Putt Putt Travels Through Time

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 characetrs were already established, the team had to work on designing to look of new characters such as Merlin the Medieval Sorcerer. Next, 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 lots of 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. Next, the work was handed over to programmers who wrote code to ensure the game responded to player choices, and who add 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

While Mr. Firebird is showing Putt-Putt his new time machine, it malfunctions and Pep the dog gets lost in the time portal along with Mr. Firebird's computer and Putt-Putt's history school report and lunchbox. Putt-Putt travels to Prehistory, the Middle Ages, the Old West, and the distant future to solve the inhabitants problems while recovering Pep, the computer, the report and the lunchbox.

Gameplay

The game mechanics are the same as the prequels including the glove box inventory, horn, radio and accelerator. 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. [null 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 clickakle 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". [null Rocky Mountain News] gave it a B, commenting that it lived up to the quality standard of Humongus Entertainment. The Washington Times wrote that the game was "delightful" and "uncomplicated".

In the Fourth Quarter 1997, the game was the 4th biggest seller in the PC Kids/Edutainment category.