Time Traveller - part of SynTax disk PD 599
                A Text Adventure for the PC
              Author: Conrad Button (c) 1989

                    Review by Bev Truter

It was in the early Eighties, I think, that Conrad Button wrote
his "Educational Series" of text adventures, aimed at High School
children, to make learning more fun. All very laudable you might
think, but just take a peek at "Dark Continent" (his game set in
Africa). The opening sequence rattles on ...."but on the third day
your native bearers desert you and take your money and
supplies..."  Not surprising, really, given the gung-ho character
you are playing.  For example, you have to shoot an elephant for
its tusks (no wrestling with your conscience here, and haven't you
heard of the world-wide ban on the ivory trade?); kill a crocodile
and skin it to make a pair of shoes (Yee-hah!!! Let's blast
everything that moves!); and steal a coin from a blind beggar.
Well, Conrad, I certainly found that game most educational.

Then came Red Planet, one of Conrad's "Adventure Series" text
adventures. This was a moderately entertaining game, that most
novices would complete in a few hours. Conrad perhaps
overestimates the difficulty of his games - this one he rated
Advanced. But I'm going off at a tangent, so back to Time
Traveller.

A flashing opening screen with TIME TRAVELER (yes, I checked the
dictionary, and you can spell it that way) changes to several
screens of information on registering, adverts for other games
written by the author, and finally a shortish section on
instructions for playing TT. "Look" and "Inventory" have been
shortened to the standard "L" and "I", but "Examine" is "exam"
<sigh>, or "exa", which always looks so odd that I prefer the
longer "exam". Typing "save game" prompts for a first name, then
second name, then drive. The program only uses the first 3 letters
in each name you specify, to form a six-letter save file with a
.TIM extension. Typing "help" gives hints in some locations, but
not many. A nuisance with the "save" feature is that you can't
restore a previously saved game from within the game - you have to
Quit or get killed, then choose the "yes" options for "do you want
to play again?" and "do you want to continue with a previously
stored game?"

There is an option for changing screen colours, the default
colours being white text on a blue background. There is no status
line or Score, so if you've been particularly busy in any one
location, the location description will disappear off the top of
the screen, and you will have to type "L" to find out where you
are. The text size is V E R Y B I G, which makes it easy to read,
but less text per screen. The author rates TT "Expert", but don't
hold your breath waiting for any difficult and imaginative puzzles
to emerge - most of the solutions to problems are fairly obvious.
Intermediate might be a more accurate description of the level of
difficulty.

Well, having got all the tecchie stuff out the way, on to the
Introduction.  The year is 2285 and the people of Earth are dying
from a mysterious plague, caused by a Middle Eastern country
experimenting with biological warfare and having a nasty accident
in the Laboratory. This has resulted in a deadly virus escaping
into the atmosphere, gradually killing all human life in its path,
but so far the population of North America has been spared. (WHY?
Surely the lower bits of the Southern hemisphere would be better
off in this situation...never mind, on with the plot). A botanist
at Stanford University needs a supply of extinct plants to prepare
an antidote to the virus, and you have been chosen to travel to
several places in different time zones to find the plants and
return them to the botanist.

You also get Brownie Points for collecting various Treasures and
dropping them in the Archeology Lab. at Stanford. So far the
resident archaeologist has given you a grade of F for the course,
but he's obviously easily bribed, as the more loot you bring him,
the higher your grade gets. Thus the aim of the game, apart from
saving Civilization (or at least the Americans), is to score an A+
in Archaeology.

Using the Time Machine located in a storage room at Stanford you
can travel to 7 other places in time. The Time Machine is
mercifully simple to use, if you're the sort of person who detests
pull-levers-and-push-buttons situations; and you soon find
yourself skipping around the various zones with consummate ease.
There appeared to be no spelling or grammatical hiccups, but a few
things about this game are mildly irritating. You'd think that
after spending so much time and effort programming his game, the
author could at least have managed to get more of his dates and
historical facts right.

