For the article about the 1990 board game, see Back to the Future: The Board Game.
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| Back To The Future | |
| Developer | Smith's |
| Release Date | 1985 |
| Genre | Roll-and-move board game |
| Number Of Players | 2-4 |
Back to the Future is a board game based on the Back to the Future, created by Smith's. It was released in the United Kingdom in 1985, and was not available commercially; it could only be ordered by sending in a proof of purchase from a packet of Smiths crisps — as potato chips are known in the U.K. — and paying for the packaging and postage cost.
Publisher's summary
(Note: The summary shown here is as it was originally published, complete with U.K. spellings — i.e. 'travelled' instead of 'traveled' and 'flavoured' instead of 'flavored'.)
Marty McFly, a senior of Hill Valley School was late for class. After that night, however, when he climbed behind the wheel of a nuclear powered time machine car invented by eccentric scientist Dr. Emmett Brown, he wouldn't be late for anything. In fact, he was 30 years too early.
Marty travelled back in time to 1955 just as the town clock was showing 4 minutes past 10 o'clock in the evening. After hiding the car and cautiously walking through his home town, Marty meets up with Lorraine Baines and George McFly — the two teenagers who are later to become his parents.
Not only had Marty traveled to a point in time before the dawn of rock n' roll and Smiths flavoured crisps but he had tampered with history. He now had a number of problems to solve before he could attempt to get back to his own time.
Now, through this exciting board game, specially produced by Smiths, you can imagine you're Marty and follow his adventures — will you be first to get back to the present time?
Please read the rules of the game carefully before starting out on your journey, you don't want to get stuck in 1955 forever!
Gameplay
The game is played with two to four players. Each player rolls a die and moves a playing piece on the board according to the number of the roll. The goal is to take the role of Marty McFly, traveling from 1985 to 1955, with spaces on the board representing various moments from the film, such as being shot at by Otis Peabody, arriving in 1955 Hill Valley, meeting the young George McFly, getting hit by the car driven by Sam Baines, meeting the young Lorraine Baines, meeting the younger Doc Brown, being confronted by Biff's gang, outrunning the gang on the skateboard, revealing the DeLorean to Doc Brown, being asked about the Enchantment Under the Sea dance by Lorraine, being bullied by Biff Tannen, playing "Johnny B. Goode" with Marvin Berry and the Starlighters at the dance, George and Lorraine falling in love at the dance, meeting Doc at Courthouse Square, Doc slipping on the clock tower, and finally hitting 88 miles per hour and arriving back in 1985.
Each player has a car — that is, a paper model that must be assembled. Some of the board tiles inform the player to pick up a conductor. This is attached to the player's car, and is needed to conduct the lightning needed to be sent through the clock tower into the DeLorean once it reaches 88 miles per hour, to generate the 1.21 jigowatts of power needed to power the flux capacitor and achieve temporal displacement allowing Marty to return home. At the end of the board, there are also several spaces that inform the player that they are too early, either sending them back a set number of spaces, or making them miss a turn.
The player who arrives on the 88 M.P.H. tile first, with the required conductor, wins the game.