Is this meant to Save?

[UnimaginativeHandle]

Spent about 45 minutes in that first area until I figured out the mask symbols puzzle, then had to take a break; couldn't find a way to go to a menu or anything, so I force quit & now I'm back at the start.
Is there really no save system in a game with 50 puzzles & what looks like 6 areas to explore?

There also are a bunch of screens that initially just load as solid black & the mouse cursor or keyboard direction icons, I kept thinking the game had crashed because it crashed before when I first walked into the darkness without lighting the oil lamp, but you just had to change direction & the screen cleared up; I only ever encountered black screens in areas where it was just terrain, none of the screens with objects or puzzles on them, so it isn't a big gamebreaker but it was jarring & weird.

[UnimaginativeHandle]

It's okay, saw this was from 1996 & not a retro throwback, so I checked the Manual link & found it.
Still weird that there isn't a main menu, games had them in the 90's.

[markzwaan]

Games in the nineties often had confusing or missing menu screens. Loading or saving games required pressing a specific button or combination of buttons. In Timelapse you have to use ctrl+s and ctrl+o. Or you can hit the space bar to access the options menu which has shortcuts to the save and load screens. Back in the nineties hitting escape would either do nothing or quit the game completely (often without an "are you sure you want to quit?" dialogue) instead of invoking the main or options menu. Something I never really noticed until I started to buy back games I hadn't played for over decade on GOG.com and Steam and started to replay them. Reading the manual really was a requirement in those days, since games didn't have tutorial levels (ah, the golden days). Not reading the manual would often mean that you didn't know half the games options and gameplay mechanics. On the other hand you also didn't have to suffer through two hours of hand holding. I also didn't have access to the internet so consulting a walkthrough was not an option back then. And you'll probably want to consult a walkthrough for some of the tougher puzzels (the one with the animal foot prints comes to mind).

[UnimaginativeHandle]

Ah, that would also be a 'black screen' glitch then; I pressed the Spacebar & just got a black screen with the keyboard directional guide icon in the corner & not the Shortcuts menu that the manual mentioned.

[The_Voice_from_the_Lake]

Originally posted by UnimaginativeHandle:

Ah, that would also be a 'black screen' glitch then; I pressed the Spacebar & just got a black screen with the keyboard directional guide icon in the corner & not the Shortcuts menu that the manual mentioned.

You might want to do a reïnstall, including DX9. Everythings works fine for me. No black screens. Only the foto's don't show and doing a manual save for some weird reason refuses to save. But when exiting the game, it asks to save and that does work

BTW: still have the original CD (with manual). (edit)

[Mars]

The black screen (and black dots) problem can be easily remedied by pressing F12, which causes the emulator's(?) info screen to pop up. Just press okay, and all should be working well now!