSmith (Huibert Aalbers, Seven Hills Software, Apple IIgs).
Fig. 7: SoundSmith (Huibert Aalbers, Seven Hills Software, Apple IIgs). (Source: Brutal Deluxe Software.)

Besides the static background music loop, there are not many sound effects, but still enough to give the player some feedback from the game world. On the Apple IIgs version at least, the character’s sounds—”yieppy” for collecting gems, “wupp” for health potions and “aargh” when getting hit—are often hard to distinguish from the louder, broadly vocalised music, and soon feel repetitive. Other than that, shooting missiles produces a small laser-like sound and another one when it hits a wall, regardless if there was an enemy in between or not. Entering a new map triggers an outerworldish synth-tingling. These few sounds provide enough feedback for the player to identify oneself with the interaction of the protagonist within the game world.

The Macintosh’s technological improvement is clearly noticeable music wise too, but still in a proper music tracker kind of manner. The songs have an obvious pop/rock structure, consisting of 2×2 bar-couples, with the instruments introduced or subtracted one by one. Classic harmonies such as I-I, I-IV and V-IV-I are used, and then the process starts again. Meanwhile funky and forward-driving baselines keep everything together, like in the first level track on the Macintosh version in picture [?]:

Music of GATE (Macintosh), main baseline level 1
Fig. 8: GATE (Macintosh), main baseline level 1.

Another notable track is the overworld melody that plays when the player leaves the dungeon. It is an exact copy of Jump by Van Halen (1983), with a slightly modified melody. The arrangement, chords, and rhythmic, however, make it unmistakably recognisable. It fittingly captures the feeling of finally reaching fresh (digital) air again, but the relentless repetition of the hammering chords can become annoying quite quickly. It has to be said that the overall musical themes, which are thoroughly filled with contemporary uplifting pop music references, are an unexpected but interesting choice for the adventure and dungeon-themed game. They certainly add a fun factor for the player, recognizing their popular culture again. We can only assume the fun Gudat, Kienzle, and Le Tensor must have had programming the music.

Reception & Synthesis

As already mentioned, both the original for the Apple IIgs and the remake for the Macintosh were denied great success. We found two reviews of the game in the Apple trade press. The inCider in particular gave the game a very positive review, but at the same time made it clear that one reason for the positive review was that there were hardly any other new games for the platform: “GATE is an anachronism — a game that might have been written for the Apple Ilgs five years ago.”16 The praise for GATE is also an epitaph to the Apple II: “Who knows? Maybe if some brave programmer had written GATE in 1986 and had dared to create some other exciting, addictive games for the Apple Ilgs in the year of its birth, we might be celebrating the Super Apple Ilgs in 1991, not the Nintendo Super Entertainment System.”16 Perhaps that’s one reason why the game can be found in two Youtube videos with lists of the best Apple IIgs games alongside classics like Deja Vu (Icom 1985, Macintosh et al.) and ports of Arkanoid (Taito 1986, Arcade et al.), Tetris (Alexey Pajitnov 1985, MS-DOS et al.), Battle Chess (Interplay 1988, Amiga et al.) and California Games (Epyx 1987, Apple II et al.).

The Rise of Fantasy

Thanks to its interchangeable fantasy backstory, the game is an excellent example of the impressive rise of the fantasy genre from niche to mainstream in the 1980s and 1990s, thanks in no small part to digital games like Gauntlet. Jörg Kienzle, who was primarily responsible for the setting, remembers reading The Lord of the Rings and seeing Dark Crystal (US/UK 1982, D: Jim Henson and Frank Oz), Neverending Story (D 1984, D: Wolfgang Petersen) and The Labyrinth (UK/US 1986, D: Jim Henson) at the movies. Although only The Neverending Story of the three films mentioned was a real significant success, it was clear that fantasy was no longer a niche genre, but making its way into the mainstream, where it became firmly established around two decades later.

A trigger for this was the success of the tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons, which Kienzle also played, although sales in Europe in the 1980s still left a lot to be desired. However, Kienzle was fortunate enough to have a friend who owned a lot of DnD products. The influence of DnD was evident in many areas, including computer role-playing games such as The Ultima and Wizardry series played by Kienzle. It can be said that the fantasy genre was still formulaic and simplistic at the time. Whether in digital or analog games,there was a central villain whose motivation was usually to be evil out of principle. His counterpart was the equally undifferentiated shining hero. Good out of principle. There was little talk or negotiation with monsters, evil magicians, or dragons, and only one way out: the opponent’s death. Along the way, princesses were rescued and fathers avenged. In digital games, one reason for this simplistic narrative was the limited possibilities of the hardware. Another explanation is, of course, the socialisation of young developers in a then most often simplistic fantasy world focused on über-men17.

