Let’s play a game… a mandatory game… or rather, not mandatory, but an “attendance highly encouraged” game. You and your colleagues have now found yourself trapped in a meeting with no way out but through. The stakes are high, and survival may not be imminent unless you can score 10/10 on deciphering the following activities.
A Three-Hour Corporate PowerPoint Presentation with Required Participation
We’ll start with an easy one here to get this going. While Jigsaw never made any of his victims do this, I’m sure none of the characters would be able to finesse their way out of this one.
10 Pints of Sacrifice
Read this one carefully! While at first it reads as “10 Points of Sacrifice” which DEFINITELY sounds like your company’s weird corporate motto, this machine that collects pints of blood from chopping your hands with table saws is actually an iconic trap found in Saw V!
A Digital Sorting Hat
While Saw does assign punishments that correspond to a metaphor about the character’s personal shortcomings, this icebreaker crafted by HR to have your whole workplace assign you to a Harry Potter house based on what they think about you, is far more deadly. (They put you in Slytherin by the way, so they must think you’re a huge bitch.)
Mysterious Breakout Rooms
Trick question! This is technically done by both Jigsaw to his victims and by your boss to you and your colleagues during awkward Zoom meetings.
The Necktie Trap
Don’t let the name fool you! While this understandably sounds like a weird substitute for Casual Fridays, this exercise where you wake up with a leash around your neck attaching you to a giant menacing blade is once again a Saw V staple.
A Zoom Scavenger Hunt
The CEO will time you as he forces you all to run around your house and bring back a red object… then a yellow object… then a “Casual Friday” outfit, and RATE you all on who had the most creative (i.e. expensive) ideas! Scary as it sounds, this one is mandatory team-building.
Increasingly Dark Ice-Breaker Questions
“Let’s play a game,” “When did your first beloved family pet die?” “Tell me about your first heartbreak”… um, we’re not sure, this one might be both again?
The Silence Circle
While this name was tossed out there as the title for the next post-COVID corporate retreat, this is actually a ghastly Jigsaw construction involving a fish hook being lodged in your throat.
The Oxygen Crusher
This actually does refer to both the asphyxiation trap in Saw VI as well as the second-hand embarrassment of watching Bob from Accounting think it’s funny to make his virtual background a Hooters in every catch-up meeting.
“Any Questions?”
While being forced to sit through an extra thirty minutes of absolutely pointless questions that had already been covered in the meeting, rumor has it Lionsgate has this in development for the next installment in the series.