Frequently Asked Questions

I probably should have put this FAQ for SpyParty up a long time ago, but “better late than never”, I guess!

I’ve tried to look over most of the comments on the blog and roll them into this FAQ, but I’m sure I missed some, and I’m sure people will come up with more questions as time goes on.

If you have a question that’s not answered here but should be, or if you want clarifications on any of the answers, please post in the comments below, and I’ll promote them up to the page.

  1. When are you shipping?
  2. What!?! Why do I have to wait so long?
  3. Will there be a demo?
  4. Will there be a beta? Can I help you playtest SpyParty?
  5. Okay, there’s a beta, but why is it going so slowly?
  6. Is it an open beta, an early-access beta, a paid beta, a pre-order, or what?
  7. Where can I find the infamous Four Page Instruction Manual so I can read it and not get completely owned the first time I play?
  8. What platforms will SpyParty be on?
  9. What will the hardware requirements look like?
  10. How much will the game cost?
  11. How is SpyParty different from ______?
  12. Will there be other modes besides just two-player Spy vs. Sniper?
  13. Will the Spy and the Sniper be able to play on the same screen, like on a couch?
  14. Will there be other settings besides parties?
  15. How many maps will there be?
  16. How many missions will there be?
  17. Will the Sniper be able to do anything else besides observe the party?
  18. Can the Sniper influence the Spy and/or partygoers?
  19. How many characters will there be?
  20. Will each character have different behaviors? What about genders, races, ages, etc.?
  21. How can the Spy see the laser sight but no one else at the party can?
  22. Will the Spy be able to make distractions?
  23. Will there be a Spectator mode?
  24. Will there be a single-player mode?
  25. Will there be LAN support? Spawned copies? Can I run my own dedicated server?
  26. What is the art/music style going to be? Will it be stylized or realistic?
  27. What about dialog?
  28. What about plot, or campaigns?
  29. Will I be able to play with the current prototype graphics?
  30. Banana Bread.
  31. If the game is hard core player-skill, how will new players not just get owned? Will I have to read a manual when the game is released?
  32. I’ve heard you have a mechanic like Gears of War’s Active Reload, doesn’t that detract from the psychological skill and make the game more about twitch skills?
  33. What language is SpyParty written in? What engine do you use? What’s your development environment?
  34. What kind of animations will SpyParty use?
  35. What are your inspirations for SpyParty?
  36. What are your aesthetic goals for the game?
  37. How did you name the game? What about the poor Sniper, doesn’t he or she feel left out?
  38. How many people work on SpyParty? Are you hiring?
  39. Will there be any kind of User Generated Content, or customization, or XBox Live Avatar support, etc.?
  40. Can I put on a SpyParty LARP?
  41. Can I live stream and post and monetize videos of SpyParty?
  42. Will I be able to get a Steam code when it’s on Steam if I pay for the beta now, and what about redeeming it on consoles too?

When are you shipping?

The short answer is: I don’t know. The long answer is: probably a couple years from now, where ‘now’ is spring, 2011. Update 2013: the Early-Access Beta is now open.

What!?! Why do I have to wait so long?

I want SpyParty to be perfect. I think the game has a lot of potential to explore themes and mechanics rarely explored in this medium, like perception, deception, and performance, and others I mention below. I want the the game to be deeply tuned so it supports competition-level player skills,1 but instead of being twitch skills, they’re psychological skills. I also want the game to be beautiful artistically and aurally. All of these things take time to do right. I talk more about each of these topics below.

Will there be a demo?

I assume so, but I’m not sure yet.

Will there be a beta? Can I help you playtest SpyParty?

Yes you can! Please head over to the Early-Access Beta Sign Up Page and read about the beta plan.

Okay, there’s a beta, but why is it going so slowly?

I’m really sorry the invites to the Early-Access Beta are trickling out so slowly. The quick answer is, I would love to invite everybody in at once, but my server would melt. Making the game’s back end servers scale to the 12000 people signed up so far is going to be a lot of work, and there are going to be (and have been) a lot of bugs that need fixing along the way. Trust me, I want to invite you in more than you want to be invited in, I just can’t go faster yet! This blog post talks about the roll-out plan in more detail. Update: wait, it’s open now!

Is it an open beta, an early-access beta, a paid beta, a pre-order, or what?

It appears there’s some debate about what to call this kind of beta. I call it an Early-Access Beta, because you get the game now and all the updates and the final version, and I say it’s “open” now because it was “closed” and invite-only for a long time. So, I use “open” to contrast with “closed” in that sense. Some folks use “open” to mean “free”, which this isn’t, since I’m using it to fund the development of the game, as I explain here. So, I guess it’s an Open Early-Access Paid Beta?

Where can I find the infamous Four Page Instruction Manual so I can read it and not get completely owned the first time I play?

Thank you for asking! Reading the manual is the best way (short of actually playing) to get a feel for SpyParty! You can find the latest version here.

What platforms will SpyParty be on?

