The Lost Gate

Details: Category: Computer; By CCGR; 01.Jun; Hits: 7669

System Requirements

OS: Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP CPU: Intel Pentium or higher RAM: 32MB HDD: 25MB VIDEO: 16MB 3D accelerated, Direct X 9 compatible SOUND: 16 bit AGE: Everyone

Story

You are David, a young orphan who has been raised in an orphanage all of your life. Your best friend Stephan is going to be with another family for the holiday. You\'re happy for him, but you\'ll still miss him nonetheless. Stephan said for you to check out his room when he left, as he left you a surprise. This is where the adventure begins!

Mystery

Inside Stephan\'s closet is a machine you\'ll have to figure out how to activate. There are a lot of puzzles in this game. Some of them require you to look and think real hard. There are no help sites out yet, so if you get stuck you can e-mail me ;). Before venturing into the closet too far, make sure you look around the room and grab what you can. Everything you can take will be used. Fortunately, the game won\'t let you advance if you missed something important. I always hated reloading games because I missed something from ten levels ago!

Puzzles?

The there are many puzzles in this game. Some memory, some trial and error and others require logic. You will do anything from digging up treasure, to activating strange machines, to turning on solar powered computers. You will discover a broken key that unlocks the Lost Gate. Find out more about this mysterious gate and the other key piece! Who knows, you might make some new friends along the way.

To be continued?

When you get the information on the history of the gate, it ends. There is a sequel in the making so perhaps it will finish the story off. The game is rather short and only took me a few hours to complete. One of your inventory items is a map, and you only get to go to the first couple of places. There is a big castle which I suspect will be in the next game. I\'m very curious on how this game will end.

Bugs

I noticed a couple of bugs in this game. I managed to lose an inventory item. I\'m not sure if it just stopped being displayed or if the game doesn\'t think I have it anymore. Fortunately, it didn\'t hinder the game ending. Another thing I noticed was that there was a hotspot in the town that gave me infinite fragments of the key. There has been a patch since and it probably addresses some if not all of these issues. Be sure to grab the updated demo/full game from the site. Appropriate? This game is perfectly clean. It\'s made for children; however they might not be able to figure out all of the puzzles. This game is released as a fundraiser for The Home Foundation, so if you do enjoy it, please make a donation.

Overall experienceEase of use

The Lost Gate was designed with Adventuremaker.com\'s game engine. It is a Myst like interface where there are hotspots to grab items and move into new areas. Your cursor will change to indicate objects you can interact with. Installation was easy. When you grab the demo/full game you can play up to a certain point. Once you come to the demo\'s end you are given a code, and asked to return that code. and a new pass code is given to you if you have made a donation. The demo is then unlocked and turned into the full game. The graphics are 2D but use 3D rendered models. The levels are very colorful and nicely detailed. Kids will definitely like the look and feel of this game. I\'m sure children will figure out what items to pick up for inventory but some of the puzzles they may struggle with. The background music is very fitting, and the voice acting is decent. There were a couple of translation mistakes but nothing really important. The mouse is used for control, and you need an eye for detail. The game play is a bit short but this game is meant for fund raising. If you enjoy the demo, please consider giving a $10 donation for the full game to The Home Foundation.