Game: For my critical play, I played the online version of Spyfall, a teen/adult bluffing party game originally created by Alexandr Ushan. I was not the spy for any of the rounds I played, so I spent the time debating other players and defending myself from spy accusations. Spyfall includes many shifty questions and roundabout answers to avoid revealing the location to the spy, so naturally that puts everyone’s actions under close investigation. I’ve found that I often jump to conclusions since I correctly accused the spy on the second round on a mere hunch (the spy’s game page had problems refreshing when we started a new round, which I found suspicious).
Gameplay Experience: I played Spyfall for two rounds with my group. In the first round, I was not the spy and the location was a passenger train. When asked by another player if I would meet a friend at this location, I thought about meeting my friends at a train station and not on a passenger train and said yes. As it’s probably more common practice to meet at the train station and board the train together instead of meeting on the train itself, my answer got me accused as the spy and voted out. Since Spyfall relies on deception and deduction, I’ve found that it’s easy for me to slip up if I’m not paying close enough attention. Due to this game structure, I played more of a follower role in the group because I trusted others’ judgment over my attention span. This looks like something I should reflect on for future purposes haha.
[Screenshot: Spyfall play-through with the passenger train location, as discussed above.]
Feedback: When it comes to defending myself from spy accusations, I’ve found that I lean on interpreting other player’s actions to defend my own. For example, when a player thought I was suspicious because I gave a short and vague answer to a question, I pointed out that the question was vague in the first place. Also, I’m personally the type of person to keep my answers short and simple, which puts me at a disadvantage at games where I have to over-explain myself to prove I’m not the spy. Due to this game mechanic around questions, answers, and accusations, I’ve found that I’m much more of a combative person when defending myself than I am in establishing my credibility in the game. In the perspective of a game designer, I think this game mechanic might favor certain types of communicators over others, which might alienate introverted or quiet people. Since Spyfall involves unilateral competition, with a group of players collaborating to figure out the spy, it might not be wise to potentially create a social environment that can alienate players from the group since that might impact collaboration or even lead to false spy accusations. Then again, maybe these social dynamics keep the game interesting and ensure there’s a sense of tension to drive the game forward.
Ethics: As for the ethics question, Spyfall depends on the spy being able to lie and bluff their way to the end of the game to win. With lying and bluffing as a core game mechanic, this causes the other players to critically scrutinize each other to figure out who is lying. After playing Spyfall, I enjoyed the role of being a deductive player and exercising my critical thinking skills to figure out who the spy is, almost like solving a mystery case in a low-stakes environment. Due to the low-stakes environment and opportunity to practice deduction skills, I think that it’s okay to permit lying and bluffing for the sake of the game. That’s not to say that it’s socially acceptable to lie in real social situations. Still, I think playing a game like Spyfall gives you a cover to practice skills you normally wouldn’t use unless you were in a profession that required those skills, like bluffing, defense, and live cross-examination. I think that games like Spyfall help simulate a safe environment to play roles we typically wouldn’t play in real life, which would in turn bring out parts of us we didn’t realize were there. I don’t normally put myself in socially combative situations, so I might’ve never realized that I’m such a combative defender if I hadn’t played this game. Overall, I think that lying as a game mechanic doesn’t necessarily constitute a “bad action”, but it instead allows players to temporarily escape mainstream social norms to explore their capabilities in a safe and low-stakes environment.