I hope to have it on all the major platforms that will run it. This includes PC and Mac (on Steam and other distribution sites, including this website, and they will all be able to play each other), Xbox Live Arcade, and PlayStation Network. I’ve been talking to Nintendo about their next generation console, and if the controller screen (exists and) is good, that could solve one of my “couch issues” I talk about below, so that could be cool. (Clarification for the Internet: I have not signed an NDA, but I read the same rumors as other people, and when I talked to some Nintendo folks recently, I said, “I know you can’t confirm or deny, but if the controller screen is good, then that might make it a perfect SpyParty machine because of my ‘couch problem’.”) Also, the iPad is another solution to this problem of how to have players in the same room, so I’ll probably look into that as well. Linux is a real possibility too, especially since the successes of the Humble Bundles with Linux users.

However, I am 100% focused on making the game as deep and as awesome as I can right now, and I’ll worry about the platforms later, after I’ve got the gameplay where I want it.

In some updated platform news, some beta testers have gotten SpyParty working with Wineskin, a Windows emulator for MacOS! There’s a thread about how to set it up in the beta forums, so once you’re invited into the beta you can try that if you’re a MacOS user. It is incredibly easy to install and it works really well, I just tried it myself!

What will the hardware requirements look like?

It’s too early to say for sure. Right now, it runs on incredibly low end laptops (even netbooks!), but obviously the graphics are going to improve a lot and that’s going to cost some performance. However, I want as many poeple as possible to be able to play SpyParty, and that’s vital for a multiplayer indie game, so I want to keep the hardware requirements as minimal as possible. I do all of my development on an old Lenovo T500 laptop, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon, so that’s another thing that will help keep me honest and the specs low.

How much will the game cost?

I assume it will cost $15, but I don’t know for sure. $15 is kind of the “AAA Indie” price point these days, and I think it’s good for the industry to standardize on a single price in this segment so players have a basic intuition for what level of polish and production values they will get for their money. Update: I figured out and posted the pricing model here.

How is SpyParty different from ______?

I send out the link to this entry often enough, and the %3F in the anchor confuses enough url shorteners, that I made this pseudo-permanent pseudo-handy shortlink: http://spyparty.com/similar

SpyParty is not the first game to explore psychological themes, nor pretending to be an NPC, nor hiding in plain sight, nor any of these concepts. I think it is a particularly interesting take on them, but there have been many games before with similarities. These include:

  • The Ship and Bloody Good Time, by Outerlight, the multiplayer modes in Assassin’s Creed by Ubisoft, and Murderous Pursuits by Blazing Griffin (who bought The Ship from Outerlight). These are basically games of Assassin, which is a popular live-action game played on college campuses. They’re mostly symmetric, meaning each player is playing the same role, they use large maps where occlusion and environment traversal is a big part of the gameplay so they have features like radars for telling where your target is, and they don’t focus on the same level of behavioral performance and perception that I’m going for in SpyParty. I have a long post I’m writing that will do a detailed analysis of these games, that I’ll link to here when it’s finished. Actually, I ended up talking about this a lot on a Kotaku podcast, and they happened to transcribe this exact part, which was nice.
    Jason: It’s really fun. Once you start getting into it, playing as a spy, you can find lots of clever ways to mimic the AI. There are a lot of misdirection tricks you can use to try to fool the sniper.
    Kirk: And you know, I’ve played games like this before, and watching the game, getting ready to play the game, having Chris explain the game to us, there’s a lot going on. This is a very complicated game, there are a million mechanics and systems that we didn’t see.
    Hecker: Yeah, the [full] tutorial takes almost 40 minutes to play.
    Kirk: So, having played a game like Assassin’s Creed, the multiplayer in that, where you’re kinda pretending to be AI and blending in… there’s a level of specificity to [Spy Party] that I found. Where, just because it’s me versus you, we’re head to head, we’re at a table, and it’s this one moment that we’re building toward. It’s gonna be this shot. Jason’s probably gonna take the shot, and it’s either gonna work or it’s not. It really raises the stakes.
    Hecker: And there’s more than that. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, and there’s an old game on Steam called The Ship, which are both games of Assassin. Which is that college campus game where there’s a hat, and all our names are in the hat, and you pick my name, and he picks your name, and then you’re chasing me and I’m chasing him.
    Kirk: Right. It’s a more cyclical thing.
    Hecker: Yeah, it’s asymmetric in the sense that [your target is] a different person than who’s chasing you, but it’s completely symmetric in the sense that everyone is chasing and being chased.
    Kirk: And has a similar move-set, similar skills.
    Hecker: Right. So I’ve thought about this a lot, about why Spy Party actually is different and deeper than those games. Because The Ship came out before Spy Party, obviously. And Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood came out after. And so you know, people are like, how is it different from this, or whatever. So I’ve thought about that a lot.
    Kirk: It’s very different.
    Hecker: It’s very different! First, when Assassin’s Creed multiplayer started coming out, it was Brotherhood, when it came out, I was like, oh shit. And then I was like, okay, they’re just doing Assassin, and I know how [Spy Party] is different from Assassin now.
    And so what the difference is: Spy Party is 100% asymmetric. There is no way for the spy to get around behind the sniper and stab him in the back with a knife. The sniper doesn’t have to worry about watching their back at all. I can take 100% of the sniper’s brainpower and devote it towards the party, which means I can make the tells way more subtle. So the spy also knows they have to commit to the deception part of it. If you get what happens in Brotherhoodmultiplayer, is, you get someone who’s better at combat or whatever, or jumping around roofs, and then they’re like screw this hiding in plain sight thing, I’m just gonna wait for somebody to do it and then just do the pile-on thing.
    Kirk: When you’re playing as the spy, there’s never a moment where you’re thinking, I have this other avenue to victory.
    Hecker: Exactly. Like, “I’m gonna shoot back,” or anything like that. So you have to commit 100% to the deception thing or you’re toast. And I didn’t know this [off the bat], it’s not like I’m some super genius where I was like, “Oh, this is how it’s different” a priori before I even did it. It was more just like, oh, this is working, why aren’t those other games working at the same level? Oh, I see, it’s because each person is totally committed to their role.
    People don’t make completely asymmetric games most of the time, because they’re really hard to balance. By diving into the completely asymmetric thing, it unlocks this thing that no one knew was there, just because you can’t get to it in that more locally asymmetric but globally symmetric game like Assassin. I mean those are cool games, those are fun to play, but they don’t seem to have… [Spy Party’s] top players have 20,000 games, over 1,000 hours at three minutes a pop. It’s way deeper than those games, right?
    I have a list of clones and demakes, people who have made other similar games, and Assassin’s Creed and The Ship are on there, as like, other games that are similar. I have a list of those on the FAQ, [since people will ask] “aren’t you worry about getting cloned” or something like that? And I’m like no, I want more games in this area, it’s just such unexplored territory! You can just pick up game design off the ground as you’re walking around, because nobody does games about normal people.

