Circuit's Edge
DOS - 1990
Description of Circuit's Edge
Circuit's Edge is an atmospheric, well-written game based on "When Gravity Fails," an excellent sci-fi series by George Effinger about the Budayeen-- a small corner of Morocco notorious for violence, sex, and drugs. The game's strength lies in the outstanding and rich depiction of the world that Effinger envisioned.
You play Marid, a down-on-his-luck two-bit courier looking for a job. The game play - walking city streets, visiting bars and talking to sexchanges, using a cellphone, taking drugs, fighting punks, putting chips in your head - it was like few games in terms of grit and well-realized gameworld.
The game also features an ingenious CHIP IN/OUT feature that is reminiscent of Interplay's Neuromancer: you can buy or obtain skill chips that can be activated to solve puzzles and increase your aptitude. Despite the seemlingly endless freedom in exploring the city and partaking its many vices, however, the gameplay is linear - one event after another, with lax time constraints, and endless wandering will be cut short by messages from your wristwatch reminding you of your current task.
The interface and encounters are exciting enough, but the characters you encounter, while gritty, are limited in their variance (but then again, few designers care about the sexual history of characters in computer games back in 1990, or even now). Though the game's story and prose are very violent, the story is very interesting, and ranks among the best-developed in adventure games. There are also fighting sequences in the game, most of which doesn't further the plotline but add action and atmosphere.
Overall, Circuit's Edge is a must-play for all cyberpunk fans- highly recommended.
Review By HOTUD
External links
How to play Circuit's Edge
Modern Systems Installer is a game packed with DOSBox, all in one setup. That installer may trigger some false positive warnings because file has no signature, here's the VirusTotal report. The game with that installer has been tested on Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 10 & 11, works with no problem
Captures and Snapshots
Comments and reviews
Dug 2024-11-18 0 point
The age shows on this lol. I was born a ways after this game came out so I cannot attest or detract from how good it was for its time, but I can say the formula has been improved upon immensely. Seeing as how I sadly dont have any nostalgia, all I can say is that I spent 30 minutes trying to find the first location you need to go to. Most likely due to limitations of the time everything does look pretty similar so it becomes hard to distinguish the places from eachother, and the Map is of little use either. The map more so shows where your character can and cannot exist. There is no indication of where a place may be or quest markers like we have now a days. Like another commenter said you will have to use pen and paper to figure out any of your bearings. Needless to say I couldn't last in it, I was curious to find out the story through gameplay but I didn't think it worth the time and effort. I will probably go read the source material though.
Flyboy 2023-10-09 1 point
Adventure gamers of old had map making tools of their own called "pen and paper" no compass needed
larry 2021-05-05 1 point
one of the games, that truly aims to make the player experience a whole new atmosphere and succeeds it. to be able to do is nothing about "realistic" graphics.
JAY DEE 2015-02-01 3 points DOS version
pretty good,could do with the map that came with it,as navigating the town can be confusing
Kmuzu 2014-10-31 6 points DOS version
The story is from George Alec Effinger's, When Gravity Fails. This is Mike Legg's game. He is now one of the owners of Petroglyph Games.
alx96 2013-12-23 5 points DOS version
this games in one of the first game I ever played. Definitely my first Adventure games before a string of adventure games like indoana jones, leisure suit larry series, monkey island and so on.
This game is awesome! Bring back a lot of elementary school memories, solving puzzle, getting epiphanies. I am 37 yo now mind you.
Thanks myabandonware!
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Download Circuit's Edge
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DOS Version
630 KB
DownloadModern Systems Installer (works on Windows 10 & 11) 12 MB
Manual 8 MB
Game Extras
Various files to help you run Circuit's Edge, apply patches, fixes, maps or miscellaneous utilities.
935 KB
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