Spyfall is a social deduction game for 4-12 players created by Alexandr Ushan. The game was originally published as a card game and was expanded with several other sets of cards, but can also be played in a browser. I played it online with three other in-person friends. Like many social deduction games, Spyfall uses hidden roles to keep each person guessing about the other players. The secrecy of being the spy and trying to act as a “normal player” is central to basically all social deduction games. This is really difficult in a small game, such as the four player games that I played, because just one weird answer to a question kind of outs you as the spy. In a larger group, I think the question asking mechanic would work more as intended, and likely allow the spy to garner more information before having to answer a question. The roles for each location are an interesting idea, and one that I would like to buy more into on a replay. I think that if players had answered questions as their role, and less as their person, we would have had more interesting responses and a harder time immediately determining who the spy was.
Unlike Secret Hitler, where you get very invested and complex social webs develop, shorter, faster rounds make this game relatively fast paced. Having a timer on each round applies enough pressure to let players make quick judgements and ask basic questions, which are the core dynamics of this game. The more questions you ask, even if they’re not that specific, the more information you have on each player, and the quicker the game moves around. The speed rewards players that act instead of overthinking their moves. For example, there was one round where I was the spy, and I was almost certain that we were in a Broadway theater, but I waited for an extra round of questions to be sure and got caught instead of guessing correctly. In another round where I was the spy (I don’t know why but I was chosen as spy about half of the times we played) one of the other players was pretty sure I was the spy but decided to keep asking me increasingly specific questions instead of accusing me, allowing me to correctly guess that we were at a political protest. Keeping the rounds short also allows players to just experience more of the game by playing lots of rounds in a row, which I think helps players get into the rhythm of asking and answering questions better.
I enjoyed the spectrum of locations that were chosen, and the expansions offered even more variety. They were well thought through, as many of them have similarities, but all are distinct in some way. A clever player can ask questions that have an unexpected answer a spy can’t really fake. For example, I was the spy in a game where one of the players was asked “Would you expect to get wet in this location?” The response was “Well I really hope not,” as the location was in a submarine. As the spy, I could now eliminate a lot of options, such as the beach, where you would reasonably get wet, but I couldn’t immediately pick out the submarine as the location. If I had been asked that question, I likely would have given a rather lukewarm response and the other players would know who I was.
While the game says it is playable with 4 to 12 players, I would argue that it doesn’t function as intended with a small number of players. Like many other social deduction games, Spyfall works much better in a large group, where it becomes difficult to remember exactly who said what and which people you trust. Like Mafia and Secret Hitler, the element of trying to figure out who’s the odd one out drives this game, but Spyfall is unique in that there aren’t many gameplay mechanics except for asking questions. This allows the players a lot of free reign over how the game goes, which changes every game. The questions will vary throughout the play, with some times being rapid fire and others coming very slowly. As mentioned previously, a smart question can reveal a lot to the “commoners” while outing the spy. This freedom of play is great on some levels, but only if your players are able and willing to step up to the challenge. Just starting off, and with few players, it’s very hard to think of interesting questions fast enough to keep the game going at a good pace.
