Vitals

North Atlantic Ocean, April 1912

Game: Titanic: Adventure Out of Time
Release Date: November 20, 1996
Producer: Andrew Nelson
Costume Designer: Stephen Brown

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today’s post, which I believe is the first time I’ve ever covered a game or animated media, is a true labor of love. BAMF Style readers may recall that the Titanic has been one of my lifelong special interests, partially culminated by Titanic: Adventure Out of Time—a point-and-click computer game from the now-defunct company CyberFlix that I have thought about at least once a day for nearly thirty years.

Set aboard the ocean liner that struck an iceberg 114 years ago tonight on Sunday, April 14, 1912, Titanic: Adventure Out of Time follows British secret agent Frank Carlson on a race against time during Titanic‘s final night afloat. It’s a second chance for Carlson, whom we met thirty years later while contemplating his failed career in a cheap London flat just before he’s vaporized in an air raid… sending him hurtling back in time to his Titanic cabin C-73, just two hours before the fateful iceberg encounter. From there, the player has nearly free reign to explore the ship’s decks and engage with some innovatively—if somewhat creepily—animated NPCs that both help and hinder his mission.

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time was released nearly thirty years ago in November 1996, just over a year before James Cameron’s blockbuster plunged pop culture into Titanic-mania. However, the spirit was cooperative rather than competitive, as the famously meticulous Cameron had contacted CyberFlix to reference their sinking animations for his own film.

Even the protagonist’s rarely mentioned name indicates how deeply the game planners like writer/producer Andrew Nelson did their homework; there was indeed a real Frank Carlson who told author Walter Lord he planned to board the Titanic at Cherbourg with a first-class ticket until his car broke down, preventing him from reaching the ship in time to board, though early newspaper “death lists” still included his name, as he naturally failed to answer the roll call of survivors aboard the rescue ship Carpatha following the sinking… making him the ideal historical enigma for the protagonist whose fate can change each time the game is played. (It has since been established that Mr. Carlson’s yarn was likely fiction, and the gentleman on the death roll was actually Frans Olof Carlsson, a Swedish seaman who sadly did perish during the sinking.)

Though it’s impossible to save the Titanic within the game (turning the ship’s wheel just gets instantly corrected with a firm reprimand), Carlson’s actions can indirectly prevent further world catastrophes, whether it’s securing a valuable necklace or Rubaiyat that would be used to finance the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that ignites World War I, retrieving a notebook of Bolshevik names that would prevent the Russian Revolution, or even rescuing a painting by the young Adolf Hitler that ultimately stops World War II. As the combinations can change, so does the fate of the world, as we when catching up with Carlson again in 1942—which may now be a peaceful world… or one of even deeper chaos. Continue reading →