You can easily make a print and play version of it (without the art but approved by the publishers). I tried it at Thanksgiving and it was fun. The only problem is coming up with good questions (and answers)... Most of the time people were "uhm-ing" for more than a majority of the time. Wish there was maybe a list of common questions or something, although if you're with a group who is willing to play enough to figure it out then it should be fine.
If each set has a spy, and the spies don't have any type of powers (they are all the same?), why do you need more than one spy? Pick a location random/secretly, shuffle in the single spy card, done. Is it just to provide a card that covers the bottom location card? Am I missing something here?
I believe it is, like you said, to prevent any accidental peeking the bottom of the deck. Of course, you could try not to peek the bottom. But that means always stacking the decks face down on top of each other. In addition when you try to pick a deck randomly, you have to shuffle around the decks clumsily... It definitely doesn't hurt to have extra spies for these issues.
Yes technically you only need one spy card, but if you only had one spy card it would get used 28 times more than any other card and soon it wouldnt be that hard do figure out who was the spy just by looking at the cards. If you have an old copy of pit go get it out and look at the bear card and you will see what I mean.
The game is great, but there are three phases your playgroup goes through, though... 1. This is where the "Arrr you ready to go?" questions are asked 2. This is where everyone knows every location by heart and most referential questions that are common knowledge (such as the stereotypical pirate saying "arr") instantly reveal the location. 3. Too many questions have been asked and it's really difficult to come up with new questions. I asked if there were many bibles in our vicinity, referencing that there always are bibles in your hotel room. That's a one-time questions, because now everyone would think "Hotel!" immediately upon hearing that. Needless to say my group is in stage 3 right now. Still, we have gotten a lot of playtime out of it and with the potential of adding custom locations in the free online version, we might be able to renew the interest!
I normally agree on reviews. I'm shocked he raved this much. We played it with 6 players and almost everyone thought it was a clunker. For a "simple" game, it has a massive learning curve. The spy will get found out very quickly and easily in your first games until you learn how to ask/ answer questions. In our first time playing, I was the spy, and the very first player (who owned the game) asked me a question right out of the gate that I could not answer without giving myself away. Game over in less than 10 seconds. We all were like "really, this game has all this buzz?" Also it's incredibly hard as the spy to actually guess where people are, because there are so many locations. If you look at any sort of reference to make a guess, everyone knows instantly you are the spy. It's a MASSIVE flaw in the game design. The only way to truly get around it is to have everyone memorize all of the locations before you start playing, which is impossible. We passed bigtime on this one.
+Justin Gibbons Try it with less locations at first. They should have suggested in the instructions to start with 10 locations. You can get past looking at a reference if you make everyone look when they ask/answer a question. You can also just fake it too. Relying on people looking at a reference to win will only be viable in the beginning.
+Justin Gibbons My first time playing I had little idea of what to do, and of course I was the spy. and of course the first question of the game was to me. The guy asked "Hey, how's the weather?" and I didn't know where we were so I took a minute and was either gonna say "It's Sunny" or "I dunno, I haven't been out" and I went with "It's sunny". At the end of the game someone else was falsely accused of being the spy, and I guess I won. It was a HUGE stroke of luck, as the location turned out to be the beach. So, this easily could have been you, too. It's a great game once you play a few rounds. Have a good day! P.S. If you don't want you copy I would take it... ;)
+Justin Gibbons well, you have to have good bluffing skills to be good at this game, so there's no massive flaw in the design as you name it. We just played for the first time today and after a couple of rounds we came up with some ideas. First, 'yes-no' questions are stupid and don't give you anything. Second, if you're a spy, you need to guess why that specific question is being asked and if you don't, you need to come up with something that won't blow your cover, like a vague reply (but not too vague, because your cover will be blown!). You can always try playing safe saying smth like "Well, it's hard to not to give up the location with that kind of question" and then answer something that would fit the question. Like, when location was Plane and I was the spy, I was asked: "How should you look when applying for a job in our place?", and I answered (thinking it was a Bank): "Well, I'd say that most importantly you have to be sober". Having multiple location references helps a lot, BTW.
I think i'm going to print it out myself (or draw and cut the cards) and try it with my group. Secret role games like Saboteur go fine with my group, but games involving creativity like Dixit are a less success. So i have to try it out first.
I made my own copy and have played it a bunch since BGG Con. I've found that on the final vote after the timer majority works much better than unanimous, especially in big groups.
rextside Yeah but if the Spy slid by for THAT long, he deserves to win if not everyone knows it's him. Having it be unanimous is good, majority, you're making it too difficult for the Spy.
Used a website posted on BBG forum with an 'app-like-version' of the game. Worked like a charm. And I really like it without the pictures. We just wrote the locations on a large piece of paper. That way it's all about the images in your head and not the colours on the cards. Just load the game on a phone and pass it on when you look at your role and location... if you're not the spy that is... :-) It was a big hit today. We played with 7 players and played like 10 games in row... really epic game!
