Spyfall, at its core, is a mafia-esque, unilateral competition social deduction game that requires players to figure out who is the spy in the group of players. In each game (on the netgames.io version), there is a location – submarine, theater, etc. – which all players are aware of, except the spy. It is the group’s job to ask each other questions about the location to determine who doesn’t know the location, while the spy’s job is to answer questions well enough to disguise themselves while gathering enough information to figure out the location for themselves. At the end of the round, players vote to determine who the spy is, and if caught, the spy has one guess as to the location.
As stated, those mechanics are fairly simple, and their connection to social deduction is straightforward. The fact that players do not initially know who the spy is, as well as the knowledge that every question or answer they provide is giving the spy crucial information, creates tension and suspicion as players try to interpret each other’s questions and answers. Moreover, the time limit of 3 minutes during which questions can be asked creates an opposing tension, as players are given a very tight time constraint, and may not have enough time to figure out who the spy is. Conversely, the spy is under the strain of having to answer questions – especially early on, if the spy is asked, they must get somewhat lucky and pick an answer that blends in, while still providing a confident exterior; the 3-minute timer also rushes them as to gathering the needed information. In this sense, one could argue that the crucial resource here is information. This resource is generatable by players, but must be kept on a tight leash by both the player, lest they reveal their location to the spy; the spy, conversely, is scrambling for this resource. Another resource is time – both the normal players and the spy are trying to make maximal use of the time, but interestingly, as the timer progresses, the game actually becomes more difficult for the players, and less difficult for the spy.
However, Spyfall also differentiates itself from other social deduction games, like Among Us or Mafia, and in these differences we can find some criticisms of Spyfall as a game. First and foremost, I believe that the game’s progression curve is simply too steep, as well as too jagged. At the beginning of the game, the spy is completely blind as to the location in question, and being asked first practically coin flips the game on the spot. For instance, in one game, the location was “Restaurant”. The spy was asked the first question: “Would it be common to take one’s family here?” This is not a great question later on in the game, because it simply gives away too much information. However, early in the game, it doesn’t allow the spy to remove a high enough proportion of location options, and it’s so binary of a question that it’s highly likely to just get it wrong. In this case, the spy said “No”, because of the vast array of options for which “No” is a reasonable answer to the question: polar station, crusader army, etc. This immediately gave away the spy on the spot; the group didn’t even finish the timer to vote them out. Conversely, if the spy is lucky enough to avoid being asked for the first few rounds, or is lucky enough to coinflip the correct answer, their game becomes dramatically easier. The makers of the game likely intended for questions to be a little more nuanced than simple “yes/no” questions. However, even the more nuanced questions – one which I liked was “What’s a movie that’s related to this place” – can end up being too revealing, or otherwise rely on references that not all players might be able to understand, which is unfortunate for a game that is intended to be playable between people that aren’t necessarily the closest of friends.
Thus, the spy can eliminate options so fast that after only 3-4 questions, they are left with a small number of locations, and furthermore can fake among those locations fairly easily due to the high similarity between many of them. This comes in contrast to social deduction games like Mafia or Among Us, where the difficulty is more on a smoother curve. In both of those games, the difficulty increases for the impostor because the impostor slowly provides more information – however, this occurs generally little by little, since only one kill happens at a time. Furthermore, in those games, it’s hardest for the non-impostors at the beginning, leading to longer games. In comparison, the amount of information present in Spyfall increases by leaps and bounds, and it’s hardest for the impostor at the beginning, leading to often very short games.
Thus, Spyfall acts as a social deduction game that can be played by those who enjoy other similar games like Mafia and Among Us, but with more information-gathering and less removing of people from the game prematurely. While it shines in providing a fun, casual experience that doesn’t exclude others and can be played without a close personal understanding of the other players, it also has some major flaws that prevents it, in my opinion, from being as well-rounded of a social deduction game as other similar games are.
