Journey Through Time represents the last of the Joel Mick games. It is an interactive text adventure that was published in 1980. I never did find any kind of box or cover art for any of the three Odyssey games so I suspect the games were mail order only. Joel Mick, like Greg Hassett, was a wunderkind, writing and publishing his four games between the ages of 12 and 14. He wrote Burial Ground Adventure in 1979 and then published his Odyssey Series in 1980 consisting of Damsel In Distress, Treasure Island and Journey Through Time. Joel Mick would go on to work for Wizards of the Coast as a game designer for Magic the Gathering.
Journey Through Time is the first game I’ve encountered that deals with time travel. The bare bones plot involves you journeying through time and “collecting” or stealing a treasure from each time period you visit and then depositing that treasure back in the present. So we’re looking at a glorified treasure hunt. I would think, with limited computer memory and resources, that crafting a time traveling text adventure would be very difficult. This original premise is pulled off quite nicely with merely the click of a button from your “time machine”.
There are six different time periods that you’ll have to visit and each time period will have a treasure to collect and bring back. There really is not much in the way of puzzles in each time period; you’re merely going through the trouble of going there and getting back. The minor puzzles are found in the beginning of the game and revolve around finding and getting the time machine running.
The time travel idea for a computer game is a first; however; Mick pulled off what I deem to be another first with this game. The room in which you’re supposed to deposit your collected treasures for points is not accessible. It is locked with no way to enter other than by a key. The only way to access the room and deposit your treasures is to find this particular key. You cannot get to the key until you have in your possession one of the six treasures that you’ve collected. I can’t remember a game to this point for home computers where the depository area for your treasure collection was blocked or inaccessible until later in the game. Zork I and other games have played around with the convention and have made it more difficult to get to but I don’t remember this variation of a theme done in quite this way.
Journey Through Time is a very quick and easy game with the exception of this last puzzle. It probably took me a total of 40 minutes to get the time machine working, travel to all six periods and obtain the treasures, and then make my way back. It then took me more than an hour to finally figure out how to access the room to deposit the treasures and finish the game. I didn’t do it on my own either I had to receive a nudge or a hint in the right direction as well and even then I think I spent almost 40 minutes trying different things until I hit upon the solution.
There are doses of humor which shine through when you’re collecting the TRS-80 PROTOTYPE or the GUTENBERG BIBLE and this is the first use of humor Mick has used in all four games. We are not provided with any specific reason why we’re traveling through time and collecting these various treasures; only that we need to do so. This paints us as time traveling thieves which again finds us portraying another dark character as we did in the previous two entries.
The game was short but it was highly original in that it represents the first game dealing with time travel and the actual game mechanic of traveling back and forth through the six different eras was well executed. Joel Mick also turns the Treasure Hunt trope upside down; playing with the depository room convention by making it the hardest puzzle in the game.
The three Odyssey games by Joel Mick are incredibly hard to find but you can find them here. You’ll need an emulator to play them. If you decide to check them out on your own I hope you have a great time with them.