I don't see the balance in this game. There is only one board of pictures, yes, you can pass it to everyone but the spy might look at it on his turn way more than everyone else. Also, what stops anyone from answering the questions using a different location and everyone catching on. Like if you were at the casino, what if people were answering, "Fixing a car", I love this new model of nissan" etc. How would the spy figure it out then?
well the one board of picture is a flaw, but the your other statement about people using a different location, that would make other non-spies accuse you thereby making the spy win
A lot of people keep asking this. The instructions suggest not having it out during gameplay so the spy isn't tempted to look. They suggest familiarizing before you play. Yes that's meh, there are so many locations, but also keep in mind the spy can also stop the clock and accuse someone. If they can convince the group to vote for the wrong person, they win without having to guess the location.
Bgg on the market but it's expensive right now. Our game group split the cost. It's also in Russian but it's very easy to get the English translation. Expected at the end of the year in the US
I don't like it when Tom review's a game that's basically not out for a very long time. Why get everyone hyped up on a game when its impossible to buy currently. I'm personally unsure why publishers allow Tom to do this. It can actually hurt their sales.
Where are you getting your facts that it hurts their sales? Or are you simply making that up based on you not liking it? Personally along with others I know just simply create a list for games "to keep an eye out for" There is a special section dedicated to it on BGG. It's called getting the word out there and creating hype for upcoming releases. It's why publishers announce games ahead of time.
Andrew, think of it like movie previews...gets you all hyper for it so that by the time it does show up on the shelf, you can do a snake impression and be the first to swallow it whole.
You can easily make a print and play version of it (without the art but approved by the publishers). I tried it at Thanksgiving and it was fun. The only problem is coming up with good questions (and answers)... Most of the time people were "uhm-ing" for more than a majority of the time. Wish there was maybe a list of common questions or something, although if you're with a group who is willing to play enough to figure it out then it should be fine.
If each set has a spy, and the spies don't have any type of powers (they are all the same?), why do you need more than one spy? Pick a location random/secretly, shuffle in the single spy card, done. Is it just to provide a card that covers the bottom location card? Am I missing something here?
I believe it is, like you said, to prevent any accidental peeking the bottom of the deck.
Of course, you could try not to peek the bottom. But that means always stacking the decks face down on top of each other. In addition when you try to pick a deck randomly, you have to shuffle around the decks clumsily...
It definitely doesn't hurt to have extra spies for these issues.
yes can be done that way, the spy can cover the last card, so if you flip accidentally one set the theme remain still secret
Yes technically you only need one spy card, but if you only had one spy card it would get used 28 times more than any other card and soon it wouldnt be that hard do figure out who was the spy just by looking at the cards. If you have an old copy of pit go get it out and look at the bear card and you will see what I mean.
Steven Loomis
Good point. If your game group is fairly rough with the cards that spy is going to get messed up.
The game is great, but there are three phases your playgroup goes through, though...
1. This is where the "Arrr you ready to go?" questions are asked
2. This is where everyone knows every location by heart and most referential questions that are common knowledge (such as the stereotypical pirate saying "arr") instantly reveal the location.
3. Too many questions have been asked and it's really difficult to come up with new questions. I asked if there were many bibles in our vicinity, referencing that there always are bibles in your hotel room. That's a one-time questions, because now everyone would think "Hotel!" immediately upon hearing that.
Needless to say my group is in stage 3 right now. Still, we have gotten a lot of playtime out of it and with the potential of adding custom locations in the free online version, we might be able to renew the interest!
We played this today. Somehow it wasn't that much fun.
I normally agree on reviews. I'm shocked he raved this much. We played it with 6 players and almost everyone thought it was a clunker. For a "simple" game, it has a massive learning curve. The spy will get found out very quickly and easily in your first games until you learn how to ask/ answer questions. In our first time playing, I was the spy, and the very first player (who owned the game) asked me a question right out of the gate that I could not answer without giving myself away. Game over in less than 10 seconds. We all were like "really, this game has all this buzz?" Also it's incredibly hard as the spy to actually guess where people are, because there are so many locations. If you look at any sort of reference to make a guess, everyone knows instantly you are the spy. It's a MASSIVE flaw in the game design. The only way to truly get around it is to have everyone memorize all of the locations before you start playing, which is impossible. We passed bigtime on this one.
+Justin Gibbons Try it with less locations at first. They should have suggested in the instructions to start with 10 locations. You can get past looking at a reference if you make everyone look when they ask/answer a question. You can also just fake it too. Relying on people looking at a reference to win will only be viable in the beginning.
