Curiosity and Computer Stores: Case Study on GATE (Bright Software 1991)

At the end of the 1980s, four young people met in the Basel area and started developing a game called GATE for the Apple IIg in their free time. They came together partly through ice skating, a computer store and an early fascination with computers. The result was an unlikely reinterpretation of Gauntlet for the Apple IIgs, unlikely because the computer was already fourteen years old at the time of programming. The game itself even found a publisher, first in France and then in the USA, but it failed to achieve great success.