We all love good old games, right? And we all struggle to clear the backlogs. Let's make some effort, travel together and visit the past years!

List of years visited (travel date):
– 1995 (May 2021)
– 1996 (June 2021)
– 1997 (July-August 2021)
– 1998 (September-October 2021)
– 1999 (November-December 2021)
– 2000 (January-February 2022)
– 2001 (March-April 2022)
– 2002 (May-June 2022)
– 2003 (July-August 2022)
– 2004 (September-October 2022)
– 2005 (November-December 2022)

1. How does it work?
I'll create a separate thread for each journey. One time travel = one year in the past. We start in May and the first destination is A.D. 1995, a quarter of century ago. We visit one past year every month. Once a month I'll write a post for the next year containing:
– the best games of the year visited
– list of participants + games they decide to play

2. How to participate?
That's easy. Take one game released in the year we're visiting and start playing it. If you can't finish the game, just play a bit and share your thoughts. You can choose remastered version. Or just bring back some memories, attach a scan of an old magazine, share an interesting link or whatever. There is only one limitation – focus only on games from the year you visited.
(GOG is also allowed to participate by releasing a missing game from the years we visit :D)

3. Why is it worth it?
For many reasons. With Time Machine you can:
a) visit the past (people always dreamed of it!)
b) actually play the best games of all time, not just recall
c) reduce your backlog
d) share your memories and learn about the memories of others

4. Organizational matters
– this thread serves as a meta-discussion about time travels, ideas, complaints etc.
– the threads dedicated to the specific years serve only to discuss the given year (try not to disturb time travellers and conduct current discussions here)

Any comments and ideas are welcome!

Finding which of the games one has were released a certain year, 50AB in this first case, is a pain.

Oh, how lucky, one of the games I am playing now was released then: Mission Critical. I just need to finish it.

That's true! With all the local/global/EU/US release dates, different dates in different sources etc. That's the reason I'll deliver some base list for each year and I guess we should not try to be very precise here ;)

Quite the nice idea you have here. Hopefully some participate.

Worry not. I can still enjoy these travels alone ;)
I'm just looking for more fun way of queueing my old games. I used to play them by series, but recently, inspired by gaming magazine, I realized that time perspective may be more interesting. What was surprising for me – there are some years so full of legendary games. Just look at 1995 – C&C, HoM&M, MoO. The next years are even more interesting.

I hope someone will join, I'd like to read some thoughts or memories. For now thanks for joining, I've made a passport for you ;) By the way – honestly I've never heard of Mission Critical and (looking at its reviews) I should.

Oh, what an interesting idea. Doubt I'll be directly participating myself, scheduling which games to play like that and finish or at least play a significant chunk of a game in a month if it's not some little thingy? Highly unlikely. But may post things about games played in the past, and definitely looking forward to what others will post.

Let's see, 1995, going by the earliest PC release date listed by MobyGames... Yes, there's HoMM and C&C, but MoO seems to have the Mac version in '95, DOS was '93. Others, checking what I know I played, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Warcraft 2, Caesar 2... Oh, also Tyrian for those who like bullet hells... And Warlords 2 Deluxe, if it counts (vanilla was in '94). See Flight of the Amazon Queen too, and Virtual Pool, but not worth mentioning alongside those.

Thanks for those missing titles – I've added them to the list of 1995. Feel free to join the travel thread, there is no need to make any commitments and the thread is not closed to only those who are refreshing their memories by playing ;)

Does that mean we cannot play other games besides that while we participate, or just that we must focus on the games for the "year being travelled to" while posting in their respective threads?

If the latter, I am in(made a post in the 1995 thread already btw). :)

Sounds good :)And thanks as well for the thread....I often like such "time travelling" threads/topics(it's part of why a number of my contests deal with such).

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some time travelling to do. ;)

*revs up time machine crank start*

Hello ciemnogrodzianin!

Thank you for another really creative incentive to revisit and talk about games from the past!
(Where do you take those ideas of yours?)

Anyway, since your 'rules' are really user friendly, count me in.

At least for the first four years (1995 to 1998) it should be easy for me to pick up something interesting.
I am surprised how well I remember some specific game releases which occupied my younger self in those years.

***But I rather use the time machine from "Timecop" or the Delorian? Why, because they have a second seat for taking a passenger with me...***

Kind regards,
foxgog

[Edit:]
Just in case someone might find it helpful, I usually check mobygames.com (releases tab) or ogdb.eu for confirming release dates of games from the past.

I do not know what are you taking but possibly you are not taking anything! and that's terrifying! :D

I`m in!

