- Time-Gate
Infobox VG
title =
caption=
developer =John Hollis
publisher =Quicksilva
designer =John Hollis
engine =
released = vgy|1983
genre =
modes =Single-player
ratings =
platforms =ZX Spectrum
media = Cassette
requirements = 48K, Issue 2 or later
input = Keyboard;Joystick could be added via a patch (instructions given)"Time-Gate" (also known as "Timegate", "4D Time-Gate" or "4D Defender") is an early
ZX Spectrum game fromQuicksilva , and one of the first 3D combat games; it was also (unusually for its time) an original concept, i.e. not a port of an arcade game [Review in Sinclair User issue 10 — http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showmag.cgi?mag=SinclairUser/Issue010/Pages/SinclairUser01000020.jpg] . Although based on the common misconception that time is the fourth dimension (in fact, physicists regard time as a fourth dimensionFact|date=June 2008; mathematicians regard "dimension" as referring to space onlyFact|date=June 2008), it was unusual (particularly when compared with the flood of me-too games which followed it) in that it treated time "as" a dimension, in which one could travel (albeit backwards only).Plot
"Time-Gate" had one embarking on a perilous mission to repel the Squarm invaders who have conquered Earth, by fighting through hordes of same, thus finding and locating the time-gates (hence the name) and using the gates to travel back through time to an earlier era, where one fought through more Squarm to find another gate... Eventually, if one hadn’t been killed by the enemy or died of boredom (the latter, unfortunately, was all too likely!), one got back to the year before the Squarm invaded, located their home planet, and locked onto it with one’s meson RAM (48K), thereby destroying it and retroactively preventing its inhabitants from ever having invaded in the first place. All very hackneyed stuff, although this was the first (and, mercifully, the only) time (pun not intended) this idea had ever appeared in a game. Time-Gate seemed very thrilling stuff at the time (pun again not intended), but dated rapidly.
Technical problems
"Time-Gate", due to its intense use of machine-code-driven sound, placed more stress on the Spectrum's sound capabilities than previous games [Letter from Quicksilva to "ZX Computing" magazine, April-May 1983 — http://www.worldofspectrum.org/showmag.cgi?mag=ZXComputing/Issue8304/Pages/ZXComputing830400009.jpg] , and thereby inadvertently revealed a design flaw in early machines, whereby the "Time-Gate" sound effects would crash those machines. This resulted in some people buying the game to stress-test their SpectrumsFact|date=June 2008.
The wave of "4D" games
"Time-Gate" was followed by several games (hastily written and rushed out to cash in on its popularity)Fact|date=July 2008 which, like "Time-Gate" itself, based their "4D" claim on a common fallacy concerning
Einstein and his Theories of Relativity. (Contrary to popularmisconception , what Relativity says about time is that it is "a" fourthdimension ; nowhere in either theory is there a single word about time being "the" fourth dimension, to the exclusion of all other candidates. Indeed, at least one of the current (June 2008) theories ofcosmology requires there to be at least four dimensions of space, regardless of how many time dimensions there areFact|date=June 2008. See alsoRobert Heinlein 's short story "—And He Built a Crooked House—"; it can be found in several SF anthologies.) But unlike "Time-Gate", these all without exception merely featured a display with some kind of perspective ("the first three dimensions") plusanimation ("the fourth") — in no sense did they feature time "as" a dimension.These games all rapidly sank without trace, although occasionally thereafter another game featuring time "flow" (e.g. animation) would wrongly call itself "4D". Ironically, there was at the time of "Time-Gate"'s publication a game ("
Knot in 3D " byNew Generation Software ) which mathematicians would call 4D (in that it took place on the 3D surface of a 4Dhypersphere ); but it was never advertised as such!References
External links
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