Gemini Rue

Gemini Rue is a moody adventure set in the far future. The game opens with a scene in a futuristic surgery room where a patient is having his memory wiped. That character is called Delta-Six and he is locked up in some sort of hospital. The player will need to control him to discover the environment. Another slice of the story deals with Azriel Odin. He is a former assassin and arrives in the rain-drenched city of Pittsburg on the Colony of Barracus, part of the Gemini System. He has a meeting with a certain Matthius Howard and the player has to arrange this. Pittsburgh is in the tight grip of a crime gang known by the name Boryokudan. The entire game is split up in different scenes where the player controls either the prisoner or Azriel. When a scene has been completed, the perspective moves to the other character and eventually their paths converge. During the course of the game other characters can also be controlled sometimes, temporarily.

The game is controlled in the classic point-and-click tradition. Characters are guided around the environment using the mouse and when a certain object or character can be interacted with, the name is shown in text. Clicking them reveals an inventory to use an object or four commands: eye (examine), hand (use), speech balloon (talk) and foot (kick). Inventory use is limited as the player does not need to combine items in the inventory and no more than ten items are carried at any time. Items inside the inventory can be examined to reveal additional information.

Puzzles consist of dialogue trees where the correct conversation path needs to be chosen, environment puzzles and item puzzles. There is also one more difficult puzzle where a sequence needs to be formed in a console, but some hints are provided for that. There are a number of features that distinguish it from similar games. Azriel has access to the Communicator device. He uses it to talk to Kane, a friend who is in a space ship that orbits the planet. Kane can arrange a number of things and also provides clues during conversations to further the story. The Communicator also stores notes with important information, names of characters and has a phone function to get in contact with a number of people. After locating an identity card Azriel can access terminals. These contain news items, a database of locations and characters (useful to look up phone numbers and home addresses) and a map of the city. Personal identity cards can also reveal diary entries and profile information.

Both characters can die during the game. There is both a manual and an automatic save system. Automatic saves are triggered before entering a dangerous situation. Both Azriel and Delta-Six have access to a shooting and cover system. They will sometimes find themselves in a standoff with enemies. Players use keys on the keyboard to take cover, lean left or right, and reload. In fights with multiple targets the opponent to aim at can be chosen. Players need to wait until an enemy stops shooting, quickly pop out and fire. It also incorporates a focus system where a character can concentrate to perform a head shot and take out an opponent quicker. The difficulty of the game's rare combat moments can be adjusted in the options.

Another unusual element is the ability to move certain items (usually crates of boxes) to reposition them. A character can then climb on top to grab a high object. During a certain portion of the game the player can switch between Azriel and Delta-Six using a portrait in the top right corner. That function is not used to cooperate in the same environment, but rather to offer the player a distraction with one character when you are clueless about proceeding for the other one. When the scene is completed for one character, the portrait disappears and the other scene needs to be completed. During certain sequences NPCs can be asked to follow you and cooperate in another location. All characters are voiced and portraits appear during conversations.