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Time Zone Official Cover

Time Zone

🏢 On-Line Systems 📅 01 Jan 1982 🎮 Hi-Res Adventure
Standing in computer gaming history as the most colossal, lavish, and breathtakingly ambitious graphical adventure game ever created on 8-bit microcomputers (spanning six double-sided floppy disks containing twelve full disk sides and over 1,500 hand-drawn Hi-Res illustrated rooms), Sierra founders Roberta Williams and Ken Williams released Time Zone in March 1982 for the Apple II, sending players in a time machine across thirty-nine distinct historical and future time periods—from prehistoric dinosaurs and Cleopatra's Egypt to Elizabethan London and the far-future alien world of Neburon in 4082 AD—to assassinate the tyrannical alien conqueror Neburon before he obliterates Earth.

🎬 Deep Vision & Technical Analysis

🌆 Atmosphere & Visual Direction

Authentic vintage visual direction representing landmark era aesthetic standards.

⚡ Action Pacing & Physics Engine

Systemic interaction and engaging pacing designed for historical immersion.

🎯 Performance & Launch Trajectory

An essential milestone preserved in masterclass gaming archival standard.

Time Zone is a multi-disk graphical adventure game written and directed by Roberta Williams for the Apple II. Developed in 1981 and released in 1982 by On-Line Systems (later Sierra Entertainment), the game was shipped with six double-sided floppy disks and contained 1,500 areas (screens) to explore along with 39 scenarios to solve. Produced at a time when most games rarely took up more than one side of a floppy, Time Zone is one of the first games of this magnitude released for home computer systems. Ports were released for Japanese home computers PC-88, PC-98 and FM-7 in 1985.

Gameplay

Time Zone allows players to travel through time and across the globe solving puzzles while meeting famous historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Cleopatra, and Julius Caesar. The game has static pictures and a text parser that understands two-word commands.

Development

The game used the company’s existing Hi-Res Adventures engine. Roberta Williams was the designer and writer, and its development took six months and about ten other people—the first example of the modern video game-development model in which programmers, artists, and designers are separate people in a team larger than a few people—worked on the game for a year. Each of the more than 1,300 locations had its own artwork. The company hoped to release Time Zone before Christmas 1981, but did not do so until March 1982. Because of the game’s difficulty, Sierra offered a telephone help line that players could call for hints.

Reception

BYTE wrote “The Guinness Book of World Records must be getting ready for a computer game category, if Time Zone is any indication of things to come. Without a doubt, it is the longest adventure game to date”. The game received a Certificate of Merit in the category of “Best Computer Adventure” at the 4th annual Arkie Awards.

Williams’ brother-in-law and fellow employee, John, later said, “It frankly wasn’t that good”. Time Zone sold poorly; the original retail price of US$99 (equivalent to $330 in 2025) may make it the most expensive computer game in history after inflation. The game was reissued the year of its release as part of the short-lived SierraVentures line.

References

External links

  • Time Zone at MobyGames