View source for Circuit's Edge

{{Short description|1990 video game}}
{{Infobox video game
|title = Circuit's Edge
|image = Circuit's Edge Coverart.png
|caption = Cover art
|developer = [[Westwood Associates]]
|publisher = [[Infocom]]
|released = 1990
|genre = [[Interactive fiction]], [[role-playing video game|role-playing]]
|modes = [[Single-player]]
|platforms = [[MS-DOS]]
}}

'''''Circuit's Edge''''' is a [[video game]] developed by [[Westwood Studios|Westwood Associates]] and released by [[Infocom]] in 1990. It is based on [[George Alec Effinger]]'s 1987 novel ''[[When Gravity Fails]]''. The game is a hybrid [[interactive fiction]]/[[role-playing video game]]; it contains a window of text, a graphic window for depiction of the player's current location, and various menus and mini-windows for character statistics and other game functions.

==Plot==
The player assumes the role of Marîd Audran, a private detective. The game is set in "The Budayeen", an entertainment/criminal quarter in an unnamed city somewhere in the Middle East that is based on [[New Orleans]].{{r|cgw19900708}} While running a series of errands/"business deals" for "Saied the Half-Hajj", a friend of Marîd's, Marîd is framed for the murder of a man named Kenji Carter. Although Marîd's influential patron Friedlander Bey clears him with the local police, Bey asks him to look into Carter's death. Doing so leads Marîd deep into the criminal underworld of the Budayeen.

Effinger's novel ''When Gravity Fails'' was the first in a series of three "Marîd Audran" books (followed by 1989's ''[[A Fire in the Sun]]'' and 1991's ''[[The Exile Kiss]]''); ''Circuit's Edge'' takes place between the first and second novel.{{r|scorpia19900708}}

==Reception==
Jim Trunzo reviewed ''Circuit's Edge'' in ''[[White Wolf (magazine)|White Wolf]]'' #22 (Aug./Sept., 1990), rating it a 4 out of 5 and stated that "One thing is certainL once you begin to play ''Circuit's Edge'', you'll keep going back to the streets of Budayeen, where life is never boring and death never far away."<ref name="WW22">{{Cite magazine |last=Trunzo|first=Jim |date=August–September 1990 |title=The Silicon Dungeon |magazine= [[White Wolf Magazine]] |number=22 |pages= 58–59 |url=https://imgur.com/a/GxGfyBW}}</ref>

The editors of ''[[Game Player's PC Strategy Guide]]'' presented the game with their 1990 "Best PC Graphic Adventure Game" award. They wrote, "An intelligent, literate, and thoroughly compelling sci-fi role-playing game, ''Circuit's Edge'' is the best cyberpunk game yet released."<ref name=gpawards>{{cite journal | title=''Game Player''{{'}}s Annual PC Game Awards 1990 | date=January–February 1991 | volume=4 | number=1 | journal=[[Game Player's PC Strategy Guide]] | pages=10, 12, 14 }}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="scorpia19900708">{{cite magazine | url=http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1990&pub=2&id=73 | title=Circuit's Edge | magazine=Computer Gaming World | date=July–August 1990 | accessdate=16 November 2013 | author=Scorpia | pages=10}}</ref>
<ref name="cgw19900708">{{cite magazine | url=http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1990&pub=2&id=73 | title=Behind The Budayeen/An Interview with George Alec Effinger | magazine=Computer Gaming World | date=July–August 1990 | accessdate=16 November 2013 | pages=46}}</ref>
}}

==External links==
*{{MobyGames|id=/circuits-edge|name=''Circuit's Edge''}}
*{{Internet Archive game|msdos_Circuits_Edge_1990}}
* [https://www.stayforever.de/circuits-edge-a-conversation-with-michael-legg/ Stay Forever: Circuit’s Edge: A conversation with Michael Legg] (Transcription of an Interview for the Stay Forever-podcast on Friday, March 6, 2020)

{{Westwood Studios}}

[[Category:1990 video games]]
[[Category:Cyberpunk video games]]
[[Category:Detective video games]]
[[Category:DOS games]]
[[Category:DOS-only games]]
[[Category:Infocom games]]
[[Category:Single-player video games]]
[[Category:Video games based on novels]]
[[Category:Video games developed in the United States]]
[[Category:Video games set in Morocco]]
[[Category:Video games set in the Middle East]]
[[Category:Westwood Studios games]]