Stargate (Game Boy)

Stargate for Game Boy was released in 1994 alongside the Stargate film. Set in a science-fiction world where mysterious gates connect star systems, the powerful alien ruler Ra threatens to attack the planet. Players must shut down the Stargates to prevent Ra’s invasion.

The game is a Tetris-like matching puzzle game where players must stack and match tiles as they drop at an increasing speed into the Stargate, represented by a 3D cylinder. Matching three tiles with the same symbol clears them from the space, while filling the cylinder to the top leads to game over. An “address” of seven symbols is given at the top of the screen, which is incrementally fulfilled as the symbols shown are stacked in groups of three. “Skill Mode” tasks players with clearing as many addresses as they can before the Stargate fills to the top, while “Battle Mode” allows players to compete against the computer or another player through the Game Boy link cable.

Version Information

Stargate on the Game Boy was developed by Melbourne-based studio Beam Software. It was a port of the Game Gear version, released the same year and developed by publisher Acclaim’s studio Probe Software with Beam. A console Stargate gate was also released for the SNES and Sega Genesis sharing the same title and released the following year in 1995, though this was a different game, being a side-scrolling adventure. Australian studio Tantalus worked on porting the Genesis version to the SNES. More can be read on Tantalus’ version here.