The year is 2009, the location is GDC and an interesting multiplayer game called SpyParty has just been revealed. Years later the game fell into obscurity as it joined the pantheon of games that everyone practically bet against ever seeing the light of day. Fast forward nearly ten years later and lo and behold, the game is officially out on Steam early access. To be fair, the game has been in a very quiet beta for most of its development, but this is the first time it sees what you’d consider a proper “release.”
SpyParty is a 1v1 multiplayer game where one player controls the spy, hoping to complete various objectives before time runs out and while avoiding getting shot by the other player who’s the sniper. This creates an interesting dynamic where the spy has to learn to behave like an AI to fool the sniper while the sniper has to suss out which of the characters they’re observing is acting suspicious enough to out themselves as the real player. There’s a surprising amount of nuance to pretending to be an AI, because it’s not just something like walking in clumsy ways or pretending to look “dumb”, the AI in this game have very specific animations and patterns that they’ll do when interacting in the setting and knowing, for example, how long they would spend at a bookshelf and whether they’d take a sip of a drink before or after reading a book could be the thing that tips off the sniper.
SpyParty starts players off by laying out four goals that the spy must accomplish and as the sniper it’s your job to put a permanent stop to their shenanigans. As the spy, you’ll have to do things such as swapping out a statue, seducing a target, or contacting a double agent by loudly shouting “banana bread”. As you move through the party you have to be careful not to seem too “human” so as to not give yourself away to the always watching sniper. As the sniper, you’re able to pan your view around the level and you have a single shot to take out your target. To help you out you’re able to highlight or darken characters who you are either suspicious of or know for certain couldn’t be the spy. For example if the spy shouts the banana bread code, anyone not currently in a conversion is definitely not the spy so you’d darken those characters so you’re more easily able to pay attention to the people who are still suspects. There’s a fun bit of cat and mouse you can play as the spy, messing with the sniper for example by checking your watch (which adds time) but choosing the fake out watch check that doesn’t add time. While as the sniper you’re watching all these characters perform these actions and you’re left wondering if that guy is hanging around the ambassador a lot because it’s the spy, or an AI character just happens to be doing so. It can get particularly nerve wracking for both sides at times.
When you’re ready to bump up from Johnny English to proper Bond you’ll enter intermediate difficulty. In beginner you always have the same four missions to accomplish and the sniper also knows the mission list. Once in intermediate mode you’ll have access to eight missions that you can select from and the sniper won’t know which you’ve picked. New missions include more typical spy stuff like pulling a fingerprint from a briefcase or stealing a guest list.
Balancing seems to be a genuine concern for the game however. When in beginner difficulty you practically can’t lose as the sniper since you know the spy has to swap the statues at some point and all you need to do is memorize which statues are there and simply watch whatever character interacts with them. You’ll either catch the spy trying to get away with it or make them so nervous they’ll stay away from the statues and run out of time; either way you win. The scales of power tip in the spy’s favor once you leave beginner and go into intermediate play however. Since the sniper now has no clue what the missions are, the necessity for understanding the mechanics governing all the rules of the game is suddenly dramatically increased while the spy player can bumble their way to victory. I really hope this is something they’re able to fix by the time the game is fully released, but as the game is right now I really don’t see any way of fixing it without making a super tedious and in-depth tutorial on AI behavior.
Experienced difficulty is where things even out just *slightly* with the addition of a quick time event added to the game. Here every interaction the spy performs will start a small minigame where you need to stop the sliding bar at a specific spot; doing it perfectly will allow you to perform the action with no consequence, while failing will cause you to leave very telltale clues to any observant sniper players, like coughing instead of saying the “banana bread” codeword. What’s perhaps the best part of experienced mode is the ability to customize various aspects of the game rules. You can change the number of missions you can select, how many are needed to finish, whether or not the sniper can see the mission list, and even how many guests will be in the level. This is the mode where the tension really shines through, but it also requires both players to absolutely be on their A game.
Now you’d think that after nearly a decade of work being put into the game it’d be closer to looking like a proper release, and you’d be half right. Menu, graphic, and UI elements are all here but this is still a game that needs a lot of visual work put into it. Some items, like the seduction bar are so minuscule that it’s hard to tell what it says from a quick glance. If you want to play a game you’ll have to enter a sort of chat room that looks like it’s ripped straight from the 90’s and send someone in the lobby an invite or hope you get sent one. I would hope a simple “quickplay” option is added later, or at the very least a visual makeover to this menu. Some other menu items can get a bit confusing, but as this is in early access it’s hard to knock the product too much when you never know how the final release will be.
There’s some fun to be had in SpyParty, but even after a decade there’s still some more work to be put into the game. We’re nearing the finish line though, so I’m eager to see how it finally shapes up after all this time.
