REAR WINDOW Board Game From Funko Adds Unique Tension To A Cooperative Game

Rear Window is a classic film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It features a man watching his neighbors who witnesses a murder, and then tries to figure out how to prove it happened. Funko has created a board game based on the movie that does a good job at keeping a certain amount of tension that the film uses. They recently sent me a copy of the game and I really enjoyed playing it even though I am not super familiar with Rear Window.

First things first, the quality of the game itself is good. The pieces are all nicely made and the cards are good quality. I liked the artwork in the game too, it wasn’t overly complicated but it looked nice in its simplicity. I was really impressed with the game box insert, everything has its own designated place. This may seem like an obvious thing, but I have found many games completely botch their inserts, making them take much longer to set up than necessary. But this one is laid out well so that set up and take down is made easier.

The game itself is a cooperative kind of competitive game. If you’ve ever played Mysterium then this gameplay is going to feel very familiar. There are boards depicting windows for 4 days. Each day, one player who is designated as the director places two cards for each apartment. The cards have pictures that are clues for the rest of the players to determine who lives in the apartment and what their trait is. For example, you can have Miss Lonelyhearts who’s trait is thief. There are tons of traits and characters that are different each game. The director knows who is where and what their traits are and it is up to the rest of the players to figure out the solution. At the end of each day the director tells the players how many of their guesses are correct. There are also cards of characters from the film that can help you once per game. The abilities are powerful and I recommend if you are really stumped on something to not hesitate to use them.

Here is the twist that makes this game unique from others like it I’ve played. There may or may not be a murdered person. If a murder has taken place, the director is trying to hide that fact from the players. The director still wants the players to get the rest of the board right, but they do not want them to figure out there was a murder in order to win. If no murder has occurred, then the director and players will all win together by getting all the information correct. This makes for an interesting dynamic where the players both trust and distrust the director. When I played we thought there was a murder because the director seemed to be inconsistent with some of the cards. We eventually figured out there was no murder, but it was fun to speculate about it wildly. I really enjoyed this element, it really plays with the idea of did Jeff see what he thought he saw or was there a reasonable explanation for everything. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It was fairly quick once we got going and was a fun deduction game. If you like Mysterium and/or Rear Window, then I would highly recommend this game. I would give this game a 9/10.