While the aforementioned fantasy films and novels permitted a more in-depth narrative, an examination of the first editions of Dungeons and Dragons reveals that the initial stories were equally rudimentary, even without storage space constraints. Here, too, more emphasis was placed on spreadsheets than on fleshed-out characters. This only slowly changed with the spread of fantasy games, and accompanying more sophisticated background worlds, as well as higher expectations from the audience. In this respect, GATE is a good source for fantasy games of its time. Eye of the Beholder (Westwood Associates 1991, DOS a.o.) was released in the same year. Developed by Westwood with a decent budget and several co-developers, it doesn’t have any more backstory.

Digital games as an introduction for young men to the world of computer science

In this sense it is interesting to note, that, while only Yann Le Tensorer stayed in game development, all three men continued to work with computers: Henrik Gudat became an assistant at the institute for Informatics at the University of Basel (1997–1999), later working as a software engineer for Cyberlink AG. He also worked as a software engineer at the ETH (2004–2008), eventually getting into a manager position. Later on, he led the department for IT-control at the canton of Grisons and is now working for the city of Zürich.

After an interlude as a professional ice dancing pair together with Valérie Le Tensorer (later Kienzle), Jörg Kienzle earned his Ph.D. at the Software Engineering Laboratory at the EPFL in Lausanne in 2001. He worked as Research and Teaching Assistant at the EPFL (1997-2002), at the time participating in the development of a serious game called Geokit. He then became Assistant Professor at McGill University in Montréal and in 2008 associate professor at the School of Computer Science.

Yann Le Tesnorer went back to France to study computer software engineering at the “Institut Mines Telecom”—a prestigious grande école in Paris. Directly after his graduation he became the lead software engineer for Rayman (Ubisoft 1995, Atari Jaguar et al.) and later Rayman 2 (Ubisoft 1999, Windows et al.). In 2000, he left Ubisoft to establish his own studio together with colleagues called “Tiwak”, which later was bought by Ubisoft in 2011 to become Ubisoft Montpellier. Among other activities, he was a member of Ubisoft’s worldwide technology board. From 2014 to 2017 he became the director of technology at Ubisoft Blue Byte in Germany. He eventually went back to Switzerland to work as Chief Operating Officer at GIANTS Software (the developers of the Farming simulator) from 2017 to 2019, later working as supervisor for international studios for the German Kalypso Medien GmbH.

While it is easy to trace the later careers of these three biographies thanks to their extensive LinkedIn profiles and personal websites, it is very frustrating to try to find out more about Valérie Le Tensorer/Kienzle. After studying art history, she married Jörg Kienzle and moved to Canada with him and their two children where she worked as a nurse. However, after her divorce, we lost her trace, and attempts to interview her were unsuccessful. This is sadly typical of the role of women in the early history of digitalisation. Not being used to continuously promote their involvement in the development of digital games, and software more specifically, the female role was often forgotten. Frankly, some women were actively written out of history in favour of narratives of the male computer genius. In the case of Valérie Le Tensorer/Kienzle, we only know that she was credited as having made the graphics together with Jörg Kienzle for the demo, but she is no longer credited in the released version of the Apple IIgs game. Then again, we know from Jörg Kienzle that she made the fighter’s picture for the Mac Version, and was also involved in other graphics.

The analysis of the game was particularly fruitful for us. We were able to trace the early experiences of the digitalisation of Swiss society on the basis of the four biographies, although unfortunately we were unable to explore the role of Valérie Le Tensorer, the only woman in the team, in sufficient depth. Originally from different cultural backgrounds (Germany, Switzerland and France, respectively), Gudat, Kienzle and Le Tensorer found each other through their shared enthusiasm for cutting-edge microcomputers in the early 1980s. Unaware of the real purpose and the future of microcomputing, Kienzle’s father, a manager at Hoffmann-La Roche, who didn’t use a computer himself, foresaw a time when it would make sense to give his son one. He knew that his son would mostly play games on his Apple II, but he might also learn to master a new cultural technique at the same time.

GATE was never an attempt to participate in the success of the booming gaming industry with a digital game. The choice of the hopelessly outdated Apple IIgs as a platform was already an indication of this. Rather, it should be understood as the journeyman’s piece of young computer enthusiasts who used it to open up the world of computer science to themselves.

References

“mmphosis-apple2”. 15.08.2021. r/appletwo (Reddit), https://www.reddit.com/r/apple2/comments/p4nshe/comment/h91cbzc/.

“The Rarest Gamer”. “Gate (Macintosh game 1994)”. YouTube, 01.07.2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hyR5yDk1r8.

