Time Traveler

The gameplay of Time Traveler is similar to that of other laserdisc games such as Dragon's Lair. The player moves a joystick in a specific direction or presses a button at certain points in the game. By entering the correct command, a movie clip plays showing the player's character progression through the game, while the wrong move results in a unique death scene for each segment. The game offers a short tutorial and hints on gameplay. The player controls consist of a 4-way joystick, an action button and a time reversal button. The latter is a feature that allows the player to rewind and repeat the last few seconds of a failed segment. This gives the player a second chance to try and escape his death without having to repeat the complete Full-motion video (FMV) sequence all over again. Between levels, players can buy more time-reversal cubes by inserting more coins into the arcade machine. The game starts with three lives and one time-reversal cube, lasting potentially ten minutes of perfect gameplay. Sometimes the game sequences have intentional latency, and "time malfunction" is displayed. It has a total of seven levels called "time periods". Every level consists of randomized FMV sequences within a time era theme such as pre-historic, Middle Ages, the future, and the Age of Magic. As the game progresses players randomly encounter a slot machine mini-game called "Hellgate" where the player can bet a life to win or lose extra lives or a free credit, or lose the whole game.