Episode 230: Rear Window

Welcome Watchers – You are now entering the mind of Sir Alfred Hitchcock.

Rear Window, by Funko Games, sets out to recreate the award winning thriller from 1954 in dramatic fashion. The theatrical version of rear window is considered by many critics and scholars to be the best of Hitchcock’s movies and one of the greatest films ever made. In Hitchcock’s movie, LB Jefferies is a newspaper photographer who is confined to his apartment due to an injury that has put him in a wheelchair with his leg in plaster. Thanks to boredom he spends his days looking through the rear window of his apartment, observing his neighbors in the apartment block opposite his. He becomes convinced that one of the neighbors is a murderer and calls the police. Upon arrival the police find no cause for concern, so Jefferies enlists the help of his girlfriend to help investigate further….. This, dear sweet pegheads, is where YOU come in. You and other players are Watchers, sharing a window with LB Jefferies. Your job as the Watcher is to peep through that very window in order to determine if “The Director” – another player at the table, is attempting to lead you towards properly guessing ALL of the occupants and attributes in the building across the way, or is trying to cover up A MURDER!

The game is played over 4 rounds, symbolizing 4 days – In each round the Director draws a stack of 8 cards and must play all 8 of these cards on the appropriate “day board”. These cards, played to one of 4 different apartments represent the different occupants and activities that the Watchers are observing throughout the day. The Watchers are tasked with interpreting the clues that the “Director” is giving, and collectively guess as to all 4 occupants AND attributes for that day. At the conclusion of the day, the Director “scores” the guesses then indicates how many of the 8 items (Occupants and Attributes) that the Watchers have correct. This scoring is “progressive knowledge” that the watchers will use to further their deduction in the coming days.

The director’s job is a tough one – first because he can only draw 8 cards and must play all 8 as clues on that day… But like any good director, this one has a few tricks up his sleeve. 3 times throughout the course of the game, the director can use one of his cherished CUT tokens to discard all cards remaining from their hand, in order to draw that many new cards. Sometimes this leads to better options for the director, sometimes it leads to sheer chaos! The other trick the director has is they can play up to 2 cards each day FACE DOWN – as if the window blinds were closed. This is an important strategic element because it allows the director to not throw the watchers off with errant information – OR : PLOT TWIST : it allows the director to conceal a murderer!

At the beginning of the game, the director randomly selects the occupants as well as the Attributes that they are trying to lead you towards. Each game features 4 different attributes (1 for each window) and one of them could potentially be MURDER! If the director was lucky enough to select the lone MURDER attribute tile, they are trying to cleverly lead the Watchers to a near victory, while concealing the act of murder throughout all 4 days. If the director drew a murder tile, they want the watchers to guess 6 or 7 (of the 8) items correct at the conclusion of the 4th day WITHOUT correctly guessing the MURDER. In order for the watchers to win, they need to guess 7 or 8 items correctly, as well as Identifying the murder. If there was NOT a murder, the directors job is to cleverly guide the watchers to guessing all 8 items correct by the end of the 4th day.