The central story is set centuries in the future, where after horrific nuclear wars humanity united to create a peaceful global society. Due to the establishment of a utopian society, humanity has been invited to join an alien organization known as the Symbiotry of Peaceful Beings.
In the twenty-fourth century, time travel is realized by the Journeyman Project, the secret program to construct Pegasus, the world's first time machine. After a brief test period proves time travel is possible, the Journeyman Project is deactivated and the Pegasus device is put under the secret watch of the Temporal Security Agency or TSA for short (also theacronym of its base of operations, the Temporal Security Annex). The TSA exists to prevent temporal rips in the space/time continuum, by which changes in the past can alter the present. The player controls a character named Gage Blackwood, Agent 5 of the Temporal Security Agency. The games revolve around Agent 5's exploits throughout time to saveEarth in the present.
In 1993,The Journeyman Project was one of the first PC games to use high quality rendered graphics. However, it suffered from performance problems and slow animations due to its early reliance on Macromedia Director. These problems were mostly overcome with the version 2.0 release that was retitledThe Journeyman Project Turbo! and published bySanctuary Woods in 1994.
The story begins with an alien ambassador arriving to finalize Earth's admission into the Symbiotry of Peaceful Beings. However, when Agent 5 is on duty a temporal rip is detected, andEarth's history is changed. The result of the new timestream is that humanity is passed over for admission into the alien organization.
Published in 1995 bySanctuary Woods,Buried in Time was a complete shift in direction for the series, moving away from futuristic environments and instead preferring to go to real-life historical locations. The game also featured a completely redesigned interface and contained many morelive-action scenes than the first game.
This complete remake of the original Journeyman Project was published byBandai in 1997 with some of the actors fromThe Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time. Originally announced as a "Director's Cut", Pegasus Prime featured enhanced graphics, sounds, movies, and puzzles. It was released solely for thePower Macintosh by Bandai Digital Entertainment in North America, although it was also developed for theApple Pippin andPlayStation in Japan.3DO andSega Saturn versions were also mentioned in the original product announcement, but are presumed to have been canceled.
In December 2013, the game was released on DVD-ROM for Mac OS X.[1] Windows and Linux versions were made available in March 2014.[2]
The game was released for digital download on GOG.com in 2014 andSteam in 2017.[3][4][5]
Published in 1998 byRed Orb Entertainment, the final installment uses a unique 360 degree interaction system without resorting to 3D effects. It featured impressive production values with the actors and costumes. One of the first games to be developed for theDVD-ROM medium, the enhanced DVD edition featured twice the resolution of the CD-ROM version.
In 1999,Red Orb Entertainment collected the Windows versions ofThe Journeyman Project Turbo!,Buried in Time, andLegacy of Time into an 8-disctrilogybox set.
According toIGN in late 1998, "Mindscape confirmed that the rights ofThe Journeyman Project #4 have been returned to the series' developer, Presto Studios", as a result of financial problems at Red Orb Entertainment.[6] With the closure ofPresto Studios in November 2002, there are no plans for more Journeyman Project games to be produced. However, a fourth game design document has been mostly written.[7][8] The game was originally projected for an October 2000 release and the story "illustrated one of the potentially dangerous outcomes of time travel technology", but the project was eventually put on hold to concentrate onMyst III: Exile.
Gage Blackwood - Blackwood is Agent 5 of the Temporal Security Annex (later Temporal Security Agency) who is charged with using time machines only to guard history from people who would use time machines to damage history. On June 22, 2311 he graduated from theUniversity of Melbourne with a master's degree in world history with honors. On June 25, 2313 he graduated at the top of his class from the Special Forces Training Academy. Five days later he became the director of Tactical Teams for the Crime Intervention Commission. On March 12 of 2315 he transferred to the Temporal Security Annex of the CIC. Gage received the Paragon Medal for his performance in the line of duty on November 8, 2318, and on December 17 of that same year he was promoted to the rank of Captain of the Temporal Protectorate. He was later chosen to form and head the Deep Time Unit on July 1, 2325. In the firstJourneyman Project game, the character was only addressed as "Agent 5" and was not represented by an actor. Todd McCormick played Gage in the remake of the first game,The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime, and inThe Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time. InThe Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time, Blackwood was played by Jerry Rector.
Michelle Visard - She is Agent 3 of the Temporal Security Agency, charged with protecting time from time travelers who want to change the events of history. She is also a member of the Deep Time Unit, a branch of the Temporal Security Agency which documents history. On February 11, 2310 she earned ablack belt inkarate. Three years later on April 4 she earned another inaikido. January 19 of that same year she won first place in the NIT intercollegiate gravball competition. On March 1, 2315 she was hired by the Temporal Protectorate, and on June 9, Visard graduatedmagna cum laude fromColumbia University with a Ph.D. in pre-unification theory and a B.A. insocial psychology. Ten years later on July 15 she transferred to the Deep Time Unit. In her free time, she enjoyed Symbiotry cultural exchanges, and existentialist literature. ActressMichele Scarabelli portrayed Visard inThe Journeyman Project 2,The Journeyman Project 3, andPegasus Prime, the 1997 remake of the first game.[9]
Dr. William Daughton - TSA Chief Engineer, played by Victor Navone inThe Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time and David Fenner inThe Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time
Jack Baldwin - TSA Commissioner, played by Daniel Mann
Arthur - Arthur is an artificial intelligence created by Dr. Kenneth Farnstein on a derelict asteroid miner parked in the outer reaches of theSolar System. Arthur was first introduced inJourneyman Project 2: Buried In Time. From the beginning, he was combination comic relief and interactivestrategy or hint guide. InBuried in Time, he was present for a great deal of the game, and he returned inThe Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time for essentially the entire game. Players would click upon icons in his interface, which would present themselves at certain times. One icon would dispense a quip or general observation, and another would dispense a hint, and often as not a quip as well. His skills and knowledge include his talent as an accomplished artist, knowledge about 20th century pop culture, and mastery of computers. For bothThe Journeyman Project 2 andThe Journeyman Project 3, Arthur's voice was supplied by Matt Weinhold who also wrote additional dialog for his character.
Dr. Elliot Sinclair - Dr. Sinclair is popularly known in the world ofThe Journeyman Project as "the father of time travel" because he invented the first time machine, a large device known as Pegasus. His pioneering work became the basis of, andraison d'être for, the Temporal Security Annex, which became the Temporal Security Agency. Dr. William Daughton later improved upon his initial work to create the JumpSuit time machines for the Temporal Security Agency. During most of the first part of the first game,The Journeyman Project, the player knows of Dr. Elliot Sinclair, if at all, only as the person who invented time travel. Only once the player is able to defeat one of the robots damaging history do they learn that Dr. Sinclair is the antagonist of the game. Dr. Elliot Sinclair spends the second game,The Journeyman Project 2, incarcerated in Vega Thalon, a prison colony on one of Saturn's moons. He, his robotic henchmen, and the Pegasus device are occasionally referred to but are not relevant to the story. He returns to the storyline forThe Journeyman Project 3, where Blackwood learns that Sinclair was born inAtlantis, which was destroyed by the Symbiotry in 1262 B.C, explaining Sinclair's mistrust of them in the present. Although immortal thanks to an alien artifact hidden in Atlantis, Sinclair dies five days before the game begins, as his immortality slowly failed after leaving Earth. In all three games (although his entire appearance in the second game was portions of what he'd done in the first game) Dr. Elliot Sinclair was portrayed byGraham Jarvis.
^"Broderbund Software Strengthens Its Growing Entertainment Studio WithThe Journeyman Project 3" (Press release). Novato, California:Business Wire. July 8, 1996.
