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Review
The time travel dream-as-narrative has, of course a long and distinguished history in literature - H.G. Wells, Charles Dickens and J.B. Priestley (if you haven't read the latter's play Time And The Conways I thoroughly recommend it) being just three authors to pontificate on its effects on a small scale and a consequential universal level; tiny ripples in the time stream can have tsunami-like consequences. In J. Robinson Wheeler's imagining of this trope tall oaks do indeed from little acorns grow; literally and figuratively.
The game plays out over several interconnected yet discrete time zones, each overlapping and striving to exert influence over each other. Much experimentation and juxtaposition of locations within these worlds is necessary to influence and move the excellent back story on (or back, if you see what I mean).
Much like Curses (there is even a tourist map of Paris included as an homage) the catalyst for this vast historical triage is prosaic and seemingly innocuous; you have mislaid your front door key after returning home from a trip to the local library where you borrowed a book about time travel. A quick shifty of your immediate surroundings unearths a key but, of course, not the one you were looking for. Cue a saga of time machines, corporate behemoths sweeping away the rural arcadia of your home town, corporate takeovers and crystal grottoes, architects and antique merchants. You ultimately have the power of fate over more than one character in the game.
Appropriately for the intricate and multi-faceted gameplay there are several different endings possible, as well as an easter egg and multiple solutions to several of the problems that you will encounter.
The author has done his best to make an exceedingly complex coding exercise as user friendly as possible, although it is still possible to render the game unfinishable in quite a few ways. Save often and remember to amass the winding inventory in an obvious central hub location for easy access; this should be axiomatic once said location is discovered.
As in games like Anchorhead, the narrative is automatically advanced in (sometimes large) screen dumps when certain tasks are completed. If you find yourself stuck, try leaping around the eras and see if anything has changed since your last visit. The central storage silo is a very welcome constituent in an extremely kinetic work; this is a game which was harder to code than it is to play; that is just as it should be.
If I am being picky Wheeler's world view and political leanings are trowelled on a bit too thickly in places but this is a minor quibble. No-one could accuse Wells of letting his political light flicker under a bushel, after all.
I found almost no instance (perhaps with the exception of the lack of insert) where I had to play hunt the verb/noun. Meta objects are almost all examinable. I did manage to find a couple of bugs (one involving wheeling a barrow) and a handful of typos but this is a very well-groomed piece indeed. Unusually, there a few very strong NPCs with whom you will need to interact; indeed the gleaning and passing of knowledge will be essential to your ultimate triumph. One optional piece of philanthropy near the end is very satisfying too.
Given the pedigree of the author the descriptions are predictably top notch. Unpretentiously evocative writing is a difficult skill to master, sway too far one way and you can end up creating a lurid penny dreadful; too far the other way and things can seem too surgical, too literal; this one manages to land perfectly between two stools.
Several of the puzzles herein garnered awards and award nominations. Almost none are unfair although one or two are hard to swallow logically. Complex chaining puzzles which wax and wane through the ages are dealt with adroitly. This is a masterful work which can hold its own against any of the great text adventures. It won't be a wrench (or, indeed, a spanner) to play it.
