Video Game / Criminal Case: Travel in Time

Criminal Case: Travel in Time is the sixth game of the Criminal Case series.

The player is taken to the year 2029 by a future version of Jack Archer, where they join the Temporal Crimes Division, who protect history from disturbances caused by time travel before getting stuck through different time periods. The season features seven time periods - Ancient Times (set from 47 BCE to 37 BCE), The 1960s, the Renaissance, the Altered Present, the Age of Sail, Medieval Asia, and The End.

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Criminal Case: Travel in Time provides examples of:

• Accidental Murder:
  • One of the clues in Summer of Death, found under a pile of flowers dedicated to the victim, is a paragraph from a book where the protagonist comes to terms with committing this, which is written by the killer. This later turns out to be true; the killer, a local military general accidentally killed the victim after trying to protect them in what was a PTSD-induced episode.
  • While the killer in Anchors Aweigh! attempted to remove evidence of murder, they were simply trying to give the victim a shave, but due to the boat rattling and the victim being inebriated, the victim's neck accidentally hit off the blade and killed him.
  • In Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered, the victim had been hit over the head with a bottle, though it turns out that the killer had only done so to try and scare him away, and had no idea it would kill him.
• All for Nothing: The Wrath of Khan reveals that, despite all the trouble the Temporal Crimes Division went through to try fix the timeline, both their and the Ptolemy Dynasty's mere presence in the past would irreversibly destroy the timeline. Even their last hope of going back to 47 BCE to arrest Nefertiti and Ammon, the last point where history was intact, could have created another paradox if they came into contact with themselves when they were investigating Julius Caesar's murder.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • Kushari appears as a profile clue in Death as Old as Time and has a minor appearance during the Age of Sail, even though Kushari wasn't invented until the 19th Century.
  • In A Greek Tragedy, one of the clues is that the killer eats tzatziki, a yogurt sauce of Ottoman origin dating from the 14th century, even though the case takes place during Ancient Greece.
  • Nebet has a golden streak in her hair. While hair dye did exist in Ancient Egypt, it was extremely primitive and usually only came out in black. Although considering Nebet is really a princess from an altered version of 2029, it may have been intentional.
• Arc Villain:
  • Ancient Times: Great Consul Octavian, who is planning to burn Egypt to the ground so he can keep power over the Roman Republic.
  • The 1960s: Congressman Graham Winslow, who kills Soviet Ambassador Lev Romanov in the district's finale so the United States and the Soviet Union go from a Cold War to a nuclear one.
  • Renaissance: Cardinal Cisneros, leader of The Spanish Inquisition and the one responsible for incarcerating Leonardo da Vinci in the first place.
  • Altered Present: A Big Bad Duumvirate between the members of the Ptolemy Dynasty, composed of King Ramses XLIII, Queen Shabaka, and Princess Nefertiti AKA Nebet.
  • Age of Sail: Ammon Bast, the main lackey of the Ptolemy Dynasty and saboteur of the Time Machine who is now trying to stop the team from fixing the altered timeline.
  • Medieval Asia: Ogedei Khan, who is planning to destroy China with weapons brought from the future by Ammon Bast.
  • The End: Nefertiti and Ammon.
• Bad Present: The fourth district of the season takes place in the Altered Present, 2029 but heavily changed as the result of numerous alterations in history starting with Caesar's premature murder. In this case, Ancient Egypt has conquered the city of New York, which has become a Dystopia ruled by the Ptolemy Dynasty, a family descended from Cleopatra and Mark Antony. In addition, time travel is hidden from the government and the Temporal Crimes Divisions are wanted criminals.
• Bait-and-Switch Accusation: In A Slice of Death, Jack is swift to arrest Buyantu, a Mongolian monk in Japan, for being the shogun's killer after finding an assassination order on a prayer wheel. It turns out that it's actually Oume, the teahouse owner, who had attempted to assassinate the shogun, although her plan failed in the end.
• Big Damn Heroes: Right as Ammon is about to kill Amy and the player while stranded on an island, Mary Read steps in and evacuates the team.
• Bisexual Love Triangle: One forms between Zara, Theo and Kai through out the story which ends in the three of them forming a stable relationship between the trio.
