''Circuit's Edge'' is a

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developed by Westwood Associates and released by

Infocom Infocom, Inc., was an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced a business application, a relational database called ''Cornerstone (software), Cornerston ...

in 1990. It is based on

George Alec Effinger George Alec Effinger (January 10, 1947 – April 27, 2002) was an American science fiction author, born in Cleveland, Ohio. Writing career Effinger was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on January 10, 1947. His father was a United States Navy vetera ...

's 1987 novel '' When Gravity Fails''. The game is a hybrid

interactive fiction Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narrati ...

role-playing video game Role-playing video games, also known as CRPG (computer/console role-playing games), comprise a broad video game genre generally defined by a detailed story and character advancement (often through increasing characters' levels or other skills) ...

; it contains a window of text, a graphic window for depiction of the player's current location, and various menus and mini-windows for character statistics and other game functions.

Plot

The player assumes the role of Marîd Audran, a private detective. The game is set in "The Budayeen", an entertainment/criminal quarter in an unnamed city somewhere in the Middle East that is based on

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. While running a series of errands/"business deals" for "Saied the Half-Hajj", a friend of Marîd's, Marîd is framed for the murder of a man named Kenji Carter. Although Marîd's influential patron Friedlander Bey clears him with the local police, Bey asks him to look into Carter's death. Doing so leads Marîd deep into the criminal underworld of the Budayeen. Effinger's novel ''When Gravity Fails'' was the first in a series of three "Marîd Audran" books (followed by 1989's '' A Fire in the Sun'' and 1991's '' The Exile Kiss''); ''Circuit's Edge'' takes place between the first and second novel.

Reception

Jim Trunzo reviewed ''Circuit's Edge'' in '' White Wolf'' #22 (Aug./Sept., 1990), rating it a 4 out of 5 and stated that "One thing is certainL once you begin to play ''Circuit's Edge'', you'll keep going back to the streets of Budayeen, where life is never boring and death never far away." The editors of '' Game Player's PC Strategy Guide'' presented the game with their 1990 "Best PC Graphic Adventure Game" award. They wrote, "An intelligent, literate, and thoroughly compelling sci-fi role-playing game, ''Circuit's Edge'' is the best cyberpunk game yet released."

References

External links

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Stay Forever: Circuit’s Edge: A conversation with Michael Legg
(Transcription of an Interview for the Stay Forever-podcast on Friday, March 6, 2020) {{Westwood Studios 1990 video games Cyberpunk video games Detective video games DOS games DOS-only games Infocom games Single-player video games Video games based on novels Video games developed in the United States Video games set in Morocco Video games set in the Middle East Westwood Studios games