TIME TUNNEL



Time Tunnel is a game about a gnome who, as the title suggests, has a time machine. Right now, hopefully this has given you a mental image of a gnome in a Delorean, possibly proclaiming jovially, "I've got a flying machine!" Well, this game is sadly lacking in the Delorean department.

You start in a mansion with furniture twice your size (probably because the artist is too crap to draw to scale, but maybe you're just plain small). Your first task is to assemble the time machine which is mysteriously missing one part. However, merely putting a log in the gnome's fireplace and throwing a javelin at it to set it ablaze makes the missing component materialise on the table. Please try to get a mental image of this; it's so much more exciting than the screenshot. This introductory puzzle to the adventure serves to illustrate how frustratingly illogical the game is. However, if you choose to play this game, I've given you the solution to arguably the hardest problem in the game and expanded the game from three boring screens, to quite a few more.


The stone age is crap. It is so crap, it has one puzzle, which unsurprisingly involves rocks, and it's incredibly easy. As this is a short paragraph, I'll fill it by telling you that holding down the fire button allows you to access a cupboard to store items in - there's a torch in here you can light on the fireplace to illuminate rooms. Oh, and the weird, retarded-looking suitcase stripey box thing up the top? That's a laptop! Only kidding, it's a cage.


Persia is the home of the second hardest puzzle - getting a woman (I think; the graphics are crap here) drunk with wine and a glass. As I have now ruined the second hardest puzzle, you may as well keep reading. Oh, it's also home of a purple sky and a brown sun. This landscape looks ten times more awesome upside down. It's also increasingly obvious after looking at this screenshot that a lot of these scenes were drawn in an art program, not with creative uses of tiles and so forth.

Ancient Greece is easy. Once you figure out the gold-coloured blob in Persia is a bronze shield, defeating Medusa is simple. Oh, shit! I spoiled it again! So sorry! The rest is so easy, I could solve this period back when I was seven years old.

Intergalactic Spaceship has one thing going for it: It isn't inspired by a sci-fi show. The only sci-fi elements to be found are sliding doors and teleports. It's also butt-ugly. I suppose it does have that in common with sci-fi of the period: The set sucks hard.


Colonial Salem, Massachusetts is an original idea for an area. It's the easiest puzzle in the game, though. Simply put everything you find in a cauldron. Even kill the bat that attacks you outside with a javelin and put that in the pot. Make a witch broom. The end. It's pretty fun putting everything in a pot and setting it on fire, though. Also, you get to throw javelin through bats! Awesome!


The California Gold Rush is hard only because it's stupid. If you'd like spending ten minutes to lure a pink pony onto a treadmill, it's an outstanding piece of entertainment. Just make sure you don't inflate the balloon until you're ready to attach it to the poorly drawn grey blob which is supposed to be a cage - I don't think it comes back. Also, there's no gold, apart from golden rocks three times your size in a cave, which obviously aren't gold. Probably bronze again, tight? There's more bats here you can kill and drag back to Salem, not that it'd achieve anything. You're still too short, though.


In 9999 AD you find a black hole. In each time period you find one piece of a scroll thing; bring all eight pieces (seven plus one in this area) shows you a cryptic message (ie written backwards). I don't wish to spoil another lousy puzzle, so instead I choose to lament my paper cut that has rendered my index figure unused. Zounds! Mine finger doth hurt! A mighty fissure opens on mine second digit!


All that remains is the ending. It isn't in English. The ending is best summed up in the same way the game is: I don't bloody well understand!

 

THINGS I LEARNT:

  • Gnomes have time machines and live in mansions with furniture twice their size, and are experts at the ancient art of throwing spears at bats.

  • In ancient Persia, the sun was brown (possibly because a Sultan shat on the sun)

  • Put everything in your house in a pot and throw a javelin at it to set it on fire. Put a broom in it, throw the javelin at it again and POW! You have a witch broom.

  • Cowboys ride pink ponies.

  • Hiding ancient treasures is easy. You just put them in a cave (OOPS! ANOTHER SPOILER!) and write a guide to finding it backwards, and nobody will EVER find it.