Circuit's Edge is a computer game developed by Westwood Studios

Westwood Studios

Westwood Studios was a computer and video game developer, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was founded by Brett Sperry and Louis Castle in as Westwood Associates, and renamed to Westwood Studios when it merged with Virgin Interactive in...

 and released by Infocom

Infocom

Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....

 in 1989. It was based on George Alec Effinger

George Alec Effinger

George Alec Effinger was an American science fiction author, born in 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio.-Writing career:...

's 1987 novel When Gravity Fails

When Gravity Fails

When Gravity Fails is a cyberpunk science fiction novel by George Alec Effinger published in 1986. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1987 and the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1988...

. The game was a hybrid interactive fiction

Interactive fiction

Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...

/role-playing game

Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

; it contained a window of text, a graphic window for depiction of the player's current location, and various menus and mini-windows for character statistics and other game functions.

Plot

The player assumes the role of Marîd Audran, a private detective. The game is set in "The Budayeen", an entertainment / criminal quarter in an unnamed city somewhere in the Middle East that is a seedy reflection of modern-day New Orleans. While running a series of errands/"business deals" for "Saied the Half-Hajj", a friend of Marîd's, Marîd is framed for the murder of a man named Kenji Carter. Although Marîd's influential patron Friedlander Bey clears him with the local police, Bey asks him to look into Carter's death. Doing so leads Marîd deep into the criminal underworld of the Budayeen.