Judith Proctor's Journal

 Just back from Baycon, a four day board games convention in Exeter.

Spent a lot of my time playing 'Rear Window' which is a game I got given for Xmas by our Ukrainian guest (no idea why he picked that one, I suspect he found it either in a games shop or on the high street). He hadn't played it himself.

It's  co-operative game.  (Most of the time...)

One player is the film director and sets up the scene (behind a screen) to randomly determine which characters are in the film, which apartment they live in, and what their characteristics are (eg. Art connoisseur, photographer, thief, gourmand, etc.)

He then draws eight cards from a deck of cards which show  pictures of what may be happening in the two windows of each apartment. (He has some redraw powers, but they are limited). He does his best to place the pictures to match the characters and attributes that he has drawn. He has the option to play one or two cards face down (draw the blinds) either to conceal really bad cards that don't fit any of the characters, or, to hide evidence that might help the watchers to sole a murder....

The players (any number from 1 onwards) work as a team to try and decide from the pictures who lives in each of the four apartments and what their attributes are. They have four days, and each day has a fresh set of images (you have a new layout for each day, so you can look back and compare with previous days).

There are three catches to the game:

1.  The attributes that the GM draws from include one 'murderer' card, giving a 1/3 chance of a murder happing in any given game. The players have to work out whether or not a murder has happened, and if there was one, who did it.

2. The cards have multiple factors in each image - and you don't know which one the film direction has intended you to pick out.  eg. A women in an orange dress is chipping away at a sculpture, watched by a small dog. on a shelf in the background, there is a potted plant.

Is the film director implying that the woman lives in this apartment?  Or that the occupant of the apartment (whoever they may be), is an animal lover/art connoisseur/animal lover/gardener?

3.  If there is no murder, the game is a joint victory between film director and watchers if all people and attributes are solved.
BUT, if there is a murder, the film director has a solo victory if the watchers solve everything except the 'murderer' attribute.

If the watchers solve the murder, then they win.

It gives a very nice balance to the game.  
 

'Rear Window' also has the advantage that you can adjust the difficulty level as players get used to the game.

It's really interesting for both film director and watchers, watching how the information develops.  Seeing the way watchers use the information given can tell the film director how to give future clues, and the watchers have to be very alert to tiny hints in the information given. (Many of the cards have vague information that could imply all kinds of things. Only a few are fairly definite)

Winning is a combination of understanding the clues, but also solving a logic puzzle - If we got two pieces of information correct on day 1, and 4 on day two, then which two pieces of information were correct on day 1?  If the woman in orange is 'tres chic' in flat one, then Mr Thorvald can't be the gardener in flat 2... etc.

I hadn't seen the Hitchcock movie 'Rear Window' before I fell in love with the game, but having watched it, I think it captures the flavour of the movie rather well. 

Is there a murder?  Or is the watcher just creating a mystery when nothing is really happening at all?

The images - naturally- date from the period of the movie. It took me quite a while to realise that what I was seeing as a row of bunting, was actually photographic negatives hanging up to dry.

There's even one card that is a cameo of Hitchcock! (mimicking his actual cameo in the movie, where he's winding a clock)