Saw: The Jigsaw Trials will bring the gory horror franchise to board game night via Kickstarter
Here’s hoping for a Billy the Puppet miniature.
The long running Saw franchise will adapt its gory premise of death traps and twisted justice into a board game, courtesy of a Kickstarter campaign launching later this year.
Saw: The Jigsaw Trials will be produced by distribution studio Lionsgate Pictures and Twisted Pictures, which was created after the success of the first Saw film in 2004 and has since published all of its numerous sequels - the franchise just hit double digits with 2023’s Saw X.
Dicebreaker has reached out for more information, but details are fairly slim at the moment. Box art shows the board game will support between two and six players, and sessions will last about 75 minutes. It’s no surprise that the title carries an age recommendation of 18+, given Saw’s gruesome reputation of luxuriating in punishing the human body with brutal contraptions - not to mention the severed hand on the box’s front cover.
Iconiq Studios appears to be in charge of Saw: The Jigsaw Trial’s design. The collectibles maker boasts a fairly small board game portfolio - 2022’s They Live: Assault on Cable 54 and this year’s They Live: The Card Game comprising half the shortlist. No named designers have yet been attached to the project.
Most of the recent adaptations of films have come via Funko Games, which acquired Forrest-Pruzan Creative in 2019 before they rebranded as Prospero Hall. The team has since created several excellent film-to-board game titles such as Jaws, Fast & Furious: Highway Heist and Jurassic World: Legacy of Isla Nublar.
Saw: The Jigsaw Trials likely won’t haunt retail shelves and your weekly game nights until 2024 at the earliest, but it joins another fright-turned-fun tabletop experience in Trick or Treat Studios’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Prospero Hall’s own take on Leatherface’s family troubles - Texas Chainsaw Massacre Slaughterhouse.
Iconiq Studios will be showcasing Saw: The Jigsaw Trials at this year’s Essen Spiel, the largest board game trade show and convention of its kind. If you want to stay on top of Dicebreaker’s coverage of Spiel 2023, be sure to check out our daily liveblogs where news such as this will appear throughout the day as the team searches the floor for hot scoops and interesting tabletop titles.
Update: Luke Melia, lead designer on Saw: The Jigsaw Trials, provided Dicebreaker with more information regarding the upcoming board game. It's Kickstarter campaign launches on Halloween (October 31st) and is aiming for a 2024 fulfilment and retail date.
Players will compete to survive both Jigsaw's traps and those created by opposing players, all while managing their own health, scrounging for resources and attempting to be the last one surviving their hellish confines. Cards - which represent most of the resources and components in the game - can be combined to create more than 2,000 unique and ghoulish traps.
Characters' health is represented by interlocking cardboard pieces - literally jigsaw puzzle cardboard tiles - that can be interchanged as traps and hazards wreak trauma on their bodies. Lose an arm to a circular saw or have a leg crushed by falling debris? Switch out those pieces to reflect damage and track your now reduced ability to take in-game actions or hold cards in hand.
Melia is joined on the creative team by artists David Anderson, Joey Wall, and Tristan Martineau, who have created a truly ick-inducing vibe via their art and components. Horror fans who embrace blood, viscera and putting the human body through nightmarish scenarios will appreciate Saw: The Jigsaw Trials' presentation.