    People ask if I’m worried about these games, and the opposite is true, actually. I wish they explored subtle psychological gameplay more than they currently do, because we need more games pushing in these subtle behavioral directions, not fewer!

  • Puji, Ninja Convention, Lucas Debes, SPY PARTY, Remote Shepherd, Hidden in Plain SightNintendo Game & Wario’s ThiefBetraille: Part Deux, Crime Scene, A Letter to my Valentine, XX13, inconSPYcuous, The 80 Spies, The Good, The Bad and the BotAlien Laser Bunnies, Dark Day LA, No Photos, Please!, Hey You!!!, Mimic, Framed!, Intrigue, Where’s Tango?, PanopticonParty Saboteurs, odlaw, Thief Town, BLADENET
    There are a bunch of “demakes”, clones, games inspired by SpyParty, or games designed totally independently that just have a similar mechanic! I collect links to these and love to hear about them, so if you know of one not on this list, please comment below so I can check it out. They’re listed here in the order in which I learned about them. It’s fun to see different interpretations of the idea. I’ve thought about having a game console in a room in SpyParty, with some of the 2D games running on it, and the two players can “push the stack” and go play one of these in the middle of their normal SpyParty game. That’s probably a pipe dream though, but it’s a cool idea! Most of these differ from SpyParty because they’re done as “Jam games”, or for competitions, or just for fun, and the developer isn’t trying to take them to a full polished game. Daniel Benmergui has an awesome SpyParty 2D demake design he’s been kicking around, so hopefully I’ll be able to convince him to make it. People often ask me what I think about other developers making these kinds of games relative to my work, so here’s a link where I discuss it a bit with the developer of Hidden in Plain Sight (also read the comments). The short answer is, as I wrote to Adam:

    My attitude towards derivative game designs is that they can contribute significant value to the art form, they simply have to move the game design ball forward. If they’re just clones of an existing thing without pushing in any new directions, then that can be fine for game development practice (just like copying a painting at the museum while you’re training to be an artist is an effective learning tool), but it’s not something you want to focus on as an end goal.

    In general, I want more experimentation with subtle psychological gameplay!

  • Hitman by IO Interactive. There is some disguise in Hitman, but they don’t explore it very much. Hopefully they will more in the future. There’s a level where you dress up as a waiter in a restaurant, for example, and there’s another level where you’re a sniper and getting a description of a guy in a room, and slowly trying to figure out which one it is. Also, Mission: Impossible on N64 has a deception level where NPCs react to your behavior. It looks like Grand Theft Auto V added a level similar to the Hitman one where you get directions on who to snipe.
  • Team Fortress 2 by Valve. They have a fictional Spy and Sniper rivalry, but that’s about it! But hey, people ask, so here it is.
  • There is also a whole genre of Flash “Sniper Games”, where you’re given a description of somebody and you have to find them in a crowd (usually of stick figures!).
  • Werewolf/Mafia. These are great party games, and have a different take on the performance and deception idea. Because they’re real people in a real room, they tend to be more about politics and bluffing.
  • Trouble in Terrorist Town by BadKing. This is a Garry’s Mod mod, and I haven’t played it yet, but it sounds interesting. It sounds a bit more like Werewolf than The Ship. There are a few other mods like this, like the Bystander mod for Quake, and the Prop Hunt and Suicide Survival mods for TF2 and Counter-Strike: Source, which sound hilarious from the descriptions. There’s a SpyParty mod for Minecraft as well.

If you have others that should be on this list, add a comment below!

Will there be other modes besides just two-player Spy vs. Sniper?

