Circuit's Edge

Cyberpunk without the internet, without holograms, just a dirty street, thugs, and your only asset — your head with a memory you can't remember. Circuit's Edge is a text adventure set in the Shadowrun universe, released by FASA Interactive in the nineties. This isn't a licensed game slapped together from templates; it's something with personality.

You walk the streets of corporate Bangkok, encounter characters from Shadowrun, and search for who you are. I'm actually playing as a cyborg who can't remember their past. Classic amnesia, but handled refreshingly specific — you have several blurred memory fragments and each interaction is a chance to uncover them. The world is dead and raw, written without unnecessary sentiment.

The game is controlled mostly by typing commands or selecting from menus. What might sound like outdated tedium actually works here — there's room for guessing. Conversations aren't branching trees with numbered choices. Characters behave based on what you've done before, and some will remember you for a very long time. Some tasks can be solved quietly, others require force or connections. Sometimes you just slip up, and then things go bad.

In the nineties this was a rarity — a text adventure with real consequences and no savior giving you a second chance. You could play it in maybe fifty minutes — and when you replayed it, it was completely different. That's magic most games don't have anymore, because everything needs to be playable multiple times without penalty.

Today you can play it in your browser or via DOSBox and discover why games that looked like worksheets entertained you in the nineties. No animation, no sound beyond some awkward MIDI — all of that's unnecessary when you've got atmosphere and an idea. It's not a classic like Monkey Island, but this is for someone who wants to read noir without pictures.