After action report: S.P.I.E.S playtest
Jon Searle recounts his experience of a recent playtest of a megagame-adjacent social deduction game called S.P.I.E.S.
I recently joined in some playtests for a game called S.P.I.E.S. I thought it was cool, so I wrote about it. The game is being developed by someone called Nicky, and these games were in Oxford. You can join the Discord to learn more and find out about upcoming games.
What is it?
S.P.I.E.S (‘The Secret Pseudonyms of the International Espionage Society’) is described as a ‘mega social deduction game’ for 20-150 players. It’s an evolution of a game called Speakeasy.
It felt very different to the megagames I’m used to. There was scoring & a winner, and the runtime was 40-120 minutes. Personally I needed to take notes to keep up with play, and Google Forms was used to send and receive information from a spreadsheet run by Control- so phones were mandatory. I should emphasise this is still definitely in playtest territory. Speaking to Nicky, he stated that digital/physical/hybrid options are being considered too.
What are my objectives?
Expose the other teams whilst keeping your team’s information secret.
You’re a secret agent, representing your country (team) at an International Espionage Society gathering. At the start you don’t know your teammates, but some of you share a pseudonym (code word). You can subtly work this into conversation, and start linking up. From there you can collaborate to understand opponents and attack their operations.
What assets do I have?
A role: your job at your agency. Each role has a unique ability.
A gadget: a tool that can be used to attack another team, or defend against them.
A pseudonym: the code word you can use to find your team
Intel: each player starts with an intel card, worth one point.
The game
This is a 14 player game, two teams of seven (US v UK). I draw my cards - I’m the US Director, with a Sword Cane, and my pseudonym is CRY. As soon as the game kicks off I use the Director’s special power. This lets me go into the Database (the Google Form process) and learn both of our team’s pseudonyms: CRY and TYPE.
My cards. Picture: Jon Searle
Brilliant, easy, I can do this - I start going around the room, having quick chats, asking people how it’s going. I work in lines like ‘I’ve played lots of TYPEs of megagames before, nothing like this’ and ‘CRYing out for help’. I’m met with blank, suspicious stares. Agent 717 seems to pick up on CRY, but we don’t bridge the gap and go our separate ways.
Ten, maybe fifteen, minutes go by, and I have yet to connect with another US agent. I’ve talked to several people already. I’m getting worried when Agent 128 strikes up a conversation with me and responds to ‘TYPEs of megagames’ - immediately saying ‘type’. We agree to share role cards. They’re the US Engineer, wielding an extra gadget and looking for targets. I share what little info I have and, feeling newly confident, go back to check in with Agent 717. Being very direct, I drop CRY again. With an air of professional malice they declare they’re using a gadget and hits me with a Poison Ring. This reveals their role to me, and forces me to show them my pseudonym. Agent 717… is the UK Bounty hunter, and now knows CRY is a US pseudonym. Whoops.
I take a second to rebalance, and see players scattered across the room. There are a handful of thoughtful pairs, carefully scoping each other out. Then there are very animated pairs. One player chases another across the room, shouting the word “honeytrapper”. And there are small groups clearly sharing info and strategising on abilities. No time to waste, I get back to it.
The pace really picks up. I’ve realised that the first 4-5 people I spoke to were all UK. However the low headcount and process of elimination accelerates finding my teammates. I have confusing interactions with two agents, who both seem to be using the pseudonym COMPUTER. That’s sort of close to TYPE, maybe it’s a UK pseudonym? I then meet Agent 007 (he chose the number himself) and take a punt on COMPUTER… but I can’t read if he’s being evasive or is suspicious of me. We dance around a bit, getting closer, closer, it seems like we’re about to make a connection, this is going well… when a third agent (717 I think?) comes up and loudly outs me as a member of the US team.
007 pivots, immediately shows me that he’s the UK Hacker, and hits me with his ability. That lets him use my gadget, the Sword Cane, against me. To successfully use the Sword Cane he has to state my role, but he guesses wrong. It’s a failed attack, so he surrenders an Intel point to me. Now I know he’s the UK hacker, so I Sword Cane him back- but he has a Stabproof Vest which blocks the attack. 90 seconds of shouty drama as we fail to mine each other for information. Great fun.
The game is wrapping up, and we’ve gravitated into US and UK teams. The US Honeytrapper is trying to mine the UK for Intel points when Control calls it there. We’re now in the Agency phase where, as a team, we try to build a picture of the other team. Correctly matching an Agent’s unique number with their Role or Pseudonym earns points, which is boosted by the Intel Points we’ve been fighting over. Thankfully, my team was coordinating their information gathering abilities whilst I flapped around. We’re able to build a clear picture of the UK team’s Roles, but have next to nothing on the pseudonyms. I suggest guessing COMPUTER for their entire team as it should give us three or four points.
Control spends a quick minute adding up some points, and gives us the breakdown: the UK team got maybe half the possible points for Roles and Pseudonyms. We got 7/7 correct on Roles, excellent!… and 0/7 correct on Pseudonyms. My guess, COMPUTER, was a complete hallucination. Amazingly, the scoring ended in a dead heat at 21-21.
I later realised that the two players who said COMPUTER were on my own team, and I rushed my note-taking. I am an excellent spy.
Final thoughts…
S.P.I.E.S was great, quickfire fun. It had that feeling you can get in some megagames where you meet a total stranger and try to work out their agenda on the fly. Interactions built up stories and cinematic moments, of verbally dancing around each other, lunging and parrying. As I walked around, I was also reflecting on how the games made for a great icebreaker.
I also enjoyed S.P.I.E.S’ low bar to entry. Social deduction is known for being a less popular genre of game. There’s a stress-inducing cocktail of strategic complexity, dislike of betrayal, fear of bluffing, and overly intense emotions. I felt none of that - it was simply a case of picking up some cards and getting stuck in. In its current state, the game is firmly on the ‘social’ end of social deduction, and Nicky plans to keep it that way.
There are definitely areas of the design that need thinking about. The Agency phase was fiddly and a sharp gear change down from the high action before it. Also, I’m still not convinced that tech assists games overall, unless built to a very high standard. But that’s what playtesting is for.
…but is it a megagame though?
Maybe, maybe not. The characteristic(s) that stick in a person’s perception and ‘make a megagame a megagame’, giving it that special something, will be subjective.
After some reflection, my working test is ‘Is there a situation where this game could support a wizard wheeze?’. As in, ‘could this game ever create a situation where we, as players and control, want to agree to briefly shelve rules in order to further the narrative?’. In its current form S.P.I.E.S doesn't have that, because the scenario you're playing in isn't underpinned by a full narrative (no 10-page background documents here).
Ultimately though, who cares? This hobby lacks a clear definition. S.P.I.E.S doesn’t have politics, or a council game off in a side room, or a subset of players staring at a map rattling sabres. Importantly for me, it didn’t have the narrative depth I'm used to. However, there are megagames out there that lack one of two of those items already. What S.P.I.E.S does have is a large player count, components you stuff in your pockets, teams, hidden agendas, traitors, a Control team, all underpinned by mingling and chatting to strangers. For now that’s megagame enough for me.
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