Yes, definitely! I’m just focusing on Spy vs. Sniper 1v1 right now because it’s the most “pure” asymmetric mode that gets to the heart of the core game design. After it’s where I want it, I will branch out into multiple players on both sides, Spy/Sniper teams, Snipers who can be at the party, and all kinds of other craziness.

I’ve gotten a bunch of ideas for different game modes and features from fans, so if you have an idea for the game, don’t hesitate to suggest it in the comments!

Will the Spy and the Sniper be able to play on the same screen, like on a couch?

This is hard. As I mention above, the Wii 2 and iPad might help with this. It’s also been suggested that the Spy player be able to play through the Sniper’s view, but that presents a lot of problems. A hot-seat design is also on the back burner. This is an important play style for some people, so I’m going to try to do something here, but it definitely is not a natural fit for SpyParty. That said, the Sniper side scales well to groups of people sitting together, and it stays fun (although multiple people watching the Sniper view and cooperating makes the game very challenging for the Spy).

Will there be other settings besides parties?

Yes, basically any place people gather where a limited and stylized set of social mores express the basic interactions will work, so this could mean a nightclub, a queue outside the velvet rope of a nightclub, a park during the day, a classroom, lunch at a cafe, etc.

How many maps will there be?

I don’t know yet, but hopefully lots. I’m still focusing on the core game loop, and I haven’t run out of gameplay depth there without having to resort to making more maps, so I’m going to keep digging. I have done two more maps as an experiment to see how it changes the gameplay and that’s been successful in playtests, but I’m not going to focus on map building right now, since it’s a lot easier to build maps than getting the core design solid, so I’m not worried about it as a risk.

How many missions will there be?

Again, hopefully a lot. There are 6 right now (Bug Ambassador, Swap Statue, Transfer Microfilm, Contact Double Agent, Inspect Statues, and Seduce Target), and a couple more that are partially implemented (Steal Plans and Poison Drink). I tend to do new missions to explore completely new types of tells, like trying out an audio tell, or figuring out if the Sniper can perceive when two people at the party are spending a lot of time together. There are three main categories of tells: 1) hard tells, which are when a character plays an animation no NPC will play, and if it is seen, identifies him or her as the Spy, 2) soft tells, which allow the Sniper to reduce the number of suspects, but not positively identify the Spy, and 3) behavioral tells, which are cues like “that character is acting funny” but that don’t have any specific indentifying characteristics. The space of these tells is a very large design space to explore, so I’m confident I’ll be able to add many missions that are completely different from each other.

Will the Sniper be able to do anything else besides observe the party?

Yes, that is the plan, although I’ve been surprised by how much gameplay there is in just trying to perceive without have any other verbs available. But, the plan is to add things like the Sniper can control a video camera to record areas of the party that are offscreen, but rewinding and playing back the tape takes attention, and the Spy knows when you’re doing it, and having the Sniper be able to ask the Security Guard to take someone aside and ask them questions from their dossier. Both the Spy and the Sniper need to know the correct answers, of course. And, to make it more ludicrous, the Spy could choose to be the Security Guard, so the Sniper can’t even trust that character.

Can the Sniper influence the Spy and/or partygoers?

Right now the only feedback is the laser sight, which definitely influences the Spy’s behavior. In fact, a great “newb test” is to just aim the laser at each character’s head and see which one starts moving—that’s usually the newbie Spy. In the future, I hope to have lots of ways for the Sniper to influence the party, including deciding when it’s time to serve dinner, when the musical act goes on stage, dimming the lights, etc.

How many characters will there be?

I don’t know for sure yet, but I have the number 30 floating around in my head. The game is basically unplayable for a single Sniper with 30 partygoers in a room simultaneously, though, because there’s just too much visual information flooding the screen, but of course each map uses a different number of characters, and eventually there will be modes with multiple Snipers. I have a list of 50 or 70 “spy fiction archetypes” that would be hilarious as SpyParty characters, so it’ll just depend on time, resources, and art direction which ones make it in.

Will each character have different behaviors? What about genders, races, ages, etc.?

I hope to have different behaviors for all the the characters and characteristics, but this is a stretch goal. I would really like it if the General would “chase skirts” and “drink too much”, and the Mad Scientist would “alienate people in conversations”, and both the Spy and the Sniper would have to learn these behaviors to get good at the game. This makes the game deeper, but even more complicated, and it’s a lot of programming, debugging, and animating, so I’ll have to see how it goes.

How can the Spy see the laser sight but no one else at the party can?

The Spy is wearing infrared sensitive contact lenses. Duh.

Will the Spy be able to make distractions?

Yes, although none are in yet. Spilling a drink on somebody, or asking the Double Agent to spill a drink on somebody are obvious candidates. Making the stereo system start smoking, turning off the lights, drawing the blinds, the list goes on and on.

Will there be a Spectator mode?

Definitely. SpyParty is almost as much fun to watch as it is to play.

Will there be a single-player mode?

Yes, although it remains to be seen what form it will take. There are three levels of single-player: 1) tutorial – I obviously have to have a good tutorial since the game is so different; 2) practice – I want the game to be skill based, so players need to be able to practice on their own; 3) campaign – this is like StarCraft II’s single-player relative to its multiplayer. Obviously all three would be great, but man, I want to ship this game before the heat death of the universe.

