Could board games based on Jaws sequels be better than the original?

Since its release in 2019, Jaws the board game has continued to remain a popular game in the board gaming community. 

It is essentially the film inside a box! The first side of the board encapsulates the first two acts of the movie, playing out as a hidden movement game. 1-3 players play the roles of Brody, Hooper and Quint trying to hunt the shark whilst closing beaches and saving swimmers, whilst one other player takes the role of the shark, trying to eat as many swimmers as possible whilst avoiding detection. 

The second half of the game, on the other side of the board, depicts the final act of the film, with the human players fighting against the shark player, who in turn is trying to destroy it before it sinks their boat. 

The game is very economical in its design, easy to learn and, most importantly, fun.

After having played this game numerous times, I have always wondered whether there will be other games based off of the sequels?

My hope is that, in the near future, Ravensburger will decide to make future board games based off of the Jaws sequels. I believe, too, that if done right, these games have the potential of being better than the mediocre films they are based on.

But how could the sequels be done as board games?

In the following article, I have speculated my ideas for how each of the sequel films could be interpreted into board games. As a rule, I did not want these games to be carbon copies of the original Jaws board game, but standalone titles, with different play mechanics, each unique from the other. 

With this in mind, here are my ideas…

Jaws 2

As Jaws 2 was almost a precursor to the teenage slasher movies that would follow it (the movie actually beat Halloween to the cinemas by 5 months!), this board game would focus on the teenage characters in the latter half of the film, stranded out to sea and at the mercy of Brucette. It would be a race against time game, with the characters having to survive enough turns as they navigate their tangle of boats to cable junction, whilst the shark lurks below waiting for the right opportunity to attack.

The game would consist of a large blue board with different spaces to place cards/tiles. Initial set up would have the boat tiles placed together in the centre of the board. Different factors will threaten to move the boats away from the centre of the board. Scenery tiles will be placed down and moved across the board from right to left each round depicting movement and various objects/obstacles which can appear to threaten the boats. Players will have to make sure that the boats remain tied together as the shark tries to separate the wrecked boats and pick off the survivors one by one. 

Events will also occur, from shark attacks to changes in the weather and currents, where boats become separated, risking them either sinking or getting lost in the middle of the ocean, forcing players to move their characters between the boats in order to keep them from going off the player board. To do so means swimming, which means risking an encounter and possible attack from the shark. 

Worse still, if Sean Brody, who is a non-playable character in the game, is eaten by the shark, or ends up drifting away from the others before reaching cable junction, the game is lost. 

If players must last until the penultimate round and reach cable junction, Chief Brody will arrive to try pick up the survivors and fight the shark. From here, the players will have one chance to destroy the shark by using a power cable to electrocute it and win the game.

Jaws 3

With all honesty, out of the three games I’ve had to create based on these films, the game for Jaws 3 sounds, in my opinion, the best of the bunch and the one which I would pitch to Ravensburger. 

This game would be a full co-operative game. There would, in the base game, be no player playing as the shark. Instead, playable characters would include Mike Brody, Kathryn Morgan, Philip FitzRoyce and Calvin Bouchard. An expansion could later be added where characters could play as the sharks, and also as Cindy and Sandy.

Each character would have a shared objective to complete, which is to kill the shark, alongside their own personal objectives. Mike Brody’s objective would be to save as many people in the park as possible. Kathryn’s would be to save as many animals as possible. Philip’s objective would be to capture the shark’s baby and take photographs of the mother shark, whilst Calvin’s objective would be to ensure that as much of the park as possible is not damaged by the shark. If any one of these personal objectives are failed, the game is lost. 

Characters will be able to travel underwater, using either scuba gear, a submersible or by travelling with Cindy and Sandy. Alternatively, they can use the underwater operations and sea life tunnels to travel from one side of the park to the other, controlling filtration pipes, sea gates and to gather weapons and oxygen supplies.

The shark, meanwhile, is capable of cutting off access through these tunnels, flooding off tunnel sections and damaging control rooms. These can be patched by fixing them underwater, though runs the risk of encountering the shark. Worse, if all 4 control rooms are destroyed by the shark, the game is lost. 

The game would be set on a board, depicting the layout of Sea World. The board would either be divided into squares or hexagons for player movement, coloured blue for underwater sections and white/grey for indoor areas.

Jaws the Revenge

Of all the films, this one I found the hardest in trying to come up with a board game adaptation to. Whilst it would be simple to copy the play mechanisms aforementioned in the other speculative games, or to go back and do a rehash of the original Jaws board game, I wanted to try and do something which would be in-keeping with the ‘revenge’ theme of this film. As such, I had two ideas of how this game could be done. 

The first would be akin to King of Tokyo, where players would take control of one of four characters; Ellen Brody, Michael Brody, Jake or Hoagie. They would take turns rolling dice trying to destroy the shark in the centre of the board, whilst the shark gets to deal attacks either on all players or on a specific player on their turn. The shark can either be controlled by a player with dice, or after each character’s turn, deal out its hit points with cards.

The other idea I had for this game was to have it solely from the shark’s perspective. As the shark, your challenge will be to kill all members of the Brody family. In the meantime, you will have to avoid the likes of Jake, hunting you in his submersible, Hoagie in his plane and Ellen Brody in her boat. The challenge of this game, however, is to kill only the Brody’s and NOT to attack any of the other characters. Any other character harmed or eaten sets off Jake’s electronic tag. After enough shocks, the tag will make you explode. Both these games could be a solitaire game, or a 1 vs 2-4 player.

If anyone has ideas of what they would like to see in a future Jaws Board Game based off of the sequels, please post them in the comments!

Article contributed by Adam Hickey exclusively for The Daily Jaws

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