GOLDEN GATE

Combine your research and cunning logic to unravel layer upon layer of this wildly intriguing vortex of mystery, magic and fear!

Weaving together past and present... fact, fiction, and folklore... 1st person adventure, full-motion video, and a sweeping symphonic musical score, Golden Gate immerses you into a fascinating graphical treasure hunt. Travel from the ethereal shoreline tides at the Cliff House, through the hulls and decks of the eerie Balclutha, searching Angel Island, wandering the streets of Chinatown and roaming Mission Dolores in search of clues to the lost treasure.

• Immerse yourself in the enigma of time. Seek your fortune and place of mind.
• New architecture technology allows for non-linear play and free movement through two centuries.
• Thousands of gorgeous watercolored images capture the aura and magic of San Francisco.

~ from the back of the box

 

There’s something undeniably special about Golden Gate, the 1997 point-and-click adventure from Ix Entertainment. It’s a bit of a hidden relic - quiet, strange, and disarmingly beautiful. Often mislabeled as just another Myst clone, Golden Gate actually has more of its own personality than many of its peers, blending real San Francisco history with watercolor visuals and a centuries-spanning treasure hunt. If you've ever wanted to explore a dreamlike version of the City by the Bay while piecing together a supernatural mystery, this is your game.

You begin your journey in front of an old house; a dilapidated building steeped in history as it is in the fictional lore of the game. It was once the home of another "infamous" treasure hunter, yet it is now empty and deserted, as if ransacked by the many like-minded adventurers who have picked through the rubble previously. One such adventurer is Jake T. Matthews, another single-minded hunter stricken mad with gold fever. Basically, he's the game's exposition dumper as seen in the opening FMV. Just like you, he's in search of riches and will often pop up throughout the adventure to moan about his misfortunes and frustrations. 

Signposts are everywhere to let you know where to go, but with hundreds of screens, you will get lost (left).

Thankfully there's a map from which you can fast travel to any location and catch your bearings again (right).

The moment you have control, you have a choice. Do you enter the old house in front of you, or explore the city behind you? It doesn't really matter as you can return to any location at any time either by walking or via the fast travel map - provided you've already been there of course. This design choice keeps the pace pleasantly brisk, bypassing numerous screens as you traipse down many a street, footpath or hiking trail. Even so, the game as a whole is so cozy and serene it might as well be sipping chamomile tea. If you want to savour the journey and walk, you'll be treated to a pleasant art style that mimics water colour paintings. Each of the static photographs from which you view the city have been redrawn in water colour (or altered with a filter, it seems) that has mixed results. Some areas are detailed and beautiful to look at, giving you a nice appreciation of the city's famous and not-so-famous locations. Others are a little indecipherable. Not enough to deter from the game overall - more care has been made on the screens that matter than don't - but enough to be noticeable.

Gameplay is as simple as such a game can be. Using only your mouse, you click to move through the streets via a slide show of static screens in much the same way as Myst. And like that classic, Golden Gate does not hold your hand, offering little direction beyond compass points and road names. Thankfully, your cursor is more than just an arrow head or gloved hand; at a quick glance it will tell you which direction you can and cannot move in, and whether there's an interactable point in front of you. The circular design has four arrow points like a compass which will glow green if you can go that way. When that point is curved, it indicates a 180-degree turn. If an exclamation mark appears in the center space, it's time to go searching - there's something to interact with here!

Clues are inconspicuously hidden throughout San Francisco (left).

You could walk several miles until you find out what it relates to (right).

Puzzles are solved through observation: a stone carving on a pathway here, a symbol on a gravestone there. There's so much information casually placed in random locations, it can be hard to keep track of. My advice is to read all of the documents you come across for some much-needed clues. They are here in abundance and lengthy to boot. At least they are all exceptionally well-written - both in the game and outside of it. Physical editions of the game came with a diary full of mad scribbled and paper clippings that will hint at what's to come, but their biggest asset is how each page - digital or otherwise - slowly eek out the fanciful backstory. Tales of men going mad in the hunt for treasure, passing on that curse from one thrill seeker to the next. You can view them at any time by accessing them from your inventory. It's found by hovering the cursor over the bottom of the screen. It's simple and unobtrusive with tiny icons representing what you've collected, but its use so infrequently it might as well not be there. Only in the game's final moments will you need to use anything from here marking a missed opportunity for the rest of the game. There are puzzles, don't get me wrong, but what's here is either easily completed on their own, or solved through observation of a completely arbitrary screen the other side of the map.

Regardless, San Francisco itself is the real star of the game. It doesn't give you every location - it's more like a tourist's to-do list than Google maps - but what's there is stunning. From Chinatown's lantern-lit alleyways to the misty cliffs near the Golden Gate Bridge, each location is lovingly rendered in a soft-focus watercolor style that gives the each area a timeless, haunted quality that's only accentuated by the absolute lack of any people.

Find the remembrance necklace as early as possible (left).

It let's you witness the incredible cutscenes, albeit in a tiny circular window (right).

Once Jack has left the video screen, it's just you and the ambience to keep you company. Occasionally a short burst of dialogue breaks the calming soundtrack. These are Jack's exasperated exclamations of "are you following me?" or "I'm not crazy, I'm doing research!", but make no mistake, these are not clues despite how some might seem. While the disc has no Redbook audio to listen on CD players, the music here deserves a soundtrack release. Unfortunately, there isn't one that I could find - fan-made or otherwise. But what there is, is a menu screen that lets you play each track to your hearts desire. And you might just want to on occasion too.

But there are other sounds that are far more important (and easy to miss). A chime will indicate that a movie sequence can be viewed on one of the four directions of this node. It will only trigger if you've found the remembrance necklace (located on a docked ship called the Balclutha), but they are surprisingly well acted, scripted and produced. So much so that it's a shame they're only played in a small circular window. Some scenes hint at an object you need to find; a buried diary, a lost key - and much like the pages they lead you to, it's worth hunting them all down if only to get a better idea of the overarching story.

Cursed by a demon. Oh well, time to hit the nightclubs (left). There's a wonderfully

orchestral soundtrack that you can listen at any time. From within the game that is (right).

While there is no death in the game, you can stumble into an undesirable situation. Should you attempt to open the treasure chest without the correct keys, you will be cursed by the beast. All this literal demon will do is alter your vision as if you've just taken a bunch of psychedelics. This might be the preferred way to spend a night out in San Francisco, but in the game you'll have to wash yourself with holy water at the Mission Delores Basilica. After a quick splash, you can continue on as if nothing has happened.

Golden Gate is not a photorealistic tour of a great American city; it’s a romanticized memory of San Francisco, and it works beautifully with the game's themes of lost time and buried secrets. It's a slow, thoughtful mystery wrapped in painterly visuals and real historical inspiration. An odd little gem that's well worth digging up. 

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox 0.74 running Windows '95. Manual, Diary and Map included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

IMPORTANT - Remember to shut down the emulated version of Windows before exiting DOSBox. This could potentially result in errors, lost saves and corrupt data. The program will automatically shut down when you exit the game.

File Size: 560 Mb.  Install Size: 919 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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Golden Gate is © Ix Entertainment & Panasonic Interactive Media Company
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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