Putt-Putt Travels Through Time is a time-traveling, point and click game. It was released in 1997 on PC as the fourth game in the franchise.
The story goes like this: Putt-Putt is getting ready for his history report at school, and brings along his Smokey lunchbox and calculator. Stopping by Mr. Firebird's lab, he is then presented a time portal. A coin is used to power it up, and it works... until it malfunctions. The time portal sucks everything - and Pep - into the vortex. Now Putt-Putt must retrieve them.
Examples used in the game:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The last portal leads to a futuristic Cartown.
- All Deserts Have Cacti: The wild west, which has loads of cacti.
- Anachronism Stew: The prehistoric period shows Jurassic animals (Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Compsognathus) living alongside Cretaceous ones (Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops and Pteranodon) in the Mesozoic era, plus a tar pit and a sentient stone wheel.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The Continuums, which are a group of sentient singing clocks who tell Putt-Putt not to be scared of time travel.
- Aquatic Sauropods: Downplayed with the Apatosaurus standing in a lake. Averted with the Brachiosaurus as she is resting on dry land.
- Art Shift: The Humongous Logo is not only new, but there's a drum roll crash.
- Big Eater: The Triceratops in the prehistoric period does nothing but eat.
- Big "NO!": Putt-Putt does one of these upon Pep getting sucked into the time machine.
- Big Red Button: Or the lever, actually. It's used to make the time portal work.
- The Bus Came Back: Mr. Firebird returns to this game.
- Character Customization: At Paint-O-Rama, Putt-Putt can change colors.
- Company Cross-References: In The Future, when talking to Art T. Fact, Putt-Putt can ask for Pajama Man comic books or a SPY Fox decoder ring. There's also this exchange:Putt-Putt: Do you have any Fatty Bears here?Art: That is a classic. Unfortunately,
they don't make those anymore. - Continuity Nod: The Fireworks Factory sign is crossed out after the earlier incident.
- Delicious Distraction: In one path, Putt-Putt's history report ends up under a foot of the Triceratops. Since the Triceratops is too preoccupied with eating, Putt-Putt has to lure him with hay so he can step off of the history report.
- A Dog Ate My Homework: Inverted. When Putt-Putt's history report gets sucked into the time machine, Pep jumps out of Putt-Putt to save it.
- Edutainment Game: As with all of the Putt-Putt games. However in this game specifically, the dinosaurs will provide some facts about their respective genera. Likewise, while in the Wild West, Putt-Putt will spout facts about the desert animals living there.
- Everything Is an iPod in the Future: In The Future people can teleport, have very high-tech battery makers, make their own books, make food for any animal of any sort, and things like newspaper are ancient artifacts.
- Fan of the Past: In The Future, here's a museum dedicated to anything at all from the past. Putt-Putt's lunchbox, calculator, and history report all have a chance of landing in here, and Putt-Putt will need to trade the curator a similar item to replace it in order to get them back.
- Floating Continent: The Future consists of a floating town.
- Flying Car: Miss Electra from is this, and also the only vehicular citizen of The Future Putt-Putt arrives at.
- Future Slang: Clicking on the Radio in The Future yields a few terms like how the Future's radio station is KVRR (Kool Virtual Reality Radio), a radio advertisement for "Space Travel Vacations", and an announcement for the final playoffs for a generically named futuristic sport called Laserball.
- Game Within a Game: The "Squoosh" mini-game. Which is presented as an arcade game in The Future.
- Gentle Giant Sauropod: Both the Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus in are gentle giants who will help out Putt-Putt.
- The Good Kingdom: The Middle Ages is a small medieval town ruled over by King Chariot, whose daughter is the kind Princess Chassis. They live in a castle with happy wooden wagons as subjects. Expect lute-playing and dragons.
- Guide Dang It!: There are two puzzles that require Putt-Putt to pay a nickel: buying a suit of armor and buying a newspaper. You're only allowed to carry one nickel at a time, so if both of these puzzles appear, you have to purchase something with the nickel you have before Toby will let you earn another one. It's never made obvious that Toby will give you more than one nickel.
- Inconvenient Itch: The Apatosaurus in the prehistoric period suffers an itch on his back where he can't reach, so Putt-Putt has to scratch it for him.
- Irony: In the prehistoric period, there's a dinosaur that will mistake Putt-Putt for a vicious creature about to attack. The dinosaur in question? A Tyrannosaurus rex.
- Meaningful Name: Lots.
- Merlin is named after the Arthurian Wizard.
- Arthur T. Fact is Art. T. Fact in short. An artifact is an object used for a museum.
- Portal to the Past: The game uses portals to connect the past and future to the time machine.
- Scenery Porn: The locations in the time periods have...
- A jungle for prehistoric times.
- A desert town and desert for the wild-west.
- A castle for the medieval period.
- And of course, a futuristic town for future Cartown.
- Story Branching: As with most of the Junior Adventure Games. The story puzzles are chosen randomly, without player input. Affecting the locations of key items and the methods you need to get them. This is the first game in the series to utilize this mechanic.
- Talking Animal: The dinosaurs Putt-Putt encounters in the prehistoric period, and Virgil Clyde the horse in the wild-west.
- Terrifying Tyrannosaur: Discussed and then subverted in Travels Through Time. When coming across a Tyrannosaurus rex, Putt-Putt will make a comment about hoping the dinosaur's not too mean and nasty. However, this T. rex turns out to be cowardly and freaks out upon seeing Putt-Putt, but is ultimately friendly after being assured by Putt-Putt that he means no harm. He is still very strong though, able to lift large rocks with his small arms (which is Truth in Television as the arms of Tyrannosaurus are actually powerful for their size).
- Temper-Ceratops: The Triceratops in the prehistoric period averts this by being a Big Eater oblivious to his surroundings.
- Time Machine: Mr. Firebird's time portal, which is operated via inserting nickel into laundry machine, and is actually... rocket-shaped.
- Time Travel: The premise of the game.
- Time Travel Episode: Naturally
- Title Theme Tune:
''Putt-Putt travels through tiiiiime!"
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Putt-Putt himself is this. Nobody in any time period he visits is surprised when Putt-Putt tells them he's from their past or future, the most we get being Princess Chassis thinking he's a fancy-looking carriage.
- What Year Is This?: Putt-Putt will ask this upon entering The Future or chatting with the dinosaur in the prehistoric period.