About
Back to the Future: The Game is a five-episode point-and-click adventure built on Telltale's own engine, made under license from Universal as an official continuation of the film trilogy. Set six months after the third movie, it follows Marty McFly and a returned DeLorean as they rescue Doc Brown from 1931, with co-creator Bob Gale assisting the story and Christopher Lloyd reprising Doc. Critics praised the voice acting (A.J. LoCascio's Marty impression in particular) while finding the puzzles easy; it was Telltale's most successful series before The Walking Dead. It is no longer sold because Telltale's catalogue was pulled after the studio's 2018 closure.
Screenshots
Official store screenshots from Steam — deckport links them, never rehosts. Hover to pause; click to preview.
Identity
Launch
- Binary
- BackToTheFuture101.exe
- Needs files
- none beyond the binary
Proton
- Version
- GE-Proton
- Winetricks
- —
- ProtonDB
- ProtonDB Gold runs perfectly after tweaks
⚙ Setup notes
Game: Telltale's 2010-11 episodic adventure (all five episodes) with Christopher Lloyd reprising Doc Brown. Telltale Tool engine.
Proton: Valve rates app 31290 Steam Deck Playable; Telltale Tool adventures run cleanly under Proton — GE-Proton or proton_experimental both work.
DRM: No GFWL/SecuROM/DRM steps and no winetricks needed.
Controller: Native XInput controller support — from Episode 2 on the prompts auto-switch to an Xbox button layout.
Binary / episodes: This original 2010-11 release installs each episode as its own executable — BackToTheFuture101.exe through BackToTheFuture105.exe (folders Episode 1..Episode 5). App 31290 is "Ep 1 - It's About Time" and Steam launches BackToTheFuture101.exe; the later episodes are separate Steam app IDs (94500/94510/94520/94530) and have their own BackToTheFuture10x.exe. To run a later episode from the same library entry, point the binary at the matching BackToTheFuture10x.exe.
Caveat: One mouse-only step — the digital-watch puzzle in Episode 3 can't be solved on the gamepad alone, so use the Deck touchscreen/trackpad as a mouse for that one step.
The one thing to know
Supply your own copy: Delisted commercial game (Telltale's catalogue was pulled).
Compatibility: Steam Deck Playable per Valve; ProtonDB tier is solid (gold).
Controller: Native controller support works, but keep the Deck trackpad/touchscreen handy for Episode 3's digital-watch puzzle (mouse-only).
Binary: Confirmed — Episode 1 launches BackToTheFuture101.exe; episodes 2-5 are BackToTheFuture102.exe..BackToTheFuture105.exe in their own folders.
Links: ProtonDB page and PCGamingWiki entry below.
Community guides
Write-ups and threads from people who got this (or a similar) game running. deckport links to them — it doesn't reproduce them.
Get the artwork
deckport never hosts game images. Open this game on SteamGridDB, pick
the cover / hero / logo / icon you like, and drop them into the
game folder under .deckport-art/ before you push it to the
Deck. The importer files them under the right names automatically.
Run it on your Deck
Two files: the one-time importer (deckport.py) in your
Deck's home folder, and this game's install helper. Copy the game
into ~/Games and run the helper with Steam closed — it
writes the recipe (binary, launch options, Proton version)
and registers the shortcut with artwork.