Erik Holt

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time is a computer game developed by Cyberflix. It was published in Europe and the United States by Europress and GTE Entertainment respectively, released on October 31, 1996. The game is a point and click adventure game which sees the player traveling around a virtual representation of the RMS Titanic.

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time comes in three versions: a PC, Macintosh, or hybrid version that works on both the Windows and Mac. Version 1.0 of the game is an upgrade of the game from GTE Entertainment to just Cyberflix and is a stability upgrade first released in 1997. It comes in either a threefold CD jacket or a jewel case version. The French and German version of the game comes in two paper sleeves. The Mac and Windows versions were released first, produced by Cyberflix and distributed by GTE Entertainment in 1996. Hybrid versions of the game, which are compatible with both the Mac and Windows operating systems, were distributed and produced by Cyberflix after GTE Entertainment went out of business in 1997. Later versions were distributed by Hammerhead Entertainment, who took over production after Cyberflix also went out of business in 1998. The game is available in six languages: English, French, German, Dutch, Polish and Korean.

The game begins in April 1942 with the player (named Frank Carlson) being caught in an air raid during the London Blitz of World War II and being sent back in time to 1912 with an opportunity to change history. In 1912, he is a British secret agent on the RMS Titanic, who is told to retrieve a priceless copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The open-ended gameplay allows the player to either follow the storyline by solving puzzles or simply explore the rooms of the ship.

The main plot of the adventure game revolves around recovering the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which is revealed to have been stolen earlier in the year and is now suspected of being in the possession of Zeitel, a German Oberst (Colonel) who is traveling on the Titanic under the guise of inspecting embassies in the United States and Central America. Along with the Colonel is his young protegé named Willie Von Haderlitz. Through a web of intrigue, it is revealed that the Colonel has made a deal with an art dealer named Sasha Barbicon to exchange the Rubaiyat for a rare painting (made by the then-unknown Adolf Hitler). The Colonel and Barbicon act through an intermediary go-between, a Serbian stowaway named Vlad Demonic.

In addition to the Rubaiyat and the painting, the agent soon learns that Willie is in fact a spy for the Russians and has in his possession a notebook with names of top Bolsheviks. The notebook is to be handed over to the Okrana so that the Communist rebels will be executed, eliminating a threat to the Czar.

A final item that appears in the game, the acquisition of which is critical, is a rare diamond necklace that Sasha has stolen to pay Vlad for his services and also to finance a Serbian terrorist group called the Black Hand. Vlad’s involvement with the Black Hand sets the stage for the events on the Titanic directly impacting whether or not the Black Hand will assassinate the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, thus sparking the start of World War I.

During his mission, the agent also becomes involved in several sub-plots unrelated to the central mission or, for that matter, the winning conditions of the game. One important sub-plot begins by meeting the ship’s “gossip hound”, in the form of a wealthy middle-aged spinster named Daisy Cashmore. Cashmore gives the player a note to meet Andrew Conkling, the owner of Conkling Steel. Conkling tells the player to recover a business document of his that had been stolen by Shailagh Hacker, a maid in his London house.

Other plots include meeting and helping a wealthy couple (the Lambeths) whose marriage has gone bad, as well as meeting other passengers such as Leyland Sachum Trask, a psychic from Boston; Reverend Edgar Troutt, a religious preacher from Sunapee, New Hampshire who is returning from an African mission in Nyasaland; and Max Seidelman, an American freelance businessman from Philadelphia, who provide backstory and insight of varying value. Assisting the player from time to time is fellow agent Penny Pringle.

The number of objects the player recovers before escaping the ship affects the final cut scene and how history plays out. If the player obtains all the objects, history is altered with World War I, the Russian Revolution, and World War II never occurring; the character retires after a successful career to a world of peace. If the player fails to collect them or dies while escaping, history occurs as normal and the player dies in the London Blitz. Other endings (based on variations of objects collected) include Germany beginning WWII with a full nuclear arsenal (the character is killed in a nuclear attack), Germany conquering Russia and England due to the Communists having been stopped (the character is killed by a Nazi Stormtrooper), and the Soviet Union claiming much of Europe (the character is shot by a Russian Shock Trooper).

Besides the game, the CD-ROM also included a separate exploration feature that featured characters in the game discussing various aspects of the ship, its crew, and the sinking. These characters would be placed at locations around the ship. Three character narrations were included with the game, while others could be downloaded from the game's website (a later reissue of the game included a bonus CD-ROM with these downloadable narrations). They were later available for download on the website of Cyberflix's successor Barracuda, and are now available at Titanic-Titanic.com.

The computer graphics of the ship have been used in several documentaries about the Titanic, due to their authenticity. However, on a ship with a complement of around 2,200, the game portrays the Titanic as almost deserted, which perhaps explains that the whole storyline takes place on a Sunday night, when "there won't be many people out", as Smethells states at the beginning of the game. With the exception of the main characters, there are only a few sparse "wallpaper" characters who appear as unmoving figures in the hallways and major rooms of the ship.