It was a bit complicated at the start but 1995 is a year of plenty and I can sort games by year to check.

From 1995 to 2021 there are 27 journeys,

and I want to go further already : )

we have 3300+ titles here
oldest is https://www.gog.com/games?page=1&sort=release_asc from the '80s,

some titles of the '50s '60s and '70s are available online

Video Game is actually asking a beam of photons or/and portions of liquid crystal or/and beam of electrons to project our imagination so we can see it and control it further.

While for a Computer Game, a picture can be printed or produced in another way like in the case of the first Polish Video game Marienbad1962 where "the game was played via a teletypewriter and card perforator, on which the machine printed the results."

In 1951 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod_(computer) was designed in the UK especially to play Nim.

in 1936 Ray-o-lite.jpg was designed in US

About 1870 Ampola_de_Crookes.gif was discovered
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crookes_tube

In 1860 Ruhmkorff lamps were an early form of portable electric lamp

In 1857 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geissler_tube was invented

The history of gas-discharge lamps began in 1675 when French astronomer Jean-Felix Picard observed that the empty space in his mercury barometer glowed as the mercury jiggled while he was carrying the barometer.
(...)discharge is then produced almost exclusively by the metal vapor(...)

But hold on a minute... a minute of silence for 15 hundred years of dark ages... done, Thank God we are here now :D

In about 50 BC a Dendera Light in a Temple of Hathor has been carved by Greek Egyptians
2020/05/ancient-lightbulb.jpg

with same carvings at the 2013/04/on-the-Island-of-Philae.jpg

or the Mitra-Varuna cells in India a long time ago.

Those lamps and batteries do not confirm any aliens' visits, and it works the same way today.
https://youtu.be/tcncjlKWe4Y

208 BC The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_the_First_Qin_Emperor has been constructed in China, with a " Mercury was used to simulate the hundred rivers, the Yangtze, Yellow River, and the great sea, and set to flow mechanically."
Do you remember Mr. Picard? Make Mercury vibrate and you have stunning blue lighting for the whole Tomb! Yay!
Shake it to make it! : ) If that is not a video game (playing with light) then what is? :D

In 1255 BC a wall painting of Nefertari playing Sennet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QV66
Was she playing with a help of electric light too?

Sounds like any play with light is a video game, not a computer game but a video game.

Like reading a book with a help of a flashlight under a quilt has something of a video game,
same way watching the Aurora or Northern Light sitting next to a fire watching plasma glow... possibly listening to some story ...

I like your story, what if a Video Game is the ultimate form of art? : )

OK, this one made my day :D
You showed a vision that I didn't take into account. Once we become time travelling veterans, we should definitely visit some of these ancient ages to explain this and that :)

But the question about years to visit is quite important. 54l2V posted here:
I think we should switch up the year for time travel 02, it doesnt have to go chronologically, or does it?

So let me explain my initial plan we can change it if we agree on another approach.

1. 1995 is a compromise – it's nicely far from today (~25y), but it still offers some games which should be easily playable for today's players. I like playing games from '80, but it's clear that they need much more determination and I simply wanted the party to be more accessible. From my perspective it also opens golden era of gaming, with Fallout, Baldur's Gate and Planescape coming soon, but I know it's very subjective – it depends when you started to use PC/play games and what kind of games you play.

2. I assumed we should visit the following years chronologically. The next years are full of great games and are worth being visited. I assumed that after a few years (months) we'll see if the formula works, if we want to continue and perhaps around 2000 or 2005 will be a moment to decide if we want to keep the schedule or make some changes – perhaps go back to 1994 and keep going into the past?

3. A month for a travel was a simple choice – it should be a period long enough to make some space for completing a game (for ambitious travellers) or to play a few hours (for those who just want to refresh their memories), and on the other hand short enough to make those threads alive.

In my opinion, the best solution for now is to stick to the new year every month rule – at least for a few months. If you think otherwise, let us know – and provide a constructive alternative plan :) I'm fine with following different schedule if community of time travellers prefer something else :)

Sounds like a great plan, you should stick to it. imo it might eventually be worth it to do time travel for 1991-1994 as well, at least some of the games released then are still accessible and there are well-known classics from that era many people are nostalgic about. A thread about games before 1990 will probably die from lack of participants.
But for now 1995 is a fine starting point.

I absolutely LOVE this idea! And it's perfect timing: I was getting ready to do a retro-replay of some favorite classic games and was thinking of starting around the 1994 - 1995 timeframe.

I'll definitely be participating.