Archaeology edutainment game, uncover artefacts that take you back in time
 

Hey folks,

Complete newbie here, at my wits end trying to find this game from my childhood. Any help would be really really appreciated. (Help me FGB, you're my only hope!)

- I first played this game in the late 90s, 1996-1998.
- Pretty sure it was on an IBM running either 3.1 or DOS.
- The game was 2D, and I think had an isometric perspective, at least for certain segments.
- Gameplay: you were an archeologist. You were at a dig site, and could choose to use various tools: a shovel, a brush, a comb, to excavate. There was a day and time counter. You would turn up artefacts by digging correctly (i.e. not using the shovel when an object was exposed). Very occasionally you would turn up a special "unexplained" artefact, which would warp you back in time to the period it was from. Here, you would have to ask questions and explore to find out what the purpose of the artefact really was.

Any help with finding out what on earth this game was would be really appreciated, I've talked to a whole bunch of people about it and am starting to believe I must have hallucinated the whole thing.

Hi,

could it be this:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/win3x/...ds/screenshots

or this:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/xargon/screenshots

or this:

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/41...mpires%21.html

Hi there. Thank you so much for your reply!!

Unfortunately, it is neither Super Solvers, Xargon or Secret of the Pyramids. :(

If there's any more info I should provide, just let me know.

I've looked up another gaming site but no games matching your description so far.

cd.textfiles.com has a DOS shareware game called Plunder, with the following description:
It's an ASCII game though, and doesn't seem to feature time travel too.

Also, while not much of a help, I found a selection of archaeology related games at the Museum of London website.