Game 135: Lost in Time - Introduction (1993)

By Michael

That tagline could be referring to so many people in our government, past or present.

The last time we met, I had just finished plundering a castle for some loot. Amazingly, no one told me that the artifacts really belonged in a museum, so I continued my life of crime, and, finally released from Shawshank, I am back here with you.

That said, I’m glad to be back, and we’ll be playing Lost in Time, a first-person adventure game released by Coktel Vision just after they were swallowed up by Sierra On-Line. In 1993, the original floppy disk version was released overseas in two parts, but here stateside, it was released just as one game. Later CD releases with enhancements came the next year, but holding with blog tradition, I’ll be playing the version that came out in 1993.From the back of the box: Lost in Time is an “Interactive Action Adventure Movie” that “offers suspense, romance, and inquiry into the meaning and nature of time.” We will be visiting France and the Carribean, and in different times, including the present day (1992, based on the manual), 2092, and 1840. Well, that sounds interesting so far. Amongst the other reviewers, there was a positive attitude as well.

Simpsons did it. Or, at least, Robert Zemekis did.

Jumping in to play a game I’ve scarcely heard of before, I was curious why I hadn’t heard of it before. Well, it seems that there wasn’t much coverage in the places I tended to get my new games news.

First, Questbusters, my favorite magazine of the time, never even mentioned the game. Not even in their annual CES reports of what the game companies were doing. In early 1993, they covered two Coktel Vision games in the same issue, so it’s not like they weren’t on the radar.

Even from this small clipping, you can see it was being overshadowed by another game release.

Computer Gaming World never reviewed the game when it was first released, instead waiting until the CD-ROM version was released the next year. At that time, they gave it a few lines, on page 34, buried in a list of, frankly, more appealing CD releases. Based on the review (and the price), the only advantage to the CD version was having less disks. (I understand that the CD version does have more cutscenes and other improvements, such as voices in some releases, but it just wasn’t clear from this review.)

More amazingly, Sierra’s own advertising juggernaut, InterAction Magazine, didn’t get around to “reviewing” the game until Christmas of 1993, pushing both the DOS and CD releases. On page 30. In an issue that started off with features of, in order: Police Quest: Open Season, Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, Leisure Suit Larry 6, and Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist. Just maybe, it had trouble sharing the limelight with these other titles.

So, I don’t feel bad about never hearing about this game at the time. But, if I had, my next step would have been to check out the demo. Perhaps a download from the Sierra On-Line BBS.

If you think Gen-Z doesn’t understand payphones, Computer BBSs are really going to be tough to explain.

So, if I had downloaded the demo (or gotten it from a magazine or the like), here’s some takeaways I would have had: They must have kept Jan Hammer after PQ3 and hid him in a cupboard at Sierra, because this music seems ripped from that game. The sound effects? Classic Sierra, although, truthfully, most Adlib/Soundblaster games sounded like that at the time. (Heck, even the Intelivision had sound effects at the Adlib level in 1980.)

So, without further delay, let’s step into this world.

Not the most in-depth intro I’ve encountered

First impression: this feels like an arcade game from 1983. The title screen in just one screen, and stays visible for just a few seconds. Trickster noted in his review of Emmanuelle that he had about .0047 seconds to screenshot the title screen; since then, they’ve improved, and I had about 1.68 seconds. Certainly, not enough time to read all the names, but did anyone ever do that? (Except in the first Leisure Suit Larry game, when it was just the name Al Lowe repeated over and over...)

From there, it goes straight into the game. No introduction. So, I’m going to hit reverse and do something we used to do in the old days of gaming: RTFM.

Thank you, MOCAGH, for preserving documents like this for us. Seriously.

The manual is just a few pages, but details the interface, gives a profile of the main character, and a dossier on the criminal we apparently need to catch.

The English in this manual is rather good, with just a few choices of terms or grammar that seems off. The description of our heroine, Doralice Prunelier, shares many of my own traits. I also prefer “spicy hot dishes”, playing Scrabble, and share a passion for old American TV shows. They mention MacGyver as one, and based on the comments I’ve encountered about this game, I’ll need to be a fan of it as well.

