I've been sporadically checking up on SpyParty every couple months for what seems like more than 2 years now and apparently this game is still in beta. To be fair, it doesn't seem like the game has been ditched by the developers or something, as the game's site and forums seem to be updated and not entirely abandoned.

The idea of this game has fascinated me since its inception. The beta is $15 and buys you a copy of the game - essentially Early Access. I'm considering taking a go at it and am wondering whether you guys have had any experience with the game.

Cheers.

@imsh_pl:

Hey, I just picked up two copies of this game while at the Day of the Devs event. Developer Chris Hecker was there, along with several loyal friends & fans, all guiding players through game sessions across several competitive setups.

The game is good, and very unique. It's akin to playing a card game, or a strategic board game. Ultimately, it's quite simple: as the spy, move about a cocktail party, completing your tasks before time runs out, all of which have 'tells' associated with them; and as the sniper, catch the spy in the act. However, Hecker has done a fantastic job adding a great amount of complexity to the spy's behaviors. First, all of the tasks that the spy must accomplish are variations on behaviors that the AI is constantly engaging in. For example, one of the (currently) eight tasks that the spy can complete is to swap a statue, Indiana Jones-style. The AI is constantly picking up the statues and looking at them, then putting them down again. However, only the spy will pick up the statue, look at it, and then put down a statue with a totally different model. As the spy, this is accomplished by picking up the statue and then initiating the "swap statue" behavior. This turns into a moving bar exactly like Gears of War's Active Reload: If you land the slider outside of the designated zone, you don't swap the statue; if you land it within the zone, the model swaps while you hold it; and if you land it in the sweet spot, you put down the same model but the statue is then swapped when the NEXT person picks it up. The sniper is looking for the person who swaps the statue, so this can lead the sniper to shoot the wrong person. All of the behaviors have similar 'modifiers' on them, from seducing a target, swapping a microfilm, snagging a guest list, and so on, though the modifiers are slightly different.

Additionally, you can engage in a couple of idle tasks to look normal. You can make your character converse with a crowd, you can listen to another character in a crowd conversing, you can order a drink, and then you can sip or chug that drink (holding a drink stops you from doing 'hold' tasks like swapping the statue), and you can look at your watch. Looking at your watch can also serve the function of adding more time, so if you need to add time, the sniper can keep an eye out for partygoers who look at their watch, and anyone who does so just as the timer suddenly increases is probably the spy.

Lastly, as the sniper, you can highlight or mark off targets, delineating the ones you want to follow versus the ones you want to ignore. This can be helpful when you see two suspicious targets, or in the case that 'the twins' AI characters are there, you can differentiate between which one you want to keep an eye on. Also, wherever you are looking draws a red laser sight, so the spy can see if and what you are watching - assuming you're pointing your scope directly at what you're looking at, anyway. You can feint in one direction while using your eyes to look at the side of the screen, or hide your laser behind objects so the spy can't see what you're looking at, encouraging them to feel confident and reveal themselves.

Each game takes about 3 minutes. It's fun to burn through five or six matches in a sitting, and I don't see it getting significantly easier or played-out. Some of the spy's modifiers make it impossible for you to simply memorize all the tells and immediately suss out who is the spy, which I imagine certainly helps when playing against some of the many players who have well over 800 games under their belts.

The game has a central lobby in which all players are always set, so you can always see who's playing at any given time. This makes it easy to just directly invite another player to a game, and makes the player count more transparent than matchmaking would (which would surely make the game seem like literally no one is playing it).

I recommend it, and I definitely recommend it if you also have a friend to play with. I was immediately invited to a game by a stranger as soon as I finished the one I was playing with my friend, though, so I don't think you'll be hard-pressed to play with anyone either way.