• Breaking Old Trends: Of course, since you do quite a lot of Time Travel...
  • In Summer of Death, you get to see Ian Devine in his youth, same goes for Janis, the team's coroner as a teen.
  • In the last case of this season, we come to find out that Nebet is the victim, a suspect, AND the killer all at the same time.
  • Also, in the same case and the one beforehand, we have Ammon die twice. Not like he had both coming...
• Breather Episode:
  • Right after learning about the mysterious saboteur and experiencing the tension-filled 1960s culminating in stopping a nuclear war, the Renaissance arc is much more light-hearted and less tense, featuring the zany Leonardo da Vinci as a Guest-Star Party Member Comic Relief and having a silly but heartwarming subplot about the team members growing tired of each other but eventually having a reconciliation.
  • Likewise, after the very bleak and outright depressing Altered Present comes the Age of Sail, which has a less complex plot without any shocking twists like Nebet's betrayal and much more cheerful characters such as Mary Read backing up the team.
• The Bus Came Back: Amy Young and Jack Archer return as the team co-ordinator and partner, respectively, and Marina Romanova reappears, reprising her role as The Profiler.
• A Day in the Limelight: Every new main character in the player's team (i.e. not Amy, Jack, or Marina) gets a little bit of spotlight in a different era, be a case focused on them, a full storyline across said district, or just more relevance in general during that arc. There's Ancient Times for Kai, The 1960s for Janis, Renaissance for Penelope, Altered Present for Orlando, Age of Sail for Zara, Medieval Asia for Theo, and The End for Nebet.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Much like Mysteries Of The Past, several examples of this are seen within the season.
  • Homosexuality is seen as an undesirable trait, whether it be undesirable in general or undesirable in a public figure.
    • In Ancient Rome, Brutus was on the risk of being outed by a political opponent.
    • The first victim in the 1960s is a gay man who faced disownment from his father, while the second victim of the 1960s got into a physical alteration with a bartender who suspected him of being gay.
    • In Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered, Jorge de la Cruz had developed romantic feelings for the victim which were reciprocated, but homosexuality was heavily disapproved of during the Age of Sail. When the victim tried to start a relationship with Jorge, the latter is frightened and tries hitting him with a bottle to scare him off, but ends up killing him by accident.
  • As The '60s arc revolves around the Red Scare, anti-Soviet sentiment also pops up. In Houston, We Have a Problem, a suspect accused the victim of being a communist for simply drinking vodka, and in Crime and Punishment, a Soviet ambassador is killed by a senator in the hopes of provoking war with the Soviet Union.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In Fool's Gold, a hologram shows Ramses XLIII sweet-talking Ravi, who claims he'd do anything to prove his loyalty to him. Later on, Shabaka claims that Ramses would send her and Nefertiti out to do errands so he could have flings with the slaves. One has to wonder how Ravi got Ramses off his back.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Time's Up, after being stranded in time for several months and having to deal with being fugitives, being stuck in a wrong present, preventing at least 3 destructive wars from happening, and being betrayed by a False Friend, all the original members of the team manage to survive and return to New York in 2029, where Chief Scott is alive, the timeline is intact as if nothing happened, and the team celebrates with a BBQ.
• Egypt Is Still Ancient: New Cairo and the Altered Present take heavy influence from Ancient Egypt. Justified in the sense that New Cairo is the result of several alterations to history that gave Egypt an upper-hand, even in scenarios where they were the under-dog..
• Exploding Cigar: The final victim of the Age of Sail is killed this way.
• Fire-Forged Friends: The main team becomes this as the season progresses. They weren't particularly close in the beginning, and had even started getting sick of each other in Hell to Pay after being stranded for so long. However, the hardships they go through for the rest of the season like Nebet's betrayal, being stuck and constantly hunted down in the Altered Present, getting lost at sea and having to prevent an all-out war between two nations brings them much closer than they could've imagined.
• Foreshadowing: The chapter art of the Renaissance is a parody of "The Last Supper", with Nebet being depicted as Judas. Guess who turns out to be this season's traitor.
