Putt-Putt Travels Through Time

Putt-Putt Travels Through Time is a 1997 video game and the fourth of seven adventure games in the Putt-Putt series of games developed and published by Humongous Entertainment. In 2014 Night Dive Studios re-released the iOS, Linux and Steam versions. In 2022, a port was released on the Nintendo Switch in January, as one of the first Humongous Entertainment games to be released on the system alongside Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell, followed by a PlayStation 4 version in November. This is the last game to feature Jason Ellefson as the voice of Putt-Putt.

Production


The production team brainstormed ideas for the follow-up title in the Putt Putt franchise. Among the alternate titles were: Putt-Putt Goes to the Carnival, Putt-Putt Saves the Universe, and Putt-Putt Learns to Fly. They eventually settled on Putt-Putt Travels Through Time. While the designs of the main characters were already established, the team had to work on designing to look of new characters such as Merlin the Medieval Sorcerer. The scripts was written and storyboards were created to layout how each scene would work as a self-contained piece, as well as part of a larger story. Background artists then interpreted both the script and storyboards to create the look and feel of the game through the backgrounds; part of their job was to leave sufficient space for clickable hotspots. Once the basic design sketch was approved, it was given more detail and finally painted. Next, animators created series of drawings based on the storyboards which when viewed together would simulate movement; each of the 30,000 drawings were then individually scanned into a computer, where they were cleaned up and had imperfections removed. The next stage was for artists to colour frames and animate clickpoints; Humongous noted that while this stage was "tedious", it allowed low-level artists to be creative and use their initiative. The work was handed over to programmers who wrote code to ensure the game responded to player choices, and who added sound effects to synch up to the animations. The music was created by Humongous, while voice actors were auditioned by the company (if new to the franchise), then sent to a studio to record their lines.

Putt Putt game designer Nick Mirkovich commented that there was a design philosophy of creating immersive interactive world for players to explore, and that like other games by Humongus, items needed for game completion were programmed to be in different places for separate playthroughs. Players could go behind the scenes into the game's production via the company website.

Plot
Putt-Putt visits Mr. Firebird's laboratory with the intention of showing him his new school supplies. At the lab, Mr. Firebird demonstrates a machine made to view different time periods like a television. The demonstration turns chaotic, however, when the machine opens a portal that sucks Putt-Putt's items and Pep into four different dimensions (Stone Age, Medieval, Old West, and the Distant Future). Since the portal can't be shut down until everything is brought back from the other eras, Putt-Putt is forced enter the portal to search for everything.

After finding every item and Pep in the eras, Putt-Putt returns to the laboratory and Mr. Firebird shuts off the portal to prevent any more chaos. Putt-Putt then leaves for school, promising to show his school items to Mr. Firebird later. At his classroom, Putt-Putt tells everyone about what he learned by time travelling as the credits roll.

Gameplay
The game mechanics are the same as in the predecessors including the glove box inventory, horn, radio and accelerator. The locations of the items and Pep vary throughout each playthrough; they each have four variations of where they could be, with one variation being in each of the eras and there cannot be more than one item in an era in each playthrough. There are also a number of optional minigames throughout the four eras.

Reception
Computer Shopper felt the game was fun, but ultimately failed to live up to predecessors of the genre. The Cincinnati Post deemed the game "outstanding", and recommended that younger children purchase an earlier title in the Putt-Putt series first to acquaint themselves with computers before attempting this more "challenging" title. The Boston Herald gave the game a rating of 4.5 stars, praising the abundance of clickable hotspots in every scene which would keep kids entertained while completing the adventure. The newspaper also deemed the game one of the "finest kid titles ever". Rocky Mountain News gave it a B, commenting that it lived up to the quality standard of Humongous Entertainment. The Washington Times wrote that the game was "delightful" and "uncomplicated". Macworld rated the game 8.7 out of 10 and inducted it into its 1998 Game Hall of Fame in the Kids category, saying that while the point was "to encourage junior adventurers to master the reasoning and problem-solving skills necessary to complete the task [...] the bottom line is fun, and as in grown-up adventures, the journey itself is the reward".

In the fourth quarter of 1997, the game was the 4th biggest seller in the PC Kids/Edutainment category.