This past weekend I stumbled upon something pretty cool while I was browsing through Alternate Worlds, a Baltimore area comic shop, with my girlfriend Jaime. A co-worker had suggested the store to her since they have a great selection of comics, games and toys. I was curious if there was anything eighties-centric that I might want to pick up, so we jumped in the car and took a trip over to check it out this past Saturday. Though the store did have a few vintage G.I. Joe, Star Wars, and Transformers, the item that caught my attention was actually something that was released just a few years ago, the Back to the Future Card Game by Looney Labs…
Though the game debuted in 2010, this is the first time I saw it and I couldn’t pass up the chance to snag a copy. I mean, it was my density, er, destiny because Jaime and I were looking for some more 2-player games we could play and, well, Back to the Future. I mean how often do you see 80s movie-themed card or board games that aren’t stupidly expensive? When we got home, after a quick game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Trouble (which we found an the 5 Below in the same shopping center as the comic shop), we ripped open the shrink wrap so we could check out the game…
Included are three sets of cards, the main game deck, a small stack of player character ID cards, and set of 28 timeline cards that act as a game board of sorts. The concept is pretty simple, each player is randomly dealt an ID card featuring a descendant of one of the main characters from the Back to the Future movie trilogy. There are various McFlys, Browns, Tannens as well as some of the more obscure families like the Needles and Berrys and Stricklands (even the Strickland descendants know the McFlys have always been slackers…)
Each character has a list of events associated with them that they need to make sure happen in order for them to both exist and to win the game. These events are recorded on the timeline cards which are spread out chronologically and act a game board. Each timeline card has two possible variations of the event listed, and these can be manipulated by the players using cards from the game deck…
In the set of timeline cards there are specific “linchpin” events that the player can alter (flip to show a different outcome – like when Marty McFly Jr. agrees to help Griff Tannen and his gang in BTTF 2), and changing them has a ripple effect that flips subsequent cards. Based on the character that you draw you’ll be targeting some of these “linchpin” events, changing the past so that your den…destiny can be fulfilled. (Alright, stopping with the density jokes.) The characters/players alter these event cards by using cards from the main game deck which consists of various items and actions.
For me this is where the game really shines as the cards feature a bunch of fun stuff from the movies like cases of plutonium (thanks to your friendly neighborhood Libyan nationalists), the Gray’s Sports Almanac, hooverboards, or copies of George McFly’s debut novel A Match Made in Space. There are also six time machine cards which feature the various incarnations of the classic DeLorean as well as the train from BTTF 3.
All in all the game is a little confusing on the first play through as it takes a while to get used to how the cards interact, and there are some play/draw variations that are hard to keep straight, but the game goes pretty quick and by the second time it should be a lot smoother. I wasn’t familiar with Looney Labs when I picked this Back to the Future game up, but apparently after doing a little digging it looks like it’s this set is based on their Chrononauts Card Game. So if you’re familiar with that than this one should be a cinch to pick up on the mechanics.
Unfortunately the BTTF Card Game is no longer in print, but there are still reasonably priced copies available on Amazon. Now, if only someone would come out with a Monster Squad-themed card game I’d be in heaven…