Will there be LAN support? Spawned copies? Can I run my own dedicated server?

Hopefully, yes to all these questions. I found this post called An FPS Server guide for developers that I’ll also try to follow, although man, some of that stuff is a lot of work. The game is at its best when played by two people in the same room with their laptops back-to-back, trash talking over the screens, so I definitely want to make that play style possible for people who have the hardware to pull it off.

What is the art/music style going to be? Will it be stylized or realistic?

Definitely stylized, not only because it’s an indie game and even big budget games fall into the Uncanny Valley when they try to do realism, but also because I think it suits the design better. Spy fiction is always absurd and exaggerated and stylish. That said, I don’t know what the aesthetic will be yet. Retro? Modern? Timeless? I don’t know yet! This post has a lot of visual inspirations, and feel free to add suggestions to the comments there.

What about dialog?

It’s a stretch goal due to time and cost, but I would love to have voice acting in the game. More on that later.

What about plot, or campaigns?

For single player, this remains to be seen, as I say above. For multiplayer, the current plan is to do it kind of like Left 4 Dead, where there’s a loose fictional arc to a given multiplayer session, that gives a sense of progression but without any kind of heavy-weight plot.

Will I be able to play with the current prototype graphics?

Really, I get this question a lot! The answer is probably ‘no’, simply because it would take a ton of work to keep them functioning once they’ve been replaced, since all the animations and skeletons will be changed, but then again, the new Monkey Island on XBLA apparently lets you switch between the old and new art, so I guess I’d possible. Of course, that’s a 2D sprite game, so it’s a different level of complexity. However, I really want to encourage developers to make more games with normal people, rather than aliens and orcs, so I’m thinking about how I could open-source the current assets as a “normal people game engine” so other indies could play around with a bunch of animated characters. Too early to say whether that will work, but it would be cool if it does.

Banana Bread.

Indeed.

If the game is hard core player-skill, how will new players not just get owned? Will I have to read a manual when the game is released?

Right now, I’m doing the Depth-first, Accessibility-later development methodology, which is why you need to read a manual to play. After I nail the depth, then I’ll work on the accessibility. There will be a tutorial and a mentoring system and ranking and matchmaking and all that stuff. But, I secretly hope there will also be a manual, and if you read it, you’ll do better. Maybe I’m just old fashioned that way.

I’ve heard you have a mechanic like Gears of War’s Active Reload, doesn’t that detract from the psychological skill and make the game more about twitch skills?

I call it an Action Test, and no, it didn’t, thankfully! It’s different in a couple of important ways, but the core idea is definitely stolen directly from Gears. This post and its comments talk about these issues, and this post has the results of the Action Test playtest.

What language is SpyParty written in? What engine do you use? What’s your development environment?

SpyParty is mostly custom C++ written by me. I use OpenGL for low level rendering, a modified libjingle for networking, and I’m currently using an open source animation library called Cal3D that I’ve heavily hacked up, but it’s not very good, so I’m going to rewrite it from scratch soon, since achieving high quality character animation is such a vital technology for SpyParty. I talk a bit about the game’s custom AI system in this lecture. I use GNU Emacs for editing code, and Visual C++ for compiling and debugging.

What kind of animations will SpyParty use?

Animations are critical for both the visual aesthetics and style of SpyParty, but also for the gameplay, so the core of every animation is going to be done by hand, and then there’ll be some light procedural “touch up” done. An example would be picking up a statue…there will be a custom animation done for this motion (and maybe even custom per-character!), and then there will be an Inverse Kinematics system that warps the animation’s target to the statue’s current position relative to the character. This is important for making the character actually grab the statue, but it’s also important for the animation system to be able to deal with misaligned characters. Normal games would just have the NPCs always register themselves properly relative to the statue, but SpyParty has to deal with the Spy player not aligning correctly, and so I also have to have the NPCs not align correctly so the Spy isn’t the only one messing up, which would be a recipe for getting shot.

What are your inspirations for SpyParty?

Game-wise, there are a bunch. Counter-Strike is a huge influence on the player-skill depth and multiplayer community aspects of the game. I played a lot of Left 4 Dead to “research” asymmetric multiplayer games, and I came up with my mentoring plans for SpyParty while playing L4D pubbie pickup games. The Sims is obviously influential in terms of it being one of the only other games about people in a room, talking. More games need to explore this human scale level of interaction. Similarly, Ico shows you can have a very simple mechanic (calling and holding hands), with very simple animations and AI, and very simple controls (push a button to call the Princess) and you can get an immense amount of expressivity and emotion out of it—you don’t have to have a million polygons per-character and solve the Strong AI problem, you just need to be smart about your affordances and feedback. Go, the board game, is the most beautiful game ever created, and also maybe the deepest, so it’s a huge inspiration. Poker is another beautiful and deep game, and the bluffing and psychology aspects are directly relevant to SpyParty. Frank Lantz gave a great GDC talk about Go and Poker you should watch if you’re interested in these games. A big inspiration for the game, and in fact, in some sense the “prequel”, is Thatcher Ulrich’s Indie Game Jam 0 game, Dueling Machine. At IGJ3 I was trying to figure out what a more intimate version of Dueling Machine would be, and came up with the Inverse Turing Test idea, and then the Spy fiction, and then it basically designed itself from there!

