Game Title : Back to the future cardgame
Publisher : Looney Labo
Game Designer : Andrew Looney
Game Components
28 timeline cards, 10 character cards, 82 game cards
rule sheet
In 1985, there was an fascinating Sci-Fi movie, “Back to the Future”.
The boy goes back to the time when his parents met each other and unfortunately intercepted their story thus making his presence in danger.
There are so meny exciting actions and interesting paradoxes in the movie. But, finally they repaired his family history or even improved it and went back to the future (actually his original time). But, once he went back to his time, the new time-machine suddenly appeared and his old friend mad-scientist told him that his family is in danger in the furure.
In 1989, the second movie appeared to solve the problem in future after a long time. And people are surprised that in the last part they now saw the very long prebiew of the third movie. There was another serious problem in the past of pioneer’s age of Western America.
In the next year, at the end of very end the story got to the final end of the story.
After 20 years from the completion of the movies, they come back to us as a cardgame. “Back to the future” was published by Looney Labo, a famous puzzle maker in 2010. The game used the same engine as “Chrononauts” from the same publisher. “Chrononauts” is a cardgame of time-travel and time-paradox. In this game, a card shows an event and different sides show the different output of the same event. So, if the history was changed, an event card should be flipped to backside. Ande several important events have sideeffect to other events in its future. Players are Chrononauts, time patrols and try to have the history in his best status.
In the “Back to the future”, players are characters in the movies and try to have the time-line in his best status.
Okay, let’s go back to the time-line in the movies.
A boy, Marty McFly has a friend of mad-scientist, Dr. Brown who invented a time machine. They went to the past when his parents met and fell in love. But, accidentally, her mother fell in love with Marty. Slowly his presence was disappearing due to the paradox. To solve the problem, they tried to work hard in the past. Please check the detail by the movie 1. Anyway, they finally fixed the time-line and finally try to go back to their original time. But, the time-machine needs a very big energy and in the past it is impossible to have their regular energy source Plutonium. But, they know they soon have a thundervolt dropped to a clock-tower in the town. So, they try to use its big energy for their time-travel. It is a long story to have this idea working well. But, with variety of problems, they arrived to their original time.
As I wrote above, in the second movie they go to the future and in the third movie they go to the furthur past.
During these adventures, they always to fight to repair the time-line. And, some villains also try to have their favorable time-line.
In the game, you are a character in the movie and have his character card which define your best time-line. So, you must try to have this best time-line by changing event cards.
For example, if you are Marty McFly, you would like to have an time-line in which your father George succeeded as Sci-Fi writer and fell in love with Loraine and you, Marty fell in love with your lover, Jenifer and finally your son can avoid the big trouble in future. This is a real goal of the whole movies.
A typical villain, Buford Tannen is a ancestor of Tannen family who lived as a pioneer of Western old village. In his case, he would like to have a time-line in which he was arrested by robbery and his children’s child Biff fell in love with Loraine and his son hired George in his company.
There are many characters from all the 3 movies and three times.
In the game, you will see many time machines that appeared in the movies. You can use them to change the output of an event. But, in many cases, it is not easy to use the time machine. Some needs energy as above. On the other hand, some special machine can have bonus effect such as drawing another card.
One of the strongest card in the game are double-back cards. Usually, you can change only one event in one turn. But, double-back cards can be beyond this golden rule. Though they can be applied to its specified event only, if you satisfied its precondition you can change the second event card in the same turn.
For example, double back card for Lybian Terrorists can change the Terrorist event. And if you have a body armor, then you can change another event card. If you remember the detail of the movies, you can imagine why a body armor is exceptionally useful with Lybian Terrorists.
It is not a purpose of this review to show the detail of the movies. So, I must say please to get this game and see all the movies and then play it. You will have many interesting time.
