Comments on: Beta Bug Fixing Meets Game Design

By: Quirken

Quirken — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:26:56 +0000

SpyParty is great game! Make you feel badass, very high stress fun. You should sign up to pay money, good deal! Click this link: http://www.spyparty.com/beta-sign-up/

By: checker

checker — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:18:55 +0000

Hah, no problem, I don’t close comments on old posts because there’s no reason to, I’m happy to answer questions about any of the topics. It always annoys me when blogs close comments on posts.

It means I have to moderate more spam attempts, but besides that, it seems like the right thing with no downsides!

By: checker

checker — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:17:51 +0000

The suspected double agents are always present on maps where they’re ever present so that the number of potential Spies stays the same, but the Sniper knows whether Contact is a potential mission so they know whether to pay attention to them.

By: DaveKap

DaveKap — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:15:17 +0000

Wow, this is me not looking at the dates of posts. Whoops.

By: DaveKap

DaveKap — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 11:14:02 +0000

I feel like I’m missing something here. A part of the “spy picks X out of X” and “spy finishes any X out of X” gameplay – in which the sniper does not know which missions the spy is trying to accomplish – is forcing the sniper to figure out which signs to look for. As such, the suspected double agent should always be present because otherwise, de-selecting the “contact double agent” mission would be a tell to the sniper. They would know that of these 4-6 missions the spy is going after, because there’s no suspected double agent (when there normally is one) then there is no banana bread to worry about.

This possible (but currently avoided) tell wasn’t mentioned at all anywhere, which makes me think I’m missing something.

By: checker

checker — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:08:15 +0000

I’m not sure how that’ll play out, actually. Yes, when I make the Spy able to give the Double Agent submissions, then I’ll definitely have the Suspected Double Agents present, but the first draft of that will be where you have to contact him or her first, so they’d be present anyway. Then, there are maps where there’s a Double Agent but no Suspected Double Agents, like the balcony, because there are so few people there that being able to eliminate even one would be a huge advantage. Lots of things to explore!

By: Coderro

Coderro — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:06:44 +0000

Don’t you need a double agent regardless of what missions are enabled, because you’re going to have mechanics like the spy ordering him to create a distraction? And therefore it makes sense for the sniper to always have suspected double agents given to him?

By: Phil

Phil — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:17:56 +0000

I don’t know about anyone else but I already have a huge load of thoughts I want to talk about in the forum with regards to strategy, and that’s from only playing 4 games at gamecity. But yeah, instead of theorising on the blog I’m letting them stew inside my head until the mass beta invites.

First I thought I should keep tips and tactics to myself to give myself the edge, but in truth it’d be so much more rewarding to share anything and everything so the metagame can grow as fast as possible. I want to see gambits go in and out of fashion, mission subsets to shift in popularity, and I want fluke discoveries to completely break the game and make every round a sniper win until checker fixes it.

By: keith

keith — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 05:22:22 +0000

Commenting to show i acknowledge request. :)

By: checker

checker — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 22:16:28 +0000

Yeah, see, it’s those second order consequences of a mechanics change that really interest me about game design! :)

That said, I think I’ll have to collect the Yo Spy/Sniper Momma jokes into the FAQ at some point. There were some good ones!