The Journeyman Project was billed as interactive movie adventure game, where the player is presented with several clues and puzzles that must be solved in order to move on or finish the level.

[2] The game begins as humanity welcomes the first alien delegation to visit the planet, and prepares to answer positively to an invitation to join the interplanetary "Symbiotry of Peaceful Beings".

During the induction ceremony, the government-operated Temporal Security Agency (TSA), which was established to enforce prohibitions on time travel and safeguard the timeline, detects three temporal disturbances that have altered history; the Agency mobilizes Agent 5 to correct the disruptions, which have altered the timeline so that the Symbiotry never extended its invitation.

After correcting the anachronisms created by Dr. Sinclair, Agent 5 learns that the doctor decided to take matters into his own hands and assassinate the alien delegate sent to receive Earth's answer.

Agent 5 finds Dr. Sinclair hiding on top of an apartment building and holding a rifle, ready to fire on the delegate as soon as he arrives.

Due to performance difficulties, the game was re-released in 1994 as Journeyman Project Turbo!, with an updated executable that drastically decreased loading times and improved animation quality.

[10] Derek Pearcy reviewed The Journeyman Project in Pyramid #2 (July/Aug., 1993), and stated that "This game - this environment - is the finest experience available on the Macintosh platform.

[11] Stating that "it isn't a game — it's an experience", InfoWorld in December 1993 praised the Macintosh version's graphics, sound, and puzzles, but advised players to use a hard drive because of slow CD-ROM access.