Totally Recalled: Gaming Goes Hollywood

Grab your popcorn and sit yourselves down in front of the silver screen, as summer blockbuster season is just around the corner. For now, you can bring some of that nostalgic cinematic action home. Movie tie-ins are coming to a tabletop near you and here are some of the best the board gaming world has to offer!

- Andrew Brassleay

Faithful Interpretations

The Princess Bride Adventure Book Game is a caper that goes completely meta by taking the movie’s premise of the story being read to a bored, sick child by his incredibly patient grandfather, and incorporating the gameplay into a six-chapter gamebook. Players must complete each turn in a timely, dramatic fashion without Fred Savage demanding that the tale stops. “A game about a movie about a book,” as designer Ryan Miller describes it. “It’s a story about a grandpa telling a story to his grandson. I had been working on a book game for another, unreleased game idea, and when I was brainstorming for the Princess Bride the idea resurfaced.”

For many designers and artists, working on much-loved material can really turn their work into passion projects, cramming in favorite scenes and imagery into the gameplay. This leads to a deluge of creative thinking and unique mechanics.

Funko Games’ Back to the Future: Back in Time is a game dripping in lore. Featuring a beautiful board depicting 1950s Hill Valley, a dice tower replica of the movie’s clock tower, a mini-DeLorean, the fading photograph (used as a time counter to determine success or failure), and instructions based on the Tales from Space magazine featured in the movie.

Then there’s the Footloose Party Game, which sees players put on their dancing shoes on their fingers, as these are the playing pieces with which to move around the board.

Psychological Thrillersi