I remember playing this game, and I think the name of it was Borrowed Time. You were a private investigator in the game, but I don't remember much about the actual game.
This page is a wiki. Please login or create an account to begin editing.
2009, September 7 - 8:31am
#1
A game called Borrowed Time?
Comments
2009, September 7 - 9:08am
#2
Ahh hmmm, I think I may have the demo actually. Came with one of these mac action CD.
I'll take a look.
2009, September 7 - 1:29pm
#3
I immediately thought of the Journeyman series, "Labyrinth of Time", "Buried In Time", or "Legacy of Time", but it's not one of them.
Then I thought of "Titanic: An Adventure Out Of Time". But I reckon you'd remember the Titanic part, so it may not be that either.
Any more clues ?
2009, September 7 - 3:04pm
#4
Cheesy 80's private eye stuff. Maybe for the Apple II? It used the basic game commands of the time, go, examine, open, etc. If I remember correctly, it was on a 5 1/4 floppy, but what wasn't back then? lol
2011, June 26 - 5:18pm
#5
If I remember correctly, it was on a 5 1/4 floppy, but what wasn't back then?
Macintosh stuff. In fact, they built in the 3.5" floppy drive (instead of a 5 1/4 one) a few minutes before the first Macintosh has been presented to the public.
2011, March 15 - 5:10pm
#6
Borrowed Time was a graphical adventure game from Interplay that came out in 1985. You played Sam Harlow, a 1930s-era private detective. It had a few good puzzles and it was easy to die, especially at the hands of this gunman who popped out of nowhere, randomly.
It was released on all the major platforms at the time: Commodore 64, Apple II, IBM-PC, Amiga, and Atari ST. Of all the different versions, Borrowed Time looked the best on the Macintosh. Along with the Amiga version, it had the most detailed graphics. The lack of color actually helped, I think. The black-and-white images felt more like an old detective movie, like The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep.
I gave away my copy of the game 16 years ago when I went to college. Ever since I've tried been trying to locate another copy of it. A few years ago, an interactive fiction collector lent me his copy, but the disk was damaged and I could recover nothing from it. I even tried contacting one of the game's original developers, Rebecca (Bill) Heineman. No luck so far.
Unfortunately, the Mac version has disk-based copy protection on it. I think this has probably prevented it from getting ripped to a disk image and being playable in an emulator. Two other Interplay titles that used the same adventure game engine, Mindshadow and Tass Times in Tonetown, also used disk-based copy protection; they are also M.I.A. on the Mac emulation scene.
2009, September 9 - 11:59pm
#7
Yeah, jkheiser. That was the one. I have to scratch my head at the copy protection though... What was available that had a hard drive or an affordable ripper? Dang you forward thinkers!!! LOL Thanks for the information though. Maybe I can find a hard copy of it somewhere.
2009, September 11 - 3:05am
#8
Okay. So I found another abandonware site that actually has 3 versions of this game- commodore, amiga, and ms-dos. Sadly, it's not available in the apple ii version, although it shows it was made. If anyone is interested, here is the website. http://www.thehouseofgames.net/index.php?t=10&id=142 . Click the icon for the version you want to download under the description. The ms-dos version works in my emulator.
2010, February 24 - 7:20am
#9
I have this game for the Atari ST, Amiga and Commodore 64. Would love to get the Mac version!
2010, February 24 - 3:28pm
#10
And here´s a ftp-link to the Apple II-version;
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II/images/games/adventure/borrowed_...
Would love to see the Mac version. 
2011, June 26 - 11:46am
#11
Since this was posted, Mindshadow has shown up on the Garden, but we're still looking for Borrowed Time and Tass Times in Tonetown...
2011, June 26 - 6:28pm
#12
Geek fact: while the 5 1/4" was still called the floppy, those that worked with both, called the 3 1/2", a "stiffy" in reference to it's plastic case.
2011, June 27 - 12:29pm
#13
Stiffy, wow. 
2011, June 27 - 6:24pm
#14
Just a "stuffy", if you called it a "3 1/2 inch stiffy" it sounded inferior.
2011, June 28 - 6:15am
#15