I've read so much romanized Japanese that the famous Back to the Future license plate now looks like "o-oo-tah-tee-may" to me.
Tonight, Josh and I played a couple rounds of Looney Lab's brand new Back to the Future card game. It's available in stores and online in early September. In a completely unplanned coincidence, the movie(s) was on Nick@Nite tonight. This made for a few fun opportunities to match the cards with the film scenes that inspired them.
I'm going to write up a more comprehensive review for certain other websites, but I wanted to get some thoughts down... particularly since any review will likely have to be a little less techy.
Although the "time traveling" mechanic follows from my favorite Looney Labs game, Chrononauts, Back to the Future is quite different in goal and method. For one, where Chrononauts has three different ways to win, BttF only has one: get the TimeLine to match your ID. And there's a new Wrinkle, you also have to finish off time travel entirely by flipping the linchpin event that makes Doc Brown never invent the Flux Capacitor in the first place. It is a little unfortunate that there is a modicum of luck on that endgame, as the linchpin is actually a randomized stack of five with only one being the true game-ender. While I like the notion that the stack of five cards puts some pressure on the ending, it is certainly easy enough to dump the four faux cards and just have the game end when a player adjusts the TimeLine and flips that event.
Another big different from Chrononauts is that there is no Patching. Flipped Ripplepoints simply comes with their own Patches on the reverse. With a shorter TimeLine (24 as opposed to Chrononauts' 32), you can see how BttF is a much faster game.
I'm not a big fan of these movies by any stretch, but I'm sure people who are will get a kick out of the many movie-specific references. Although I wonder if casual card-gamers and movie fans will wonder why the game doesn't have any screens from the film or likenesses of any actors. Although the core design is still that no-frills, handmade Looney Labs style, it is nice to see a few cards with high-quality artwork... the DeLorean cards are beautiful standouts, I wish the set had more like that!
Chrononauts Artifacts are called Items in BttF. They no longer bring along a separate victory condition; instead they work in tandem with other cards to help give you more rights over the TimeLine. Very smart theming.
And about that Flux Capacitor ending... once you see a player start flipping over false finishes, it makes for an interesting change-of-game because now you know he or she is sitting on a winning TimeLine. So you can try to intentionally screw up the TimeLine in hopes of creating a stall.
My only real disappointment is finding that BttF contains some cards from Chrononauts that I absolutely hate: Discontinuity, Time Vortex, etc. I've played a ton of Chrononauts and very rarely do these cards get played. They're just too punishing, unless you're the one player waaaaaay in the back and have resorted to playing the spoiler. These cards seem especially out of place in BttF because the game is so quick and focused... and the deck already has too many Action cards with similarly boring effects.
But much of that is me being a picky-shits grumpy old gamer. Back to the Future makes for a very nice streamlined Chrononauts with a thick nostalgia chaser.
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