• For Want Of A Nail: The Temporal Crimes Division's main role is to prevent these from happening, as time travel is a fairly recent invention in-canon and also attracts rogue time travelers. The plotline is actually kicked off by Julius Caesar being murdered by a rogue time traveler, which, alongside various other anomalies in time, leads to the present becoming an Egyptian Dystopia.
• The Future: The arc is set in 2029, a decade after the events of The Conspiracy.
• Historical Domain Character:
  • Death as Old as Time revolves around the murder of Julius Caesar three years before his actual death, with Marcus Junius Brutus and Cleopatra VII appear as suspects. During the Ancient Times arc, Mark Antony and Augustus also appear, with Antony ultimately being a victim.
  • A Tudor Murder features Catherine of Aragon as the victim with both Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn appearing as suspects.
  • Leonardo da Vinci plays a large role in the Renaissance arc, assisting the team in fixing the ship.
  • Age of Sail has Captain Schadrach and Mary Read as major characters who help the team, while Blackbeard appears as a case victim.
  • Medieval Asia has Ogodei Khan (Genghis Khan's son) be sought after by both the team and Ammon Bast, while they also encounter general Subutai and his wives.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: Marcus Junius Brutus is the son of Julius Caesar and was only angered by the fact the latter had disowned him. Justified since the game starts off with Caesar being murdered by a T.I.M.E. agent three years before his actual death, so Brutus never conspired to murder him.
• Historical Villain Upgrade:
  • Augustus is not only a Manipulative Bastard and egotistical, but actually attempts to destroy Egypt rather than conquering it after Caesar's death. Luckily Jack and the player manage to trick him into giving up.
  • Cisneros has Leonardo da Vinci arrested in Hell to Pay and turns out to be the killer of Henry VIII's bride, Lady Fiore, in Till Death Do Us Part, which is justified in the sense that both of these events, particularly Henry's marriage, were the results of alterations in time.
• La Résistance: The team allies with one in the Altered Present after solving Chief Scott's murder. Among their notable members are Iron Lady Isabelle Huxley, palace porter Ravi Jabari, and historian Sirius Atwood, who turns out to be Orlando's deceased husband from the original timeline.
• Later-Installment Weirdness: The previous 5 seasons have always lasted between 56 to 60 cases. Travel in Time, and now Supernatural Investigations, only lasts for 30.^note  actually 31 in Travel in Time's case.
• Not in Front of the Parrot!: The killer in Pride Comes Before the Fall poisons another suspect's parrot because the parrot would expose her secret affair with the Sultan's favorite concubine, who the victim had tasked the killer to assassinate.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The victim in Hell to Pay, a Spanish Inquisition executioner, was brutally tortured and killed after his maiden found out he had executed her father for rejecting him. Rather than hand them over to the Inquisition, Jack convinces the cardinal to simply excommunicate and banish the killer.
• Running Gag:
  • Jack's fear of aging is the butt of several jokes from Theo.
  • Janis using the morgue's crematorium to bake cookies and offering them to the player and their partner.
  • Both Kai and Theo pine for the attention of Zara. This results in several Ship Tease moments such as Zara kissing Kai after he recovers from sickness, and then a potential threesome between all three. The conflict ends with them forming a three way relationship.
• Sick Episode:
  • A Greek Tragedy revolves around Kai falling sick with only an Ancient Greek doctor knowing how to solve his illness. Unfortunately, said doctor is accused of murder during the case, halting Kai from being cured until the actual killer is found.
  • Bewitched, Bothered, Bewildered kicks off with Zara's skin becoming blue and scaly after finding Blackbeard's treasure, resulting in the team having to seek the help of a witch doctor.
• Time-Traveling Jerkass: Ammon Bast and Nefertiti, who manipulate events so Ammon can manipulate time to give rise to a tyrannical empire.
• Wham Episode: Rebel Without a Pulse, where it's revealed that Nebet had never been Cleopatra's slave, but a princess of the Ptolemy dynasty in the Altered timeline, and she had been working against the team this whole time. This case also has Orlando's husband (who had died in the original timeline) make a surprise appearance after being casually mentioned in a few past cases.

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