F'rinstance, the author happily lumps together a tyrannosaurus, a
brontosaurus, a Cro-Magnon couple and a Neanderthal man, all in 1
million BC. Now, I imagine that everyone over the age of 5, in
this post-Jurassic Park age, knows that this is glaringly untrue.
(Try 80 million BC for the 2 'saurs, 40,000 BC for Cro-Magnon Man,
and 200,000 BC for Neanderthal Man). I'm being picky, I hear you
say?  Well, closer to home, what about his placement of Robin Hood
in the 14th Century? (11th or 12th Century, certainly not 14th,
for this legendary figure). And you never actually get to meet
Robin Hood either, <sniff>, only one of the Merry Men.

However, my biggest gripe is reserved for the treatment of females
in TT. There are four altogether, a lonely Cro-Magnon woman, a
comely wench, a nude lady, and Betsy Ross. The author's scenarios
for dealing with these women reveal a stunning insight into the
delicate subtleties of human relationships - for example, you can
kiss or do various unprintable things to the nude lady, and if you
"exam lady" you get a totally puerile description along the lines
of "WOW!...Great Hooters!!"

The "comely wench" is literally an object - she's one of the
Treasures you have to collect and deposit at the Archaeology Lab.
Obviously the author's solution for reluctant women who refuse to
be "got" is to ply them with tacky presents - this particular
female will accompany you after you give her two items - another
revealing insight into the intricacies of male/female behaviour,
and the simplicities of the author's mind. Betsy Ross (I gather
from the game that she was George Washington's wife) reacts far
more sensibly to any attempted molestation, so there is some
justice after all.

It's not that I'm outraged or even offended by all this juvenile
stuff - the author's perfectly entitled to his attitudes and
hang-ups. And it's not that I object to playing the role of a male
adventurer - having no choice of gender is quite acceptable in
adventure games. It's more a gnawing resentment at having to play
the role of such a silly oaf in order to complete the game.

Towards the end of TT I found myself wistfully daydreaming about
alternative endings to the game, with your character neatly
disposed of in various ways. How about... the wench you've
kidnapped from the 14th century goes mad when confronted by the
21st century, so she grabs the nearest weapon and kills you?
Or...the nude lady turns out to be a karate expert, and realizing
you are bent on burglary, she fells you with a deft chop to your
neck region?  Or perhaps the archaeologist finally comes to his
senses, reports you to the Police, and you are arrested on a
string of charges - theft, kidnapping, tomb-robbing, assault, and
maltreatment of slaves?  Or better yet....the plants you've
brought to the botanist are the wrong type, so he can't make an

antidote, and you, the botanist and the archaeologist all perish,
along with the entire North American population?

Having got all that off my chest (hooters?), I found TT fairly
enjoyable, as long as I managed to suspend irritation along with
disbelief. The action takes place over 8 time zones, which have to
be visited and re-visited several times to complete the game. TT
is middling to large at about 80 locations, and there are one or
two reasonably difficult problems (What do you give a Neanderthal
who's got everything?  Where IS the rope?), and a variety of
interesting places to visit. You won't stumble across any
startlingly novel ideas or situations, and unless you're a total
novice at text adventures you should get through this one in about
6 - 8 hours.

Another problem with TT is its total lack of humour - this is a
deadly serious adventure, every step of the way - nor did it
"grab" me like some games do. I felt that the poor location
descriptions were probably the main cause of this strange lack of
atmosphere.  Terse little phrases like "in a jungle", "in a
church," and "in the sea" are definitely a bit of a drawback when
it comes to creating atmospheric locations. Overall I'd sum it up
as a fairly mundane plod through average scenery, and I don't
think Sue's in any danger of getting killed in a stampede for
copies of it.

   ENJOYMENT:         4/10 (Well... I enjoyed it enough to
                            persevere to the end).

   ATMOSPHERE:        4/10

   DIFFICULTY:        5/10

   IRRITATION FACTOR: 9/10

   FINAL COMMENT:     If you are running low on other games to
                      play, give this a whirl.


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