Funko is wading into classic cinema with Rear Window Game, a modern board game based on the classic 1954 film starring Jimmy Stewart and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The final product supports from three to five players and will arrive this summer for $34.99.
At first glance, this all sounds like a terrible idea. A licensed board game based on a movie released less than a decade after the end of World War II? That’s not quite the right recipe to cater to modern tabletop tastes. But the game is being developed by Funko Games’ Prospero Hall studio, whose expertise with licensed material is well known.
We recently reviewed Prospero Hall’s Fast & Furious: Highway Heist and found it to be excellent. We also previewed its upcoming Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar, and are very excited to see how the final product pans out. So I have every confidence that they’ll treat the source material respectfully. But what about the gameplay?
Well, from the sound of it Rear Window Game feels a bit like a riff on Mysterium, a game that relies on secret information and non-verbal communication. The team on Polygon’s Overboard certainly enjoyed themselves, but Mysterium can be hit or miss depending on who’s sitting behind the screen. Time will tell if Prospero Hall can make a similar concept sing.
Here’s the official description from Thursday’s news release:
Experience Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Rear Window in this game of deduction and suspense. Carefully observe strange clues and ominous patterns in the things going on in the apartments across the way. There are parties, knives, a saw, bickering, laughing, music … and a mysterious trunk. Do you detect a murder? Or is the secret, private world of the neighbors planting frightening ideas in your mind?
Photos show a pair of screens, one for The Director and the other for those taking on the role of Jimmy Stewart. There are also a finite number of tiles, some with images and others with words, that both sides of the table will need to place on the board to communicate their understanding. Expect to know once the tabletop gaming convention circuit kicks off, and certainly by Gen Con — the country’s largest tabletop gaming convention — which takes place in August.
Source: Polygon