+Justin Gibbons My first time playing I had little idea of what to do, and of course I was the spy. and of course the first question of the game was to me. The guy asked "Hey, how's the weather?" and I didn't know where we were so I took a minute and was either gonna say "It's Sunny" or "I dunno, I haven't been out" and I went with "It's sunny".
At the end of the game someone else was falsely accused of being the spy, and I guess I won. It was a HUGE stroke of luck, as the location turned out to be the beach.
So, this easily could have been you, too. It's a great game once you play a few rounds.
Have a good day!
P.S. If you don't want you copy I would take it... ;)
+Justin Gibbons well, you have to have good bluffing skills to be good at this game, so there's no massive flaw in the design as you name it. We just played for the first time today and after a couple of rounds we came up with some ideas. First, 'yes-no' questions are stupid and don't give you anything. Second, if you're a spy, you need to guess why that specific question is being asked and if you don't, you need to come up with something that won't blow your cover, like a vague reply (but not too vague, because your cover will be blown!). You can always try playing safe saying smth like "Well, it's hard to not to give up the location with that kind of question" and then answer something that would fit the question. Like, when location was Plane and I was the spy, I was asked: "How should you look when applying for a job in our place?", and I answered (thinking it was a Bank): "Well, I'd say that most importantly you have to be sober".
Having multiple location references helps a lot, BTW.
Spyfal sure sounds a lot like James Bonds Skyfall .... xD
Where do you buy your card covers/sleeves from? Those are amazing!!
You can get it for $12.50 at Target right now!
I think i'm going to print it out myself (or draw and cut the cards) and try it with my group. Secret role games like Saboteur go fine with my group, but games involving creativity like Dixit are a less success. So i have to try it out first.
How about a Kickstarter stretch goal to make Tom work on his etc. pronunciation? :D
Now get ready for low retention times on this video from doctor who fans
I printed out a PnP version from BGG, so much fun, cant wait to get my hands on the real thing
I made my own copy and have played it a bunch since BGG Con. I've found that on the final vote after the timer majority works much better than unanimous, especially in big groups.
rextside Yeah but if the Spy slid by for THAT long, he deserves to win if not everyone knows it's him. Having it be unanimous is good, majority, you're making it too difficult for the Spy.
Used a website posted on BBG forum with an 'app-like-version' of the game. Worked like a charm. And I really like it without the pictures. We just wrote the locations on a large piece of paper. That way it's all about the images in your head and not the colours on the cards. Just load the game on a phone and pass it on when you look at your role and location... if you're not the spy that is... :-) It was a big hit today. We played with 7 players and played like 10 games in row... really epic game!
Great review, I have met the game designer in Odessa - a fantastic guy aswell.
Did Sam like it? Play this at the upcoming live gaming marathon!
Reminds me of some games on "Whose Line is it anyway", like Newsflash.
Cutest "shut the door" ever!
Wooo! Just pre-ordered my copy on cardhaus :D Excited
Check The Online Version Here: spyfall.meteor.com
Aww Why Did You Buy The Online Is Free!
Cool, great review! Thanks. :)
Anywhere you recommend picking this up Tom?
Yeah it will be out sometime. But yeah I really want it too.
I don't see the balance in this game. There is only one board of pictures, yes, you can pass it to everyone but the spy might look at it on his turn way more than everyone else. Also, what stops anyone from answering the questions using a different location and everyone catching on. Like if you were at the casino, what if people were answering, "Fixing a car", I love this new model of nissan" etc. How would the spy figure it out then?
well the one board of picture is a flaw, but the your other statement about people using a different location, that would make other non-spies accuse you thereby making the spy win
A lot of people keep asking this. The instructions suggest not having it out during gameplay so the spy isn't tempted to look. They suggest familiarizing before you play. Yes that's meh, there are so many locations, but also keep in mind the spy can also stop the clock and accuse someone. If they can convince the group to vote for the wrong person, they win without having to guess the location.
That sounds awesome! Need to pick this up!
Glad for our hobbyworld :3
board game bento!
Hard to find. Boo.
Check the site on BBG. Someone made a great 'app'
wolflarson71 spyfall.meteor.com
Where can I buy this game?
Bgg on the market but it's expensive right now. Our game group split the cost. It's also in Russian but it's very easy to get the English translation. Expected at the end of the year in the US
I don't like it when Tom review's a game that's basically not out for a very long time. Why get everyone hyped up on a game when its impossible to buy currently. I'm personally unsure why publishers allow Tom to do this. It can actually hurt their sales.
Where are you getting your facts that it hurts their sales? Or are you simply making that up based on you not liking it? Personally along with others I know just simply create a list for games "to keep an eye out for" There is a special section dedicated to it on BGG. It's called getting the word out there and creating hype for upcoming releases. It's why publishers announce games ahead of time.
Andrew, think of it like movie previews...gets you all hyper for it so that by the time it does show up on the shelf, you can do a snake impression and be the first to swallow it whole.