1940

1940 is a puzzle game in which you play an international agent travelling through time to recover a set of mahjong tiles and put history back on course. The tiles belonged to Liu Na'ou, a novelist and filmmaker from Taiwan’s Japanese colonial period, and are said to have the power to change history.

Story

Since 2079, museums and private collections around the world have reported the disappearance of valuable objects with mysterious powers. In 2080, a set of Liu Na'ou’s mahjong tiles is stolen from the National Museum of Taiwan Literature. Interpol suspects RISS, an international terrorist organisation that claims to have time-travel technology.

Evidence suggests RISS plans to send an agent to the eve of World War II and use the tiles to alter the war’s outcome. You take on the operation codename “Hunt 1940,” infiltrate RISS’s base, activate a time machine and travel into the past to retrieve the tiles and stop the organisation’s plan.

Puzzles across time

The game uses Liu Na'ou’s life as the basis for its story and the museum’s collection of his mahjong tiles as a key object. Its 3D side-scrolling puzzles take you through settings including Shanghai’s Paramount Ballroom, Tianjin’s Jiefang Bridge, the Greater Khingan Range in Heilongjiang, the underground chambers of Beijing’s Ming Tombs and the Tainan Prefecture Hall in Taiwan.

The adventure’s settings draw on historical events and distinctive architecture, with inspiration from the National Museum of Taiwan Literature’s digital collection.