History VideoGame / GadgetPastAsFuture

* PhoneBooth: Seen in some of the train stations.

* MuseumOfTheStrangeAndUnusual: The Museum of Science, where the Nation's scientists fix broken machines and put them on display. It even has a ''working aircraft'' upstairs.

* ShadowDictator: Orlovsky, who views the scientists as terrorists and tries to suppress the news of the incoming comet. He also has a [[PsychoticSmirk creepy smirk]] whenever you see him.

* ReverseMole: According to Horselover, [[spoiler: Slowslop is secretly in league with the scientists, supporting their project under Orlovsky's nose. [[MindScrew ''Maybe'' ]].]]

* NewEraSpeech: Your final Sensorama-induce vision shows Orlovsky giving one, gloating about the Empire's many machines and his drive to perfect the Sensorama.

* ReverseMole: According to Horselover, [[spoiler: Slowslop is secretly in league with the scientists, supporting their project under Orlovsky's nose.]]

* UnwittingTestSubject: Some characters and a hidden document reveal that there were 12 failed subjects exposed to the Sensorama before you, each of whom appear at least once during your frequent train rides. [[spoiler: According to Orlovsky, you are the 13th subject.]]

* TrackTrouble: towards the end of the game, the train track back to West End is hit by glowing space debris, forcing the train to backtrack and reroute to another line.

* MindScrew

* PointAndClickGame

* [[WidgetSeries Widget Game]]

* HellHotel: The hotel where you start and end the game. [[spoiler: The art book reveals that it's actually a government research lab disguised as a hotel.

* CometOfDoom

* DieselPunk

This game provides examples of:

* MindControlDevice

''Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure'' is a [[PointAndClickGame point and click]] video game (though honestly more of a VisualNovel) directed by Creator/HaruhikoShono and first released by Creator/SynergyInteractive in 1993. In 1998, a better-known remake of the game titled '''''Gadget: Past as Future''''' was released by Creator/CryoInteractive.

* TheNewRussia

'''''Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure''''' is a [[PointAndClickGame point and click]] video game (though honestly more of a VisualNovel) directed by Creator/HaruhikoShono and first released by Creator/SynergyInteractive in 1993. In 1998, a better-known remake of the game titled '''''Gadget: Past as Future''''' was released by Creator/CryoInteractive.

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Gadget_syn_cd.jpg

'''''Gadget: Invention, Travel, & Adventure''''' is a [[PointAndClickGame point and click]] video game (though honestly more of a VisualNovel) directed by Haruhiko Shono and first released by Synergy Interactive in 1993. In 1998, a better-known remake of the game titled '''''Gadget: Past as Future''''' was released by Cryo Interactive.

The game is set within a DieselPunk nation called "The Empire", ruled by dictator Paulo Orlovsky, that feels and looks similiar to that of George Orwell's ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''.

The plot is quite esoteric and [[MindScrew ambiguous]]. A lot of it is left to interpretation or told only by inference. As far as anyone can tell; the nation comissioned this group of seven scientists (headed by Horselover Frost) to build a MindControlDevice called "Sensorama" to brainwash dissidents. However, the scientists spotted at the observatory a [[CometOfDoom comet]] approaching the earth, along with a mysterious giant spaceship, and realized the world was going to end and that the spaceship was there to rescue those who would come. So they hacked into the Sensorama so that those subjected to it would obey Horselover instead. The nation became suspicious of the scientists and has a secret agent investigate them. You take the role of that agent. Prior to the game, however, you get subjected to the Sensorama yourself, and the rest of the game is played under its influence.

You get assigned by your commanding officer, Theodore Slowslop, to investigate the scientists again. You travel around a bunch of train stations ([[CoolTrain the operative word of the game is "locomotive", imagery of them abounds in the game to a borderline fetishic degree]]), talking to the scientists at their secret laboratories, and under the Sensorama's influence you begin helping them, gathering gizmos to complete a small-scale spaceship called the "Ark", which, supposedly, the scientists will use to fly up to the big one. You are riddled throughout with hallucinations of what appears to be a post-apocalyptic swampland; and a [[CreepyChild creepy little boy]] who keeps appearing and dissappearing, never saying a word, of whom the identity and purpose of is completely unknown. By the end, very little is explained and it is left unclear exactly how much of the journey has even been real.

In appearance, the game is very similiar to ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}''. However, the game is entirely linear; you cannot do anything or travel anywhere that isn't scripted. You click to move ahead and activate things; that's it. There's only one puzzle in the game; a relatively simple maze at the end when you navigate the Ark through some underground tunnels. It is therefore really more a KineticNovel that you play for the beautiful scenery and eerie atmosphere more than it is a VideoGame.

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* GainaxEnding: The game ends with you flying the Ark into this giant mechanical structure topped with a glass dome. Inside is what looks like a giant sensorama. Slowslop, who previously was having you investigate the scientists but now seems to be working ''with'' them, tells you to give him your suitcase; then the giant sensorama activates, there's a hallucination and Slowslop dissappears. Then you come to and find the machine destroyed, you go through some doors and end up back in the hotel room you began the game in; albeit with the aforementioned swampland outside the window. There's another regular-sized sensorama which you use and see what Orlovsky planned for the empire, then the boy appears again, disappears, then you see some swirling lights outside the window; you fly out of it over the swamplands; a face rises out of a pool of water, and then the game ends. Not kidding.