Gemini Lost

After watching the ominous alignment of a lunar eclipse with the Gemini constellation, a group of humans finds a mysterious device glowing on the ground with plates decorated with zodiac signs. A group member activates the strange circular mechanism by accident, transporting everyone to a remote location. Now they need to gather resources to survive and reconstruct the teleporter to return home.

Gemini Lost is a simulation game for the casual market, very similar and probably inspired by the Virtual Villagers series. The main goal is to rebuild the teleporter by collecting the necessary building materials and finding all the missing zodiac plates. The game screen shows an isometric view of the location that can be scrolled by clicking and dragging on the terrain. A small map at the bottom shows the whole territory, with dots representing each member of the community.

The individuals can be dragged around and dropped over the scenery to perform actions, and give descriptions or clues when hovering over one spot. Each member has a favorite job, performing much faster at it than in other tasks. Scientists excel in researching at the laboratory, workers chop wood and mine rocks faster, builders are good at erecting new structures. They can fulfill each other duties, but in a less efficient way. As they keep toiling for prolonged periods on any activity, they get more proficient at it, with a meter showing their skill level. Clicking on any citizen brings up a profile sheet showing personal details like age, health, civil status, mate compatibility by zodiac sign and skill levels.

After the chapel is complete, matching couples can be married to give birth to new members of the community. They remain engaged for the rest of their lives, occasionally mating to generate offspring. The child inherits some characteristics from the parents, like job preferences and skills. The very young can't take adult duties, but can be used to collect items like herbs, bugs and zodiac plates. In later stages, they can be placed in the school to increase their skill levels until finally reaching maturity.

The population limit is dictated by the number of houses available, with new buildings becoming available as new levels of technology are acquired. The research points can be spent on the science menu, that can be accessed using the button illustrated with a graduation cap and diploma at the bottom interface. There are six types of technologies, with three levels each. Farming allows new ways of generating food for the society, like harvesting, fishing, bee-keeping and related activities. Construction makes new building sites automatically appear on the locations, from where the builders can erect useful structures like new houses to increase the population limit, and buildings to process resources. Medicine expands the life expectancy and birthrate of the community, and adds new potions to the laboratory. Handicraft makes new tools available to be built, their cost being a combination of resources. Knowledge makes scientists more efficient and gives linguistic skills to talk with specific characters. Astrology gives access to any structure related to the teleporter and other esoteric sites.

Like in other similar titles, when starting the game reads the computer clock to calculate the time elapsed between gaming sessions, readjusting the situation as if the game was kept running, and the virtual people kept working away on the background.