Tempus Fugit: The Past is Yet Unwritten

This game has you star as the dashing captain of a time-travelling ship piloted by a helpful Mother AI. An enemy faction is travelling to the past to sabotage your present, and you have to stop them.

There are 4 or so main time periods you travel to, each with its own set of puzzles as well as some recurring characters. Names of things in the game are often references; one whole area is a giant reference to steins;gate.

In between those areas, you can explore the large ship you pilot, with several crew members who can help you can give you advice.

The game has few bugs, although I did lock myself out of victory once by returning to my quarters before I finished a section, triggering a cutscene too early.

The story has good story beats but felt a little less descriptive in the middle, possibly because the author could vividly picture things due to the references but I couldn't due to not knowing the games.

Overall, this is a substantial game and I played it here and there over several nights.

Disclaimer: I tested this game in its near-final state. This review reflects my replaying the released version. I had access to a map which may've made things easier.

TF leaves you in the dark to start. You know who you are and how you got there. You just don't know when. A newspaper reveals you have traveled back in time from 2225 to 2170. The wormhole you've exited indicates much worse things may have happened and may be happening. What's worse, your main mavigation machine, the Time Mother, is off-line.

Your first task is obviously to fix it, and it comes after the tutorial. I like the tutorial here as it doesn't just give you stuff to do and shuffle you off on your way. It pops up again a bit later, saying, hey, here's a nuance that would've been too much at the outset. I'd like to see more TALP games do this in the future--here it ranges from cluing you to the G/AGAIN command with a stuck door to mentioning how to deal with a hostile NPC.

And to fix it, you first need to input a quantum backup unit in your ship controls. Once you do that, you can leave and visit four different scenarios that open one at a time. No single one is overwhelming. You may have to knock out an enemy sentry, trade up for an "ancient" piece of computer equipment (committing a funny misdemeanor on the way,) or find a way to jump a wall and tackle an enemy. The enemies do look familiar, and there's a reason for that...

In the meantime, when you go back to your ship, your crew mates have a bit more to say. So does the Time Mother, the AI controlling your flight. But who is the enemy you are chasing? And why? The answer, revealed in the final time shift, is satisfying and a bit disturbing.

Overall TF works well. It has some parser wrangling, and I overlooked that a certain sort of lock was a chain lock and not a keyhole or padlock. But that didn't stop my progress through the game. The time zones were discrete and simple enough, I never felt lost, and it made up for not having a THINK style command that reminded me what I needed to do. I was able to guess, without feeling "oh, game logic says this is the only thing to do." I like how the time paradox is hinted at without some long melodramatic explanation at the end, and I like the funny bits where you need to find "ancient" computer equipment.

Contrasting TF with the other two time travel entries in TALP 2025 reveals some good variety. It has four different eras and is largely linear, but it features no famous people or events. Time Crystals of Cythii features four famous events, and Fixing Time features three famous inventors from different time periods. So that's an additional plus.