Anonymous. “Once Upon a Time”. inCider A+ 12/91, 88, http://s862692851.onlinehome.us/IN_91-12.

Brandenburg, Aurelia and Adrian Demleitner. “Of Bare Chested Men and Violence: Barbarians and War in 1980s games and press coverage”. Confoederatio Ludens, 13.11.2023. https://doi.org/10.58079/mr96.

Brandenburg, Aurelia, Adrian Demleitner, Arno Görgen, Addrich Mauch, and Eugen Pfister. “Fallstudie: Ball Raider (Golden Gate Crew/Diamond Software/Robtek, 1987, Amiga)”. Confoederatio Ludens, 17.06.2024. https://doi.org/10.58079/11u3w.

GATE (Bright Software, 1991, Apple IIgs)

GATE (Seven Hills Software/Bright Software, 1994, Macintosh)

Gauntlet (Atari Games Corporation, 1985, Arcade)

Kienzle, Jörg. Interview (transcript) led by Adrian Demleitner, 18.10.2024.

Kienzle, Jörg. Interview (transcript) led by Adrian Demleitner, 14.03.2025.

Parparita, Mihai. “About”. Infinite Mac, https://infinitemac.org/.

Rayman (Ubisoft 1995, Atari Jaguar et al.)

Rayman 2 (Ubisoft 1999, Windows et al.)

Seven Hills Software. GATE. Tallahassee, 1992.

Seven Hills Software. GATE (Solution). Tallahassee, 1993.

Townsley, Geoffrey Kincaid. Game Manuals: A Genre Analysis. MA Thesis. University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2020.


  1. See, for example, this list by user “mmphosis-apple2” on Reddit: “mmphosis-apple2”. 15.08.2021. r/appletwo (Reddit), https://www.reddit.com/r/apple2/comments/p4nshe/comment/h91cbzc/. []
  2. Parparita, Mihai. “About”. Infinite Mac, https://infinitemac.org/. []
  3. Seven Hills Software. GATE. Tallahassee, 1992, p. v. []
  4. Seven Hills Software. GATE. Tallahassee, 1992, p. i. []
  5. Seven Hills Software. GATE. Tallahassee, 1992, p. iii. []
  6. Townsley, Geoffrey Kincaid. Game Manuals: A Genre Analysis. MA Thesis. University of Arkansas at Little Rock, 2020. [] []
  7. “The Rarest Gamer”. “Gate (Macintosh game 1994)”. YouTube, 01.07.2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hyR5yDk1r8. []
  8. Kienzle, Jörg. Interview (transcript) led by Adrian Demleitner, 18.10.2024. [] []
  9. The castles are named after the developers “Henrik’s Castle”, “Yann’s Castle” and “Jörg’s Castle”. Interestingly, there is no castle named after Valérie Kienzle/Le Tensorer. []
  10. We were only able to obtain this information from a 16-page solution ((Seven Hills Software. GATE (Solution). Tallahassee, 1993. []
  11. Seven Hills Software. GATE (Solution), p. x []
  12. Seven Hills Software. GATE (Solution), p. ix []
  13. In the interview, Kienzle explained that this was a design by Gudat, who otherwise did not work on the graphics. Kienzle, Jörg. Interview (transcript) led by Adrian Demleitner, 14.03.2025. []
  14. Jörg Kienzle didn’t think that they used a tracker, but explained the exact function of SoundSmith as a tracker, possibly just not familiar with the term. Kienzle, Jörg. Interview (transcript) led by Adrian Demleitner, 14.03.2025. []
  15. Kienzle, Jörg. Interview (transcript) led by Adrian Demleitner, 14.03.2025. []
  16. Anonymous. “Once Upon a Time”. inCider A+ 12/91, 88, http://s862692851.onlinehome.us/IN_91-12. [] []
  17. See also Brandenburg, Aurelia, Adrian Demleitner, Arno Görgen, Addrich Mauch, and Eugen Pfister. “Fallstudie: Ball Raider (Golden Gate Crew/Diamond Software/Robtek, 1987, Amiga)”. Confoederatio Ludens, 17.06.2024. https://doi.org/10.58079/11u3w and Brandenburg, Aurelia and Adrian Demleitner. “Of Bare Chested Men and Violence: Barbarians and War in 1980s games and press coverage”. Confoederatio Ludens, 13.11.2023. https://doi.org/10.58079/mr96. []

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
CH Ludens (November 3, 2025). Emulators and Fantasy Villains: Case Study on GATE (Bright Software 1991) #2. Confoederatio Ludens. Retrieved November 14, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/152y5


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