Though Spyfall contains 240 cards (and 30 baggies), it is not a card game, at all, at all. It is a game of subtle questioning and even more subtle answering. And, once you get familiar with it, it’s O so totally Major Fun.
One player is the Spy. The rest of the players aren’t. They’re the ones who are trying to figure out which one is the Spy. The Spy, on the other hand, is trying to figure out where the players are.
Well, of course, they’re right around the table with everybody else. But that’s not the point. They’re also in one of thirty different imaginary locations, determined by the random selection of one of thirty different baggie-packed collections of cards. Each baggie contains (well, will contain, after you sort them out as instructed) 8 cards (beautifully rendered) showing one particular location, and one Spy card. The location cards also include the identity that the player who gets that card is supposed to have – but that’s only to make the game more appealing to the sophisticated Spyfall player you are so destined to become.
Say the location is a submarine (no, don’t say it, think it). You could be the commander, the navigator, the sonar operator, the radio operator, etc.
When it’s your turn, you get to ask anybody a question. Naturally, if you’re not the spy, you could wind up asking that question to the spy herself. By, you know, chance. And you really have to be careful not to be so specific in your question (e.g. “what do you see out of the periscope?”) to make it too obvious, but, on the other hand, you do want to ask a question that the spy might answer incorrectly (“what do you do for exercise?”).
So what I’m saying here is that this game requires what they call “subtlety.” And it takes a while to master the art of subtlety to such a degree that you don’t out-subtle yourself. So it’s not one of your, well, obvious games. It’s easy to understand what you’re trying to do. But not so easy to figure out how to do it. That’s why we decided to call it a gamer’s game.
But it’s well worth the effort, because the fun is wide and deep, and you’ll want to play it again and again with everybody who either already knows how to play, or has a very good and patient sense of humor. It’s cooperative. It’s intelligent. It encourages cleverness. It’s a great way to get to know people, and yourself, too.
Spyfall takes about 5-15 minutes to play each round and is designed for 3-8 sneaky, but astute players (or teams). Depending on how many players, and how many rounds you decide to play, the game will take anywhere from 15 minutes to well over an hour. It is designed by Alexander Ushan, with art by Uildrim and Sergey Dulin, and is published by Cryptozoic Entertainment.