Curiously, a trait of hers mentioned is that “she touches everything, but does not take the time to examine things more closely.” This is not a promising attitude for an adventure game ego to have; fortunately, I control her, so I will have to try to overcome her limitations.

The manual also gives us an overview of what we are going to experience in this game, on behalf of our unknowingly being used as a tool for the Space-Time Police:

“...the events that lead to the arrest of Jarlath Equs, who was responsible for stealing a valuable sample of the element Americium 1492. He hid the radioactive material in the past, endangering the equilibrium of the time continuum. For this reason, the Space-Time Police were assigned to handle the case. The disks enclosed with this manual will allow you to relive this mission as Doralice Prunelier. She is a woman who was selected without her awareness by the Central Computer of the Space-Time Police because of her historical-temporal ties with Jarlath Equs.”

After clearing your head, this is what you see

The game starts with a .0047 second screen dissolve as you clear your head, and become aware of yourself on a ship. A quick check of the interface, by bringing the mouse cursor to the top of the screen, shows the icons visible in the manual.

Dear diary...

The notebook appears to be a diary of sorts. It shows my current thoughts, but as I haven’t played through, I don’t know how often it changes, grows, or so on. Something to watch for.

The future is unwritten

If you turn the page on the diary, there’s a blank page for you to add your own notes, and a handy pen has been included. (Guess we got our money’s worth for this $39.99 game.) This seems to match that of the previous game, Ween.

I’m not playing with a full deck

So, there’s a hint system in this game, and I’m not 100% clear on the limitations. There are Joker cards, and there’s a limit, but is it a limit per game, or per puzzle? From the manual: “There are a few ‘jokers’ available in various places throughout the game that will give you some hints if you are stuck. You are only allowed to use three.” My goal is to not use them, of course, but I’d still like to figure it out.

The map screen brings an overview of all the places we have been and can go, but at the moment, it’s just the one room. Still, some nice details here, such as the sound effects in the background and the flow of the water past the ship.

An early start on my day off.

The options menu has two choices, a toggle for the music, and an info screen that tells me the current time, how much time I’ve spent in the game, and my completion rate. The timer will be helpful for the blog, of course, although I wonder if gamers of the time felt pressured by it. So far, I haven’t been given any indication of a time limit to the game. I’m also blissfully unaware of how easy or hard it is to die in this game, so there’s a lot for us to learn together.

So, let’s test out the interface a little. I see a stool in the room. I click on it, and see a close-up.

Not very interesting. I click on it again, to see if it does anything.

Hey, it has legs, why can’t it walk?

And I see the underside of it. Looks like a nail. I click on the nail, to remove it.

I’m resisting the urge to make an inappropriate joke right now, Al Lowe style.

Well, that’s not working, so I click my right mouse button to bring up my inventory. I have something there that should be useful.

Could someone please explain to me why this young lady is walking around with pliers and acid?

I click the mouse on the pliers, which changes my arrow mouse pointer into the inventory item. I click it on the nail, and it’s removed. The nail is now my active inventory item. If I right click, it gets put away.

Doralice the Explorer is being a little snippy with me.

So, this is a good place to pause, and ask you to wager on the score. Also, many reviews and commenters have described the puzzles as having been “obtuse” or “illogical” or “bizarre”. So, if there’s any bets to place on puzzles I’ll be stumped by, feel free to undermine my confidence with a ROT-13 wager.

The last games by Coktel Vision played on this blog were earlier in 1993, being Ween: The Prophecy and Gobliins 2, earning scores of 48 and 44. The interface is certainly a descendant of that from Ween, which earned a rating of 4 from Alfred n the Fettuc, so it will be interesting to see how it has evolved since then. Other Coktel Vision games have ranged as low as 15, but never higher than 48. And this game shares the lead designer, Muriel Tramis, with that trainwreck of a game, as well as some of the successes as well. The reviewers have been from both sides of the pond, so I dare you to guess how this country boy from upstate New York will score this game.

Session Time: 1 minute (well, actually, 1 minute and 13 seconds. But who’s counting?)


Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introductory post, it's an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won't be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 20 CAPs in return. It's also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.