Thinking chess differently... has anyone ever attempted to play chess in reverse?

Just as an experiment or curiosity:

Has any pair of players ever tried to play a game of chess from checkmate, draw or loss/victory by timeout and tried to get the original piece formation? 

Logically, the goal would be to discover all the moves most probably made vs. the opponents version of the moves preceding to have pieces kill, etc. 'Reviving' pieces, and which seems the most challenging part.

Of course, the  move list would be highly theoretical, but so it is to replicate opennings or endgames. However, since we are in the age of big data, it would also be fun to later see how different it is from some of the typical games that ended in that postion. Then, the number of the last moves would be essential.

It would be strange that I am the first to think about it. Otherwise, anyone willing to try? I guess a timeout game, with few moves would be the easiest to try. For example, a scholar's mate.

Anyway, just a thought experiment.

Cheers