The Lady Vanishes - Art to board games

how to make Hitchcock's Lady Vanishes into a Board Game

This is the first of many Blog entries where I'll be writing about the sorts of things I'd do to transform Films, books and TV shows into board games.

Starting with “A Lady Vanishes” because its the film I watched today. Heck if it had been yesterday it would be “The Jamaica Inn”.

Anyway… a Lady Vanishes is a fantastic British Hitchcock film from the 30's with more British Patriotism than you shake a stick at. Wonderfully funny in a similar way to his earlier film “The 39 Steps” is.

The plot, in short, is that a lot of European travellers are stuck in a small mountain village in the heart of Europe. Several groups of them English travelers looking to get home some for Cricket, others for marriage. They all have to find space at the now highly overcrowded hotel, sharing rooms and in suitably non-English situations waiting the night to get on the train.

At last the train tracks are cleared and they can begin their journey home. But as they're at the station waiting to get their train our heroine had a plant pot fall on top of her leaving her faint and into a dizzy slumber. She is watched over by a kind old lady.

Upon waking, the young heroine gets to know the old lady but after falling asleep again, the kind old lady Vanishes.

Our heroine is then convinced by other passengers that the old lady was never there at all. A fine example of gaslighting if you're looking for pointers ;).

She finds a young Gentleman whom she dislikes and he helps her search the train for this kind old lady. Will they find her? What happens and why?

This is the plot, without spoiling it hopefully, for the film a lady Vanishes. With themes of deception and uncovering information throughout

So how could it be turned into a board game?

Firstly, you've got to have a train that shenanigans can happen on.

Next it's probably better as a competitive game where you have 3 different groups of players the 1st group as the protagonists trying to go up and down the train searching for support and attempting to get the English passengers in their side. 2nd group as English passengers trying to bring their own selfish plans to fruition. 3rd a group of deceivers trying to gaslight the protagonists and prevent them from discovering their plan.

Will the protagonists find the lady in time, will the English Gentleman get back for the cricket, will the English Couple prevent their affair being uncovered, or will the deceivers prevent the lady being found?

It sounds like it should be a social deduction game with a touch of hidden movement where no one knows who they can trust except the deceivers. So perhaps after characters are dealt out all players close their eyes, the deceivers open them so they know who each other are, and then decide which carriage the lady has Vanishes to. Thereafter the game consists of the protagonists trying to find her, the deceivers trying to keep her hidden, and the English passengers trying to avoid conflict and get on with their lives trying to avoid getting caught up in the drama.

It would most like take a huge amount of effort to create this game because it has so many things to be tested. Especially for large and small player counts. However I think it could be good fun!

Thanks for reading,

Sam

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