The Journeyman Project: Turbo!

Moby ID: 804
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The Journeyman Project: Turbo! is a remake of The Journeyman Project. The year is 2318. The place: the sky-born city of Caldoria. After a century of bitter struggle, humanity has finally learned to live in peace. In 2117 the Unified World was established. And humanity knew no more war.

But all that was achieved was threatened with the invention of time travel. Its potential to destroy humanity's hard won prosperity realized, the only time travel machine ever built, the Pegasus, was moved to a secret location. The Temporal Security Annex (TSA) was formed to protect history from sabotage. The project's code name: Journeyman.

Today is 11.6.2318. Exactly ten years ago, an alien delegation calling themselves the Cyrrollans approached earth as messengers from the Symbiotry of Peaceful Beings. They gave humanity ten years to decide if the want to join the Symbiotry or not. Now the moment has come, and humanity awaits the arrival of the alien delegation.

You are Agent 5 of the Temporal Protectorate. When you report to the TSA, you find that someone is changing history, influencing events and happenings, changing how things happened - and not for the better. It is your job to find out who is messing with history, stop him, and restore history. For this you will have to travel time, using the Pegasus, as far as 2 million BC. You will travel to Mars in 2185 to stop attack on an alien vessel, visit the World Science Center in 2310 to stop an assassination, and go back to 2112 to destroy a nuclear missile. You will collect items, solve puzzles, and pit your wits against a giant robot.

The game itself is an adventure game, played in 1st person perspective - explore the environment, collect and use items, solve puzzles and small games, and it even has a maze in it. It has a few twists though: according to TSA's rules, you are not allowed to interact with people from a different time, so you must gather information in a different way. You can also stay only a limited time in every time zone, since you protective suit has only limited energy. You can also die at this game, if you are not fast thinking and fast moving.

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Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 6 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 24 ratings with 4 reviews)

About so-so

The Good
The puzzles actually had a consequence if you didn't do them right, and some of the hallways really gave even the most experienced maze runner, a run for their money. Some of the puzzles were fun, especially the one in 2185.

The Bad
Some parts in the game--like the codes, for instance--are tough, because if you lose the manual, and you don't have a very good memory (no offense, of course!) you're stuck right when you get to the TSA's front door. Also, the many ways of perishing can get quite irritating sometimes. That and sometimes running into robots does get sort of monotonous after a while...

The Bottom Line
A recommendation, but only for the PC gamers who love adventure games, solving puzzles, and giant seven-foot-tall robots.

Windows 3.x · by John Kinney (4) · 2005

Time-travel to the era of the first multimedia games!

The Good
TJP is an historical document of the first bold steps of game designers towards the field of multimedia and movie-making, thanks to the newly available CD medium. Jaw-dropping technologies are there: 3D rendered environment, FMV sequences and speech dialogues voiced by actors.

The game is brief compared to other adventures, and may seem outdated now, but has things to offer although it gives a promising scenario and an enjoyable experience, with an adequately rich backstory with some intrigue.

The controls are easy and pose no problem. Gameplay resembles the 'slide-show' of Myst but here you move with the cursor keys in invisible square positions and have a realistic sense of freedom.

The riddles and puzzles are quite straightforward and I guess they won't frustrate you much. Personally I solved the whole game without a walkthrough, which is generally a good thing. There is exploration and investigation for you to make, and several challenging trial-and-error points but nothing worse than that.

In the course of the game you obtain bio-chips which provide your gameplay with more features and help you solve some puzzles and pass some points, like retinal scanners. Some are optional, some are used only once. Furthermore, there are some arcade sequences, mind puzzles and mazes.

And there is more! When you finish the game you get your score. You will find out that there are two ways to defeat each of the big nasty androids. Can you find the way you did not follow? Did you explore all of the world? Did you find all the bio-chips? Did you try to complete the missions in a different order? In my opinion this scoring system encourages replayability and exploration.

Personally I liked the cheesy futuristic scenery, with a peaceful humanity, floating cities, androids, aliens, chip interfaces and A.I. bio-suits. The plot is centered around time travel and first contact with aliens, two sci-fi elements which are rarely combined.

The loneliness common in Myst games is also there. You will see no characters to interact with, excepting the three bad robots. The scenario is sophisticated enough to justify this unrealistic condition: your apartment is empty because everyone is out to meet the alien delegation. When you are back in time, you are obliged to be stealthy so that you won't interfere with history.

The Bad
The game suffers by the same flaws that plagued many early CD games of the 90s. One can see an over-enthusiasm for this new groundbreaking medium and TJP shows its cheesy ambition to be the forerunner of this glorious new era.

One of the consequences of that fad was the attempt to force the game into the movie genre. This silly notion urged the designers to have dialogues and cut-scenes with no text. "We now have enough medium to record whole lines of speech; so who needs typing and reading, right?" Well, couple this with the poor sample quality and you will have quite some trouble understanding what you hear. Especially if you are NOT a native English speaker.

