We played SpyFall, a game that was originally developed as a card game by creator Alexandr Ushan, and was later made into an online format by netgames.io (where we played).
This game can be played with 3 to 9 players, as any less than 3 players would result in each player immediately knowing who the spy is.
In the game, there will be 1 spy and the rest of the players will simply be “non-spies” or regular players. Regular players will all know a certain location that the spy does not know. For the regular players, the objective of the game will be to correctly guess who the spy is, without giving away what the location is. For the spy, the objective will be to guess the location that the players all know, without giving away that they are the spy.
Who the spy is and what location the players are in are determined at the start of the game, by a card that each player draws. The card says the location and that the player is “not the spy” or it says the player is the spy.
After these cards are drawn, all players are show a list of locations that could be the one that all players except the spy know and a timer starts going down. Players must now ask each other questions and have a conversation to determine who the spy is. The spy must try to guess the location from the clues that the players give each other to test whether they also know the location.
Once the time is up, players must vote on who the spy is and make a final decision. If they guess incorrectly, the spy wins. If they guess correctly the spy can still win if they guess the location correctly.
The type of fun that the game offers is mainly that of Fellowship as players interact to guess the spy, hold a conversation and try to deceive each other. There is also a component of fantasy involved, as a player pretends to be a spy and tries to decipher the enigma.
I didn’t find the game particularly fun because of the number of people I played with. We were only three, so it was fairly easy to guess who the spy was. The game is probably considerably more fun with a group of around 6 to 8 people, where you can try to deceive the spy into picking different locations and it is hard to know who the spy may be. The group dynamic would also be more fun with more people, as it generates a fun social situation.
The graphic design of the game was very simple. I would say a very interesting design is not necessary, since most of the game is about the interaction between the players. However, making it more visually appealing would probably make the game more attractive to players.
Spyfall is similar to the games Avalon and Mafia, where there are “bad players” and “good players” who don’t now what the other players are, and these roles change every round. These involve holding conversations, taking votes to determine other players’ identities and trying to deceive each other.
I think the game would be better if there were other characters that can either help the spy, help the other players, or contribute to confusing both of them. Using Avalon as an example, creating different teams that know different locations or have specific goals could also make the game more interesting!