What are your aesthetic goals for the game?

I’m interested in exploring a number of themes with SpyParty‘s gameplay. Here’s a list from a recent lecture I gave:

  • perception vs. deception & performance
  • attention as a resource
  • consequential decisions with partial information
  • deduction vs. intuition
  • analysis paralysis vs. extinct by instinct
  • extreme asymmetry
  • intense focus on player-skills about subtle human behavior

By the way, I think all game FAQs should be required to answer this question.

How did you name the game? What about the poor Sniper, doesn’t he or she feel left out?

I struggled with the name a fair amount, but at the end of the day, “SpyParty” is punchy, and gets across the vibe of the game, makes you wonder what it’s about, and is unique (well, there are a lot of people throwing spy themed birthday parties for their kids out there, but I finally have them beat on google :). I think names serve a lot of different masters, and being descriptive is one of them, but it’s fairly low on the list compared to being memorable and making people wonder about it. The game was originally called SniperParty, but that set the wrong tone, I think. I also think of both the Spy and the Sniper as spies, fictionally. They just got different assignments!

How many people work on SpyParty? Are you hiring?

It’s currently just me, Chris Hecker, and the amazing artist John Cimino. You can read more about me on my personal site, which is composed mostly of my technical game development writing. I’ve also had some awesome help here and there from various friends (especially Ian and Paul, my elite playtesters, and Ocean Quigley, my friend and rock climbing partner). I am not really looking for more people right now. With AAA indie games, it’s really important to keep your burn-rate as low as possible to give yourself enough time to get the gameplay exactly right.

Will there be any kind of User Generated Content, or customization, or XBox Live Avatar support, etc.?

It’s unclear right now. Customization is hard with this design, because obviously if you have a purple hat, you can’t just wear it, or else you’re going to get shot pretty quick. I think the Avatars design here is to have the party composed of your and all your friend’s avatars, and then you pick one. We’ll see, I’m not worrying about this right now.

Can I put on a SpyParty LARP?

Sure! There have been a few, and I’m going to post a list of the ones I know about at some point. People find it challenging to get the players playing the NPCs to “act normal”, apparently. Let me know how you solve that problem!

Can I live stream and post and monetize videos of SpyParty?

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes, please do! I, Chris Hecker, the creator of SpyParty give you permission to stream the game, post videos of the game on the internet, monetize those videos, make animated gifs of the game, or whatever. I actually think it’s pretty messed up that I need to give explicit permission for this, but that’s a rant about copyright law that’ll have to come in a different post, so for now, consider yourself permitted. If you need even more permission than this, post a comment and I’ll update this entry.

Will I be able to get a Steam code when it’s on Steam if I pay for the beta now, and what about redeeming it on consoles too?

Unless Valve has a massive policy change, I’ll be able to give you Steam keys no problem, that’s definitely the plan. I am planning on asking the console folks, but I don’t know of any case where they’ve done that before, sadly. We’ll have to see about that.

  1. I sometimes use the phrase “e-sports level player-skills”, but some people really hate the word “e-sports”. I actually agree it’s a dumb and problematic word, but it’s also a succinct word that gets the point across in terms of being clear about the difference between a game designed merely for people to battle for fun, versus a game that’s intended to have serious competitive levels of balance, where player-skills are dominant over randomness or items or avatar-skills. []

329 Comments

  1. Mikeonator says:

    Its 2016, and the last time you talked about spawned copies was 2015, so I wanted to check if you’d fixed that

  2. Chase says:

    How do I do that?

    • checker says:

      Hmm, how do you do what? Wait, I found your other post…send mail to support at spyparty dot com and we’ll figure it out!

  3. baoacoma says:

    Payed for beta, but doesnt work on my laptop
    possible to cancel the payment?

    • checker says:

      Hi, I can definitely give you a refund, or we can try to get it working. Either way, send mail to support at spyparty dot com. I’ll mail you from there as well.

  4. Jared says:

    Would it be possible for me to share an account with a friend so we could play together without having him buy the game himself? like i have two computers in the same room.

    • checker says:

      Not yet; eventually I’m going to support “spawn copies”, which will give you an extra account that lets you play against your main account for loaning to friends, but for right now you’ll need two copies.

  5. SapientWolf says:

    Couldn’t you add multi monitor support?

    • checker says:

      I assume you mean for multiple players? Yeah, that’s also in the plan, and actually I’ve got some code in there started for this, but I figure the spawn copies thing is a little more generally useful because I don’t think everybody has multiple monitors. But yes, hopefully both!

  6. Witax says:

    Hi. Can I pay a different payment card than PayPal? And when I pay, how and when can I start playing?

    • checker says:

      Hi, right now I only support PayPal (and its credit card processing), but I’ll be adding Amazon payments and Stripe as well hopefully around the first of the year. You can start playing instantly after buying it, it’ll process your payment and it’ll take you to the next step in the registration.

  7. Witax says:

    Thank you for answer! I love SpyParty, great work!