The other problem is that the many adventure gamers won't be satiated by the short storyline, the simplistic interface and the less than challenging puzzles. Its philosophy is 'just find what you should do so that you can explore further our wonderful 3d world and story we made for you'. This lack of duration and depth is supposedly compensated by the sensual immersion in the (now outdated) multimedia experience. I just think that TJP uses ideas that other games have implemented in more sophisticated way.

And of course, not to forget the unavoidable animations. From the monologue video sequences to the slow-working inventory, especially the bio-chip slot, complete with this unfolding-folding animation. Can be a real pain when you are trying or repeating some moves.

The Bottom Line
Practically a Myst-clone, although it was released around the same time as Myst did. The main points that make a Myst game are there: slide-show first person interface, a nameless-speechless protagonist (although you can see your face in the mirror), a full 3D-pre-rendered environment, some FMVs, limited interactivity, moody loneliness and a backstory for you to uncover from clues here and there. The structure is also similar: you begin in the 'hub', you choose the 'world' you want to visit in an optional order, you return to the 'hub' etc etc

It won't impress you much; although groundbreaking back then, I guess it would be considered primitive by the next couple of years eg. compared to sequel Buried in Time. The story and the puzzles are not challenging or original and I was surprised when I realized how soon I completed my missions; by the time I had to find the bad guy, I thought that the missions I went to were too brief and few.

But hey, TJP is entertaining and replayable. Just try to visit eras in a different order and use bio-chips in places you haven't

All in all it is a must-see introduction to the Journeyman series. Novice adventure gamers will enjoy it as well as all enthusiasts of the early 90s multimedia games.

Windows 3.x · by Boston Low (85) · 2011

A true science fiction experience, complete with an original story, great sound and imaginative visuals.

The Good
The optimistic future described in the game is very believable, and I found myself hoping it is possible to achieve. This stands in contrast to most other science fiction games, which usually describe the future as a modern, violent Dark Age. In The Journeyman Project humanity prospers, and has long ago put aggression and violence behind them. And in the game, you will generally avoid violence, and in fact, all your actions are directed to prevent violence. This, if nothing else, makes this game very special. But that is not everything. The graphics of this game, although not always technically spectacular, are one of the most imaginative I have seen. Every time zone looks unique, and although its the right look, it is never exactly what you expect. The game also features beautiful music from many styles, ranging from rock to new age. Each zone has its own distinctive theme, or style, enhancing the atmosphere of the game. The game has a strong background in the manual, which allows for a very complex story, with some interesting twists. The game is not entirely linear, allowing you some freedom in your choice of where to go next. Also, sometimes there's more than one way to solve a problem. In at least one place, choosing a more violent approach will result in the loss of helpful information!

The Bad

  • The designers of the game wanted to make something fresh. Unfortunately the interface of the game suffered from this. It takes a lot of time getting used to it, and even then - it is simply not intuitive.

  • The time limit are a hassle. I simply do not like time limits in adventure games, since it keeps you from exploring around. Luckily, the limit is not very strict and you usually have some time for exploring. Also, in the original game (not the turbo version), the loading of a time zone was so slow that the time limit expired before all the time zone data was loaded!
  • The loneliness. In the entire game, the only "people" you meet or see are three robots, and even then you can't talk to them or in any way interact with them. This is excused as one of TSA's rules, which forbids you to interact with people from other times since you might change history. Logical, but I still don't like it.


**The Bottom Line**
A good time travel adventure, with very good music, original graphics you don't wont to miss and a story so good it should be on a cinema near you.

Windows 3.x · by Mickey Gabel (332) · 2000

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Trivia

Development

The development team collaborated with several organizations such as Apple Computers and Macromedia to implement their technology into the game, but most notably they received support from the (small at the time) PIXAR Animation Studios, which you'll surely recognize as one of the leading computer animation houses in the world, developers of the first full-length computer animated film in history: Toy Story, as well as other films and the Photorealistic Renderman software used in motion picture CGI and the famed R.E.Y.E.S. rendering alghoritm among other milestones.

Extras

The game comes with trailers for The Journeyman Project and The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time. It also comes with The Journey: Making of The Journeyman Project - a documentry covering all steps in making the game, from initial concept to marketing.

References

The computer at NORAD in the game is named Deep Thought, the same as a supercomputer in Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy books.

Remake

The original version used Apple's Quicktime technology, and was supposed to be playable on PC and Macintosh. It was slow on PC's, so the company created this version, using Video for Windows technology, which was three times faster! A further enhanced re-release was The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime.

Information also contributed by Timo Takalo and Zovni

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Related Games

The Journeyman Project
Released 1993 on Windows 3.x, Macintosh
The Journeyman Project Trilogy
Released 1999 on Windows
The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime
Released 1997 on Macintosh, Windows, 2014 on Linux
The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time
Released 1995 on Windows 3.x, 1995 on Macintosh, 2010 on Windows
The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time
Released 1998 on Windows, Macintosh
Turbo
Released 1981 on Arcade, ColecoVision, Intellivision
Turbo
Released 1988 on Amiga
Turbo
Released 1987 on DOS

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Mickey Gabel.

Macintosh added by Zeppin.

Additional contributors: Jeanne, tahtalf, Patrick Bregger.

Game added January 28, 2000. Last modified January 29, 2024.