It’s the threat of violence that makes it intense.” “It’s a filmic use of violence, as soon as the violence happens the game is over. SpyParty is still a shooting game, but as soon as things become violent the game finishes.

The spy, in turn, can also use other guests to mask their moves. The sniper, for instance, can ensure his red targeting beam is blocked by a window frame to avoid giving away to the spy who he is looking at. “But on people skills, behavior and perception and deception, skills that aren’t shooting or slashing up Orcs.” After the first couple of plays you soon develop different strategies, for both spy and sniper roles, that play off how people behave in these scenarios. Hecker highlights that SpyParty is still very much skill-centric. The spy has to complete their various missions (swapping a statue, hiding the microfilm, bugging the ambassador) before the timer runs out and the sniper needs to choose to shoot one of the party guests based on what they have observed. Seeing the game in action and watching the clock tick down there is an immediate sense of tension. The spy is all about deception, but the sniper is about perception.” Hecker describes the game-play as “asymmetric multi-player.” This means that “Spy and Sniper play in the same game world but with completely different rules. Perhaps most importantly, each and every character is a viable route to winning the game regardless of age, gender, mobility or ethnicity. Listening to him list off the different characters it certainly sounds much more diverse than any other video-game I’ve played. It will be the “most diverse videogame ever made,” he tells me. Hecker starts off with some grand claims for SpyParty. Like all good games it sounds very simple, but soon develops into something nuanced and detailed and ultimately about human behavior rather than about shooting things.įGTV caught up with Chris Hecker, the one-man-band behind SpyParty, to find out how his game turned out so different from other shooting games.

The spy has to execute various spy missions at a cocktail party without the sniper spotting him.

It’s a two-player spy game where one player is the spy and the other is the sniper. I wrote recently that SpyParty is the only shooting game I’m 100% happy for my kids to play. I’ve been fascinated by SpyParty since I first stumbled upon it at the GameCity festival.

Spyparty microfilm