Time travel is a difficult trope to work into a story, as it opens up so many possibilities. When the characters can go not just anywhere, but anywhen, it can be tough to just pin down a premise. A new indie game, available for free, puts the player in the shoes of the time police. These time cops have a crucial mission: It’s the 1980s, and you have to stop the assassination of John Lennon.
Time Force X: Mission of Lennon is a text game created by the Anime Sickos podcast, with contributions from artist Tom McHenry. I spoke with Tom Harrison, one of the hosts of Anime Sickos, over Discord about Mission of Lennon. “Writing the script for the game took about two months,” he said. “We previously made a demo game using [narrative game engine] Narrat where you are traveling to Deadwood (specifically the version from the classic HBO show of the same name) to open a hardware store.”
A playthrough of Mission of Lennon takes between five and 15 minutes, and there are 20 endings. The player can skip preamble on successive runs, and some endings take very specific skill checks. “One could argue that locking certain endings behind such byzantine, secret requirements is bad design,” Harrison said. “I would counter that it’s actually very funny.”
While Mission of Lennon is about saving John Lennon’s life, it’s not particularly flattering towards the musician. One ending has the protagonist snap and kill Lennon themselves. “One thing that is true about [the protagonist] in all instances [is they are] a huge fan of progressive rock and wants to ask John Lennon about it.”
This can sabotage your mission to save Lennon, as after you announce you are a time traveler there to rescue him, you can immediately start peppering him with questions about obscure bands like the Van Der Graaf Generator. Lennon, perhaps predictably, is not incredibly impressed.
The Anime Sickos podcast is funded by Patreon subscribers, which means the hosts have funding to do parallel creative projects like audio dramas or Mission of Lennon. It’s an entertaining romp in an underserved corner of game narratives — I’ve had to fight a million aliens, Nazis, and assorted rude dudes, but I can confidently say a game has never pitted me against Mark Chapman. The Time Cops concept could also make a fun franchise, if Mission of Lennon takes off.
“One thought we had during production would be a sequel where you go back to help John Hinckley Jr finish the job with Reagan, but I fear that is too cold-blooded for a comedy game,” wrote Harrison. “I would probably stick to moments in music history so I can indulge my putrid instinct to learn and tell people unbearably tedious music fun facts.”
