Logic Gates

**Logic Gates** (Windows) or **Logic Gate** (50FH) is a calculator game that got a Windows PC port much later. Logic Gates was arguably the first (and so far, only) puzzle calculator game Tangent made. In the game, the player guesses the logical operator connecting the 2 inputs, A and B, based on the values of A, B, and the output. The Windows port was presented to Tangent's *Semantics and Pragmatics* teacher. The aesthetics (and prominently the intro) of the port is roughly inspired by Apple II graphics.

In electronics, a logic gate is a device that takes one or more (often two) binary inputs and performs a logical operation (Boolean function) to produce a single output.

## Gameplay

In the Windows port, there are 2 modes, the Classic Mode and the Action Mode. The Classic Mode is essentially a direct port of the calculator game, whereas the action mode was akin to how the calculator game could have been like in Tangent's mind, if real-time events were possible (which they weren't on the calculators the game was programmed for). Additionally, the Action Mode was added to prevent the game from being overly luck-driven, as that mode, unlike the original game, does not have unfair puzzles where not all information is displayed.

The calculator game would have included more gates (ideally all possible gates), but the program was getting big, so Tangent decided to stop at 10 gates, which the player could enter their guess with just 1 single digit. The 10 gates in the game are as follows:

In the Classic Mode, players are given several try attempts to get information about the logic gate used. The computer randomly generates a binary value for input A. The player then gives a value for input B by typing either 1 or 0. The computer then generates an output (called "result" in this game), showing the result for A [logic gate] B. This counts as 1 "try". If the player judges the A value provided to be unhelpful, they could just press enter (a null input B) to skip that try. If the player guesses correctly, the next round begins where a new gate is chosen and tries are reset. The number of tries per round decreases from 10 at round 1 to 4 at round 7 and thereafter. Players are scored the the number of tries remaining and the round number when they make a correct guess. An incorrect guess results in the loss of 1 life. Rough work may be done on the rough work memo on the right, which is a feature added to the Windows version for convenience. In the calculator version, players were required to use a sheet of paper if they needed to do rough work.

In the Action Mode, the computer randomizes the row order (each row containing info on A, B, and the result) of the truth table for the logic gate that the player needs to guess and presents each row one by one. The player has a limited amount of time in which they have to guess the gate used. Players are scored based on their speed and round number if they have guessed correctly. An incorrect guess results in the loss of 1 life. If time runs out, 1 life is lost and the timer resets to half of the time given initially for that round. The amount of time a player is given decreases as the round number goes up, though the truth table rows also appear more quickly, so the proportionate amount of time that the player can use to deduce the gate after all rows are revealed is not changed, aside from in set levels where the timer begins speeding up. The action mode has been compared to the Touhou fangame *Cirno Training* (where the player must perform speed calculations), which has also been remade by Tangent.

## List of truth tables

This section provides the truth tables for all 10 gates used in the game as a reference.

## External links

* Game download page - Game Jolt, itch.io, Tumblr
* Gameplay video - Youtube

## See also

* Touhou 2600 series
* Eights Invaders - another one of Tangent's few original calculator games that have received Windows remakes