Gearheads

Single, customisable games can be played, or the player can play a series of games with set rules and a limited number of lives in a tournament. The game was designed by Eric Zimmerman and Frank Lantz, and developed in eighteen months. A major part of the game's design was the toys' interaction with each other, and the effectiveness of certain toy setups led Zimmerman and Lantz to coin a term for them. Critical reception was mixed, with some reviewers praising its addictiveness and others criticising its sounds and artificial intelligence.

• Title — Gearheads • Designer — * Frank Lantz • Eric Zimmerman • Developer — Philips Media, R/GA Interactive • Publisher — Philips Media • Producer — Stacy Koumbis • Programmer — Ephraim Cohen • Artist — Susan Brand • Composer — Michael Sweet • Released — June 1996 • Genre — Strategy • Modes — Single-player, multiplayer • Platforms — Mac OS, Microsoft Windows

• Illustration — A typical game in the factory in progress. At the top and bottom are stoppers. At the centre are teleporters. There is a powerup key at the bottom-right. A strategy video game, Gearheads is played by releasing toys on an arena floor. The goal is to get them to the other side, and prevent the opponent's toys from reaching the player's side. In single-player mode, the player always plays on the right-hand side. Toys are charged while waiting before they are released. They stop when they run out of energy. There are different types of toys, such as robots, Father Christmas, and magicians. Each toy has its own specifications. These include speed, movement pattern (straight, diagonal, or erratic) and special abilities. For example, the Walking Timebomb explodes when it runs out of energy, destroying nearby toys. Deadhead, a skull toy, "scares" toys it comes into contact with so they reverse direction. A chicken toy called Clucketta has the ability to hatch fry toys. Some toys are primarily intended for offence, others for defence. Some are immune to the special abilities of other toys: for example, Big Al (a bulldozer) is unaffected by attacks from Disasteroids (a robot that can also destroy toys, like the Walking Timebomb). The player can switch between the available toys at any time. Once released, players have no direct control over them, and they do not belong to a player: a toy leaving the arena via the left side scores a point for the player on the right side and vice versa. The first player to score 21 points wins, unless he is only ahead by one point, in which case the game continues until there is a two-point difference. There is an unlimited supply of toys, and they are released in a row in the arena. Toys can be recharged by Handy, a glove toy. There are four main arenas: kitchen, garden, frozen pond, and factory. The kitchen has no obstacles. The garden's main obstacles are bugs, mud, and rocks. The frozen pond's main obstacles are cracks in the ice which, if crossed over enough times, become holes that destroy toys that fall into them. The factory levels can feature obstacles such as conveyor belts, teleporters, and stoppers. Occasionally, a Powerup Key (a metal winding key) will appear on one side of the arena. When crossed, a power-up is granted to the player on the opposite side. Powerups include a one-shot rocket, being able to release toys from halfway across the arena, and the opponent being unable to release toys. Most powerups last only for a limited time. There are two game modes: tournament and duel. In tournament, the player is assigned a selection of four toys (toy selections are referred to as "toyboxes") and must defeat the computer-controlled opponent. Every three victories, there is a challenge in a special arena where the player must defeat the opponent with only one toy in the toybox. A life is granted if won (the player starts with three). Duel is where players can practise a game against either a computer opponent or another player. The arena where the game takes place, the toys in the players' toyboxes, the difficulty level, and whether powerups are available can be customised.

Frank Lantz and Eric Zimmerman at R/GA Interactive designed Gearheads; it was produced in co-operation with Philips Media. Susan Brand Studios handled art and animation. Other companies involved in the development included R/GA Interactive's parent company R/GA Digital Studios, XXCAL, and Elias Associates. The Windows and Mac OS versions were released in June 1996. A Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) version was developed and scheduled for late 1996, but never released. The game took 18 months to develop. Early in the design process, the designers were able to create new toys and tweak their attributes using a playable prototype. The prototype had menus that showed the statistics for each toy. Alterations took effect immediately, allowing the designers to see what effect a change would have even during a game. There was an iterative game testing process that assisted in balancing the game. An important aspect of the game's design was the interaction between the toys. Due to the discovery of effective toy combinations, Zimmerman and Lantz coined the term "engine" to describe them. The engines were given names including Punching Roaches, Bomb Shield, and Perpetual Motion. Toy attributes were set to make certain engines possible, although most were discovered as development progressed. The artificial intelligence (AI) included engine-based heuristics so the AI was aware of advantageous combinations. Engines were not written into the game's rules, but were playing patterns that arose from the attributes that defined the toys. During the testing, Zimmerman and Lantz kept increasing the difficulty so the game would challenge them, and at one point made the game too difficult.