  8. Rormo says:

    Hello. I didn’t read everything, but i’d like to ask if i can play it only with friends or can i play it with random people?

    • checker says:

      Right now there’s a lobby and you can play it with anybody you invite (friends or anybody else in the friendly community). I’m adding matchmaking so you can just get a game if you want, but the lobby will always be there.

  9. AitchKay says:

    Are copies tied to your email address, so if I wanted to gift someone a copy would I need to use their email?

    • checker says:

      Yeah, you enter their address and then when it goes to paypal you pay, but don’t continue to register after that…they’ll get the confirmation mail (and probably be slightly confused since it doesn’t mention gifts at all, so you might want to give them a heads-up). It’s clunky but it works! Send mail to support if you have problems!

    • AitchKay says:

      All good. They got the game just fine. Just a little unintuitive.

    • checker says:

      Awesome! Yeah, I will make a checkbox that sends a slightly different email at least. :)

  10. Hulkamaniac says:

    How can you reset your password because I forgot mine

    • checker says:

      If you go to the beta page (linked from spyparty.com) there’ll be a Forgot password? link on the login screen.

  11. Helgrave says:

    I hunted around the website, but haven’t seen a solid answer anywhere. Apologies if I’m blind and just missed it.
    Now that the game will be coming to Steam, how can we request Steam keys if we’ve purchased it directly from the website?

    Thank you for your time and all your work in this game!!

    • checker says:

      Hi, I’ll be sending out email and posting here on the blog and twitter and facebook and whatnot with how it’ll work. It’ll be pretty easy, but you should check your beta login and your registered email are up to date. Not sure when it’ll happen but sometime very soon. :)

  12. Rodrigo says:

    If I get the beta, am I gonna be able to play it on Xbox if released? Can I play on differents devices (not at the same time)?

  13. Taryn says:

    Okaay, so I just paid for the game and I have not gotten an email about anything. Is this a game I have to download?? I also don’t see an option to sign up for the beta just an option to log in. How am I supposed to log in if I don’t even have an account! I’ve watched many people play this game on twitch and have heard lots of great things about it. Can’t wait to play!!

    • checker says:

      Normally you should mail support at spyparty dot com for this, but I see you have a yahoo address and I’m currently having issues delivering to yahoo, so I hope it’ll be resolved soon! Sorry for the trouble!

  14. EmilP says:

    I bought a game trought another email address and a few weeks ago I changed email address to a new one. Will I recieve the game on Steam ?

    • checker says:

      Yeah, if your email is up-to-date then you’ll get it, just make sure you can log into the beta homepage and check the upper left hand corner of the page!

  15. ragingJEDMAN says:

    I purchased the game through Steam and did not get an option to set my user ID, so as of now I am represented by a series of numbers. Is there an option I’m missing or is this not going to be available until later/at all?

  16. Paavo says:

    How can you make a New Spyparty.com account? just says “wrong password/username” everytime. If you choose the Steam account your name will be 4897528975289457289475893457894758934/steam. I would like to have a real name.

  17. KV says:

    Hey, I purchased this game for me and my girl.
    SpyParty opens in my dock, but the game doesn’t show up. The icon is of Wineskin.
    Any solution?
    Purchased on steam for clarification

    • checker says:

      Hi, I’ll mail you from support, but so everybody can see…the MacOS package should have been disabled because it wasn’t ready, I thought I turned it all off in Steam’s backend but I guess I missed stuff. The best thing for Mac users is to buy it here on spyparty.com and use the official MacOS installer zip, and I’ll have it working on Steam for MacOS at some point soon.

  18. Summer says:

    I bought the game right from Steam. Is there a way I can change my username so it isn’t just random numbers? 
    I tried logging into the beta homepage but it says I don’t have a spy party account. 

  19. Kaitlyn says:

    Hello! I was wondering if there is a in game function where you can play your friends, one as the spy and your friend as the sniper or if it is only random online players. Game looks like a lot of fun to play with friends!

    • checker says:

      There’s a lobby and you can meet your friends there, or play strangers, and soon there’ll be matchmaking so you don’t even have to invite people, you’ll just get an endless stream of SpyParty games. :) But the lobby will still be there with rooms for meeting friends!

  20. Kim says:

    Hi, I wrote to support (support at spyparty dot com) about I bought multible copies but haven’t got any response ?

    • checker says:

      Hi, I haven’t gotten an email at support from your email address, could you try sending it again?

  21. Praveer says:

    Hi,
    I wanted to gift this game to a friend (I already own the game on steam). I would usually use steam’s gifting feature but I can’t in this case due to steam not allowing me to gift due to large price difference between mine and my friend’s region. So I thought I could purchase it here and then give my friend a key but apparently it works very differently here as one has to make an account here and then link it to steam. Unfortunately I made an account registered to my own email address and as such I can’t gift it to my friend anymore, and since I already have the game on steam this copy has become useless to me. So could you either provide me with a steam key to use, or issue me a refund? Whichever is possible.

    Thanks.

  22. Praveer says:

    Hi, I mailed you at support with the title regarding steam gifting and key.

  23. Mark says:

    Hi, I own the game on steam, but it want me to get some spyparty account or what. Do you know what to do?

