Looney Labs, the creators of the award winnings games Fluxx and Treehouse, has an awesome new addition to its large collection of fun-filled games. In collaboration with Universal Pictures, for the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the film, Back to the Future: The Card Game hits store shelves September 3rd. As a descendant of one of the characters from the Back to the Future movies, you must not only travel back in time to fix the time line to ensure your birth, but then you have to stop Doc Brown from inventing time travel to begin with! Sounds like a paradox, I know, but hey, with a card game you don’t have to fear a massive universe-ending cascade effect.
Using the game mechanics of their popular Chrononauts time traveler game, it’s a card game that plays almost like a board game. Time Line cards are laid out in 4 rows of 6, chronologically from 1885 (when Hill Valley was in desperate need of a new Blacksmith) to 2015 (the infamous botched McFly Jailbreak). Each of these events is either a Lynchpin or a Ripplepoint, meaning, if a Lynchpin event is changed, it will have one or more “ripples” in the time line (such as we saw when George punched Biff at the “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance and Marty returned to a new and improved future).
Like every other Looney Labs game I’ve played, it’s ingenious in its quick and easy-to-learn, yet complex and ever-changing, game play. The cards basically tell you everything you need to know so you’ll only have to double-check the instructions the first few times you play before getting the hang of things. The illustrations are similar to a comic book and are chock full of images from the films. The cards are also dotted with events, quotes and references from the films so you quickly get a feeling of familiarity with the game, almost like catching up with an old friend.
As I said, game play is pretty easy. Once you’ve laid out your Time Line cards, you randomly draw an ID card to determine whose great-great-grandchild you are. The ID cards include a set of events that you must make happen in order to preserve your time line and win the game. For example, if you are Marty McFly III, you certainly want to make sure great-great-grampa takes that swing at Biff in the parking lot of the dance but if you are Buffy Tannen, you want to prevent it.
Unlike Chrononauts, where meeting those time line event changes wins you the game, Back to the Future adds an interesting twist: The game ending card has 5 randomly shuffled cards stacked, 4 of which are duds. If you meet your goals and flip the card, you have a 1 in 5 chance of actually winning on that turn, giving the other players a chance to mess up your time line again if it’s a dud.
In order to change those time lines, you use Game cards which include Items (like a case of Plutonium or a copy of George McFly’s first novel), Time Machines (yes, you finally get to drive the DeLorean), DoubleBacks (which let you change events when you travel back in time, maybe twice if you have the correct item on hand), Actions (such as Hitch a Ride, which lets you flip any lynchpin of your choice if the player before you changed time) and Power Actions (like Memo, where you can leave a memo for yourself to remind you to stop another player’s Action before they can finish it).
Looney Labs really paid attention to the details in creating this game. You’ll find the obvious things here (such as various versions of the DeLorean, the Gray’s Sports Almanac and the fading McFly family photo), but you may have forgotten about the bullet proof vest, Mr. Fusion and Frisbie’s Pies. I think my favorite little touch is the back of the ID cards. While all of the other cards bear the Back to the Future logo, the ID card is an Employee ID badge featuring the CusCo logo, address and ID bar-code. For those of you who don’t recall, CusCo was the company that Marty McFly was working for when he received the YOU’RE FIRED! fax.
Between the events on the Time Line cards, to the quotes and other references on the other game cards, you’ll find yourself smiling and laughing a lot as you recall favorite moments from the films. As a matter of fact, every hand we’ve played so far has been filled with pauses as we stopped to discuss the shows, and we have an insatiable desire to have a Back to the Future movie marathon very soon. If, after playing a few rounds of your new Looney Labs Back to the Future: The Card Game, you find yourself hankering to watch the movies, too, more Good News! Universal is releasing a new, digitally remastered Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy box set on DVD and Blu-ray in October.
For 2 to 6 players, ages 11 to 111.
Contents include:
- 28 time line cards
- 10 Character cards
- 62 Game cards
- 17 Items
- 6 Time Machines
- 8 DoubleBacks
- 17 Actions
- 14 Power Actions
You can get Back to the Future: The Card Game directly from Looney Labs, or check your local game retailer. While Back to the Future: The Card Game isn’t listed on Amazon.com yet, be sure to keep an eye out for it and check out the other Looney Labs games while you are there!
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