For my critical play, I played the bluffing and deception game, Spyfall. I found this game to be very interesting as at its core, it has very few mechanics which facilitates natural conversations to occur. Each player simply receives a role and a location (or nothing, if they are the spy). With this, I can assume that, for better or for worse, playing this game with different groups of people will yield vastly different results. I played amongst friends who are all very comfortable talking, laughing, and “interrogating” one another. As such, this yielded a very conversational atmosphere. However, I can imagine that this lack of structure may not be conducive to conversations amongst people that do not know each other or amongst groups of shyer people.
Photo 1: All possible locations (default screen in game); Photo 2: The role, this is a non spy role. When in a spy role, it will be question marks.
Furthermore, I can imagine that the game dynamics also change depending on who one is playing with. For example, in a group setting amongst friends, you are likely to know how one another normally acts. As such, this can add fun strategy in trying to read your friends tells when you want to find the spy, or if you are the spy, you can then tailor your strategy towards your friends in the hopes that they do not figure you out. In settings where players are more unfamiliar with each other, strategies are different. In these settings, you likely want to just come across as normal as possible and attempt to answer their questions as best as possible.
The topic of questions brings me to my next point. While questions are important to attempt to weed out the spy, specificity within answers can then lead the spy to figure out what the location is. As a result, during my playing, we say people tailoring questions to be hyper-specfici so that only the asker and answerer would understand. For example, player A and player B (for the sake of privacy I am removing names) frequently study in the library, so when player A asked player B “When is the last time we were here together?” and player A said a year ago, that immediately alerted player A that B was the spy, however, it did not immediately give away the location to them. I think that this is a fun dynamic at play, however, there is definitely potential for it to be abused in a way that makes it almost impossible for the spy to win. As such, I believe that it may be necessary for groups to set norms as to what is or isn’t allowed. Despite that, I don’t think it is the game’s burden to try to control this as this is simply one permutation of the many conversations or tactics that one might see, and controlling for all of these would add unnecessary complexity.
One underlying mechanic of the game that I like is that there is the ability to add your own locations. This could be something done out of interest to tailor it to a certain theme or to simply add variability to prevent the game from going stale. My only issue with this is that in order to add a high volume of locations, you either need to input each one manually or have an import, however, it is unclear where these come from. I believe that a list of presets that you can toggle on with X amount of locations would decrease the likelihood of needing to type of import locations.
< — Location adding feature
In this game, lying is a crucial part of the game, however, I do not believe that it is an ethical concern. I believe that there is a clear distinction between lying in this game vs. lying in normal contexts. I believe that consent is the crucial delimiter here. By playing this game (and most of games built upon deception), you are consenting to the fact that you will be lied to, and also agreeing to the idea that you will also likely lie. I think this action is okay given that it is clearly outlined in the rules of the game. I believe that actions like lying occur within their own vacuum that is seperated from normal everyday mores and taboos.
