Shadowgate is a point-and-click style game of adventure and exploration originally developed by a small team at ICOM Simulations for the Macintosh. This was the third game in their "MACventure series," as the games have been affectionately dubbed. The original lineup consisted of Deva Vu, Unintived, Shadowgate, and Deja Vu 2. All but the Deja Vu sequel were later ported to the NES by Kemco.
The NES versions featured a fresh coat of paint and some tweaks with the interface. Although Deja Vu was the only MACventure title to receive a sequel during the original development, Shadowgate is the one to have persisted. The team behind the original MAC version developed a sequel called Beyond Shadowgate for the original system, but iCOM ultimately decided to scrap the nearly-finished project to focus on more modern consoles. The design documents were turned over to a different team to work on a game for the Turbografx-16. They took one or two (or 300) liberties with the script, added some combat, and made what I consider to be the most fascinating Shadowgate game.
Just a quick note on the naming conventions of the maps. The manual gives a list of location names, but does not give any indication for which location matches the names, with three exceptions. The Village has a picture of the Mayor from the town that has come aflame, the Ledge has a picture from the cliffs just outside of the Caves, and The North Woods is just the Goblin King screen. Which lead to some guesswork on my part as to how to label the forested areas. Since the Druids Woods and The West Woods are listed as two separate locations, I made the decision to label the forest that one would think is north of the City as the West Woods. It's odd, but I'm rolling with it based on the clues available.
That's plenty of intro text, on with the guide!
