Alien Gate (CDI)

Alien Gate

Platform: CD-i Year: 1993 Developer: SPC Vision

Alien Gate is a fixed shooter developed for the Philips CD-i by Dutch company SPC Vision. It was their very first game, and one of the few who was not released under their label name, The Vision Factory. Initially, Alien Gate was just a demo created internally in 1992 but when Philips saw it, they were impressed by the size of these colorful sprites, and ordered a full game.

Indeed, Alien Gate surpassed everything else that existed on CD-i at the time (mainly educational software and encyclopedias). That said, the final product remains a very simple and primitive game, far from later standards of this developer, like The Apprentice.

Alien Gate features a vertical scrolling effect. However, it is considered a fixed shooter, like games such as Galaga.

Each stage consists of the player's ship facing off against a giant head that spawns several smaller enemies. Once all the required enemies are defeated, the giant head spawns some bonus (points, shield, weapon upgrade) then the next stage begins. There are 25 stages and 14 different enemy types. Stages are short, but the difficulty of the game increases quickly!

Screenshots

The title screen & Main menu. Alright, let's go! The first level... ... another level... ... and another one. Well, the background doesn't change much. Game Over. No music here, but you can ear some people laughting at you.

Music

VGMPF Album Art

The music and sound effects of Alien Gate were made by Total Music Design. The composer's real name is unknown, and Total Music Design apparently hasn't worked on any other games.

The soundtrack consists of two ambient-style tracks, with the addition of various unsettling sound effects. The two songs are very similar, and are used for the Main Menu and the Highscore. There is no in-game music.

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Length	Listen	Download
01	Main Menu	Total Music Design	3:22		Download
02	Highscore	Total Music Design	2:45		Download

Credits

• Ripper: JC Grospixels
• Recorder: JC Grospixels
• Game Credits:
  • Music & Sound Effects: Total Music Design

(Sources: exit game. In the main menu, the credits scroll at the bottom of the screen. You can also read them after exiting the game).

Almost all CD-i game discs contain three text files named Abstract, Bibliographic and Copyright (with no extension), offering various informations. Bibliographic gives some credits, including "Music and sound effects by Total Music Design".

Game Rip

Format	Download
	N/A

Releases

Netherlands Title: Alien Gate Platform: CD-i Released: 1993-??-?? Publisher: Philips Interactive Media, Inc.     UK Title: Alien Gate Platform: CD-i Released: 1993-??-?? Publisher: Philips Interactive Media, Inc.     France Title: Alien Gate Platform: CD-i Released: 1993-??-?? Publisher: Philips Interactive Media, Inc.     Germany Title: Alien Gate Platform: CD-i Released: 1993-??-?? Publisher: Philips Interactive Media, Inc.     USA Title: Alien Gate Platform: CD-i Released: 1993-??-?? Publisher: Philips Interactive Media, Inc.

Links

• mobygames.com/game/39567/alien-gate/ - MobyGames.
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Gate - Wikipedia.