''Meantime'' was a cancelled

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

originally intended for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

and possibly for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

. It was a follow-up to 1988's ''

Wasteland Wasteland or waste land may refer to: * Desert or barren area * an uncultivated area of land, whether wooded or not, whether common land or not Art, entertainment, and media Comics * ''Wasteland'' (DC Comics), 1987–1989 anthology-style horror ...

'', produced by Interplay, using the same

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...

as ''Wasteland''.

Brian Fargo Frank Brian Fargo (born December 15, 1962) is an American video game designer, producer, programmer and executive, and founder of Interplay Entertainment, inXile Entertainment and Robot Cache. Biography Early life A descendant of the family t ...

(head of Interplay at the time) halted development for this platform, in part due to the falling

8-bit computer In computer architecture, 8-bit integers or other data units are those that are 8 bits wide (1 octet). Also, 8-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers or data buses o ...

market. Later attempts were made to finish the game for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

, but the project was canceled for good after the release of the competing ''

Ultima VII ''Ultima VII: The Black Gate'' is the seventh installment of the ''Ultima (series), Ultima series'' of role-playing video games, released on April 16, 1992. In it the player returns as The Avatar, a would-be paragon of moral virtue who faces down ...

'', as it was felt they would be releasing a graphically inferior product.

Plot and gameplay

Although set in the same universe as ''

'', and with similar

and

gameplay Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and pla ...

(although it was reported that the game was supposed to use a combat system similar to ''

Champions of Krynn ''Champions of Krynn'' is role-playing video game, the first in a three-part series of Dragonlance ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' "Gold Box" games. The game was released in 1990 in video gaming, 1990. The highest graphics setting supported in ...

''), ''Meantime'' was to feature an entirely unique storyline. The basic premise was that the player would travel through time, and recruit famous historical figures to the player's party. For example,

Amelia Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart ( , born July 24, 1897; disappeared July 2, 1937; declared dead January 5, 1939) was an American aviation pioneer and writer. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She set many oth ...

joins the party when she is rescued from a Japanese prison camp, and

Wernher von Braun Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun ( , ; 23 March 191216 June 1977) was a German and American aerospace engineer and space architect. He was a member of the Nazi Party and Allgemeine SS, as well as the leading figure in the develop ...

does when he is helped to escape the Soviets at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Each character would also have a particular specialty;

Cyrano de Bergerac Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist. A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...

, for example, would have an expert fencing skill. The party would attempt to repair damage caused by a similar party of time-traveling villains, attempting to alter the course of history by influencing events.

Development

The work on the game was first reported in the press in early 1989. The ''Meantime'' design team include people from the ''Wasteland''. The project was initially led by Alan Pavlish; also involved were Mark O'Green and

Liz Danforth Elizabeth T. Danforth is an illustrator, editor, writer, and scenario designer for role-playing games and video games. She has worked in the game industry continuously since the mid 1970s. Early life and education She received her BA in Anthropo ...

. Unlike ''Wasteland'', a map editor was created for the game, preventing the need to know

assembly code In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence be ...

when creating game areas. When the maps used in the game were around 75% done, Liz Danforth left the project. This, coupled with declining Apple II sales, led

to cancel the game. The ''Meantime'' project was revived around 1992 under the lead of Bill Dugan, with the aim of bringing the game to

IBM PC-compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones. ...

s. A contractor was hired to port the program to MS-DOS, and an Interplay employee began work on EGA graphics for use in the game. By this time the code was considered "ancient", causing porting to be very difficult. Bill Dugan finally recommended the cancellation of the project, after seeing the advanced (at the time) graphics of ''

''. It was felt that ''Meantime'' had little to offer, with its top-down perspective and lack of animation. The box cover was never made public, but is said to feature

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

, who was a playable character in the game. In 1996, ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' ranked it as the sixth top

vaporware In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late or never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled. Use of the word has broade ...

title in

computer game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

history.

Legacy

The ''Meantime'' code and rights were owned entirely by Interplay, as opposed to ''Wasteland'', which was owned by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the d ...

. As such, EA started from scratch when they produced their own sequel to ''Wasteland'', ''

Fountain of Dreams ''Fountain of Dreams'' is a 1990 role-playing video game developed and published by Electronic Arts for DOS as a successor to 1988's ''Wasteland''. Gameplay The gameplay is similar to that of ''Wasteland'' since ''Fountain of Dreams'' was or ...

'', but in 2003 dropped all claims that the game had any connection to ''Wasteland''. When Interplay finally did create their

spiritual successor A spiritual successor (sometimes called a spiritual sequel) is a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but (unlike a traditional prequel or sequel) does not explicitly continue the product lin ...

to ''Wasteland'', ''

Fallout Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...

'', none of the ''Meantime'' code was used and the only ''Meantime'' designer involved in the creation of ''Fallout'' was Mark O'Green. No copies of the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

are believed to currently exist. Attempts at recovery were thwarted by the games' design requiring a fresh copy of the master disk for each gaming session, an outdated concept that sometimes caused the original game disk to be accidentally saved over and lost. Chiptune artist 8 Bit Weapon released an EP titled ''MeanTime EP'' as a tribute to the game on August 7, 2007. A trademark was filed for "Meantime" on November 11, 2014, by Roxy Friday LLC, a company associated with

inXile Entertainment inXile Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Tustin, California. Specializing in role-playing video games, inXile was founded in 2002 by Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo. The studio ...

, authors of ''

Wasteland 2 ''Wasteland 2'' is a post-apocalyptic role-playing video game developed by inXile Entertainment and published by Deep Silver. It is the sequel to 1988's ''Wasteland'', and was successfully crowdfunded through Kickstarter. After the postponement o ...

''.

References

External links

UnfinishedGames
at Just Adventure on web.archive.org
Interplay FAQ
on a

Google Groups Google Groups is a service from Google that provides discussion groups for people sharing common interests. The Groups service also provides a gateway to Usenet newsgroups via a shared user interface. Google Groups became operational in February ...

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archive
Meantime
at the Wasteland Ranger HQ-Grid
Meantime Archive
{{Wasteland series Alternate history video games Cancelled Apple II games Cancelled DOS games Interplay Entertainment games Role-playing video games Video games about time travel Video games set in the United States Wasteland (series)