Andrew Flashback Friday

Flashback Friday – TMNT Pizza Power Game

It’s the late 1980s. He-man, Transformers and G.I. Joe have been supplanted as the most popular cartoon and action figures of the time and little kids everywhere – myself included – were running around shouting ‘Cowabunga Dude!’. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the hottest property around and they were plastered onto absolutely everything.

Shirts, mugs, fridge magnets, books, you name it and you could get it with the turtles branded all over it. Board games didn’t miss out either as shown by this fantastic example

In this game, you play as one of the four turtles and move around the board trying to be the first to defeat three bad guys. When you encounter one you use the battle flipper and dice to see who wins. The flipper is missing in this copy so we haven’t actually been able to test it out yet. I keep meaning to make a replacement so we can but haven’t got to it yet. Since I can’t tell you how it plays I’ll just leave you with some pictures to enjoy instead.

If the front of the box didn’t sell you, maybe the back will!
It’s not easy being…a strange shade of brown
Mmm Pizza
All your favourite bad guys from the cartoon are here – Krang, Shredder and…punk? Looks like Rocksteady to me!
The good guys are there too, and at least they have the right names!

If I ever get a chance to try it out I’ll come back and update the post. The artwork was just too good not to share though. I want to play it purely for the nostalgia value, which is a common theme with these flashback friday posts.

Until next time!

Andrew Flashback Friday

Flashback Friday – Star Trek TNG Interactive VCR Board Game

Welcome to the very first Flashback Friday post. This week we’ll dig deep into the cupboard and take a look at Star Trek – The Next Generation – Interactive VCR Board Game.

Back in the early 90’s there were quite a few games released that added a video element to a traditional game. Nightmare and Atmosphere were probably the most well known examples.

This particular example is based around Star Trek TNG and was released in 1993, which is when I got it. It’s managed to move house with me a couple of times and the box is showing some wear but inside it’s all in almost new condition because it really hasn’t been played that much and not recently.

You can even see that a bunch of stickers and comm badges were provided but never used. The tri-fold board in the background shows the design of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D where players move around as they play, and you’ll also need a TV with a VCR to play the video – if you can find one!

Inside the box are three types of cards, a pile of Tricorders and isolinear chips, phasers and character markers as well as a spinner. There’s also some plastic tubes for placing players in stasis. For younger readers that black thing in the middle is a VHS tape. it’s what we used to store video before Netflix was around!

To play, you start the one hour video and then start playing. The concept here is that a rogue Klingon (played by Robert O’Reilly who also played Gowron in the series) has hijacked the Enterprise and you have an hour to save the ship. You play the game like a normal board game where you roll and move, picking up cards and following their actions.

The goal is to collect all five Isolinear chips available before the hour is up and before any of the other players do so. The design of the tricorder and these chips is actually very clever and they slot nicely into the side as you get them.

As you land on certain squares or when prompted to by the video, you have to draw an action card and do what it says. The designs use elements from the TV series and keep well in theme.

The video itself is quite badly acted but the actual game can be quite fun, especially 20+ years later even just for the nostalgia value. It’s not something that’s going to appeal to non-trek fans but for someone like me who is a fan it’s a lot of fun.