My team played the Jaws board game! Zander picked it off the shelf at the MADD center because we had no idea that the Jaws movie had a board game to go with it, and we were curious what a board game based off a movie would look and play like.
One of the first things we noticed and appreciated about the rules document was that it had a link to a “How to Play” video. We watched the “How to Play” video and read the “How to Play” section in the rules together, and the video helped clarify what game pieces looked like and in what order we should do the setup. The video did go kind of fast though, so when we were confused we consulted the written rules, which solved the confusion. We want to include a “How to Play” video for our own game to help the rules make more sense and hopefully reduce the stress of learning a new game.
The stress of learning a new game was a big reason that many of us did not enjoy the Jaws board game very much. The game plays out in two acts – Act 1, which takes place on Amity Island and consists of the shark eating swimmers while the crew tries to locate it, and Act 2, which takes place on the players’ ship called the Orca and consists of the shark and the crew fighting. Act 1 and Act 2 had different game pieces and cards, so we were immediately confused about which items we needed to use now and which needed to be set aside. The two different acts also had very different gameplay, so it was like two board games and two rulesets were packed into one game. The rulebook even says at the end that the two Acts can be played individually as separate games. I think there were two different games in one because of the influence of the Jaws movie – in order to capture the whole story of the movie, the game designers may have needed different mechanics to emphasize different aspects of the story. We found the two games in one overwhelming because we did not want to learn how to play two new games to finish playing one game. We decided to stop playing after Act 1 because learning and playing it took about an hour.
Rulebook organization: In the rulebook, there is a cover page that gives an overview of both Acts, the overall objective, the number of players, and a link to the “How to Play” video. Then, it goes into more detail about Act 1, including its setup, overview, actions/event phases, the abilities of each character, and when the Act ends. After detailing Act 1, it does the same for Act 2. On the final page, it provides notes about how to play each Act separately, and it provides a list of frequently asked questions. We thought the frequently asked questions section was nice, and we could include something similar in our ruleset if we receive a lot of the same questions after playtesting. Alternatively, we could just make the rules more specific so players don’t have to refer to a different section to get their questions answered.
Game structure, turn order, actions, and resolution: In Act 1, we first set up the game board on the Amity Island side, which is an island and the surrounding water divided into areas that the game calls spaces. Some of the areas are on land, some are beaches, and some are ocean, which determines which characters can walk on those spaces. Then, we decided who would play the Shark and who would be on the Crew. Every character gets a little character card detailing their unique abilities and some starting items. The Shark receives a secret location tracker notebook, a swimmer tracker (to track how many swimmers they ate), and four special ability tokens. We really liked that each character was unique and has different abilities and roles to play in the game. We thought it would be extra cool if we knew about the characters from the movie. The Shark secretly chooses an ocean/beach area to start in and writes it down. After setting up, Act 1 proceeds in turns with 3 phases: Event phase, Shark phase, and Crew phase. In Event phase, a card is drawn from the Amity Event card deck which details how many swimmers are placed on which beach and any special abilities the players get for that turn. In Shark phase, the Shark can do up to 3 of the following actions: move to an adjacent space, or eat a swimmer. The Shark can also use a special token to get a unique ability for that turn. The Shark’s goal is to eat as many swimmers as possible without getting found by the Crew. At the end of the Shark phase, the Shark must announce how many swimmers were eaten and from which beaches, but they don’t tell the Crew where they started or ended. In the Crew phase, each Crew member can take up to 4 actions in any order, and their available actions depend on each character. The Crew members can all interact in some way with barrels and rescue swimmers. The Crew’s goal is to find the Shark by placing barrels in the water that act as motion sensors, so the Shark must announce when they pass through a barrel space. The Crew’s goal is to attach two barrels to the Shark by launching barrels into the space where they think the Shark is. The phases proceed in the order Event, Shark, Crew, but during the Crew phase the members can decide amongst themselves what order to move in for the best cooperation. The Act 1 ends when the Shark has eaten 9 swimmers or when the Crew has attached 2 barrels to the Shark. If the players want to play Act 2, the winner of Act 1 gets benefits for Act 2.
Uncertainty: Although the mechanics are supposed to facilitate cooperation, after playing we discovered the only player who had fun was the one playing the Shark. The Crew members all felt like they did not have enough control or information about where the Shark was to make meaningful decisions. They were trying to save swimmers because they did not want to sacrifice them to the Shark, but there was no reward for saving swimmers. In retrospect, the Crew should have focused more on placing barrels and less on saving swimmers, which feels counterintuitive to what should happen in real life. The Shark player had fun because they enjoyed confusing the Crew, and they felt like they were winning because they were eating a lot of swimmers. The Shark was able to cause uncertainty for the Crew, and the Shark faced enough uncertainty in what the Crew would do next that it was fun to strategize how to move. But the Crew faced too much uncertainty in finding the Shark, so they did not feel that their choices or guesses were meaningful. By placing more barrels, the Crew could decrease the uncertainty because they would have more information about where the Shark was.
Resource management: Resource management for actions consisted of balancing movement and eating swimmers for the Shark and movement, placing barrels, and using special abilities for the Crew. The Shark also had special power tokens that gave limited special abilities to use strategically. The Crew also has some items that are 1 use per round that they must use strategically. The powerups were very useful if they were timed right, and they added importance to player’s decisions.
Player Interactions: The Crew communicated with each other a lot because different characters needed to do things in different orders each turn to get the most information from the turn. The Shark communicated with the Crew less often because of the secretive nature of the role. It was very fun as the Shark to take my turn, announce how many swimmers got eaten from which beaches, and watch the Crew try to figure out where the Shark was. At the end of the game, after the Shark ate 9 swimmers, the Crew wanted to know what path I took as the Shark and how I ended up evading them. This interaction was helpful to keep the Shark accountable and make sure they weren’t lying about their position so they could win. The Shark has to be honest about what they write down each turn for their location, or the uncertainty loses any meaning because the Crew can’t rely on the information they know about the Shark.
Overall, we thought Jaws was overwhelming at first because of the two games in one and not fun for the Crew because there was too much uncertainty. However, we think that after playing a couple more times and trading roles, we would have a better understanding of the rules so we could get started faster, and we could balance the uncertainty better by playing more strategically from the beginning. The rulebook was organized nicely into blocks for each Act, phase, and character so we could quickly reference what we were supposed to do. We also appreciated the “How to Play” video.
– Sara Hoggatt, Emma Kamran, Jio Kim, Zander Gillman, Anjana Vishnu