  24. Brendan says:

    Any chances for spy party to PS4?

  25. Witax says:

    Hi! I have questions :) If I buy SpyParty on Steam, where can I find a code? I haven’t bought anything on Steam yet :D And how can I set up my nickname in the game? Thank you for your answer!

    • checker says:

      Hi, if you buy it here on spyparty.com you’ll be able to link your account to Steam and the game will show up there. It’s in the upper left corner of your beta homepage. If you buy it on Steam then I’m working on an update that will let your Steam Name show in the lobby, and I’ll have steam->spyparty.com linking working soon.

    • Witax says:

      Okay. So If I buy it on Steam, I will not have my nickname or I’ll have nickname from spyparty.com?

    • checker says:

      If you want a persistent nickname right now, but it here on spyparty.com. Plus you’ll get forums access, and you’ll get it in your steam library when you link it. If you’d rather buy it on steam (because of regional pricing or something), then you won’t have a nickname for a couple more days, and even then it will not be persistent and you won’t have spyparty.com forums access for a bit because I don’t have that working. So, it’s better to buy it here unless there’s a price difference right now. Hopefully I’ll have all the issues ironed out soon.

    • Witax says:

      Okay, thank you for your time!

    • Witax says:

      Oh, sorry, I forgot… Can I buy SpyParty from official website another way than PayPal?

    • checker says:

      Ah, no, just paypal right now, sorry! But paypal supports most credit cards, you don’t need an account, if that helps.

  26. Witax says:

    So, it support MasterCard, right? But I have tried it yet and it doesn’t work for me. I’m from Czech Republic but I don’t know if it support debit cards from Czech Republic. Don’t you know? If no, I must buy it on Steam. Thank you for answer.

  27. Psycho says:

    New additions to the line-up ‘Celebrity Sniper’ – no, they do not get to be guests. They are the prey. Tags/missions are to seek out the ‘targeted’ celebrity
    (worldwide canvas). Another add-on would be ‘Political Activist’ set in DC (of course) and you can select which ‘target’ you wish (excluding the current President as that would get the SS involved in so many ways…). Of course previous political adversaries would be target-able. So, what do you say? Want to knock off an out-spoken figurehead or a political nightmare… Code it know as millions could be made.

    Disclaimer: This is a theoretical discussion upon which no one has been targeted. Any inference to real life scenarios is not implied. Game play indicated is solely for entertainment purposes and does not constitute any threat toward a real person.

  28. rormo says:

    hello, i’d like to ask if there is matchmaking already?

    • checker says:

      Hi, not yet! I’m working on a server update and then I’ll get to it…this summer for sure!

  29. Trey says:

    Hey man, Any news on the Spawn copies? People have been asking since 2016. I cant justify buying 2 copies just so i can play with a friend.

    • checker says:

      No news yet. They’re still in the plan, just not sure when. There is some subtle stuff about them I need to figure out. Sorry I’m so slow!

  30. Alen Whiskey says:

    When you do get around to it — I’m curious about whether you intend to make it so that players who *currently own* a copy of SpyParty can gift another copy to someone else? I’d really like to buy the game for myself and a friend, but I live in australia so the price is $70 for both copies.

  31. Alen Whiskey says:

    Alright, thanks! Will definitely keep an eye on the game’s progress. It’s pretty amazing what you have achieved in its lifetime, especially as an independent dev. :) keep at it!

  32. SHEEPKINS says:

    Hello. I wanna ask, can u give me a steam key, for to stream on twitch and youtube^)
    My email is below) Sry for writing here…couldnt find ur email((

    • checker says:

      You can send mail to support at spyparty dot com and I’ll check it out later when I’m ready to give out promo accounts.

  33. Asher says:

    Not sure why, but whenever i start up spy party and try to login for multiplayer, it doesnt ever work.

  34. Mac Li says:

    There is a warcraft 3 map called “assassin” Are basically a top-down view spyparty in a town with multiple classes. Super cool. Worth checking out.

  35. thesimsmods says:

    Hey man,
    Any news on the Spawn copies?
    People have been asking since 2016. I cant justify buying 2 copies just so i can play with a friend.

    • checker says:

      No news yet, and sorry it’s taking so long! I’ll definitely post about it when it’s coming!

    • tburke4071 says:

      Hey man would super appreciate the spawn copies. I know you said they were coming, any idea when we can expect that feature to be built in. That would be awesome and definitely the reason I got the game :)

    • checker says:

      I still don’t have an ETA, sorry about that. I’m obviously taking forever on this thing. All I can say for sure is it’ll be cool when it arrives, but I don’t know when that’s going to be. I’m going to try to get more regular with updates next year but I’ve said that before and failed, so I don’t want to promise anything!

  36. So, it support MasterCard, right? But I have tried it yet and it doesn’t work for me. I’m from Czech Republic but I don’t know if it support debit cards from Czech Republic. Don’t you know? If no, I must buy it on Steam. Thank you for answer.

    • checker says:

      It should, but it’s up to PayPal and they handle things differently in different countries… I’ve thought about supporting xsolla as well because their international support is supposed to be good, but they’ve got some issues as well.

  37. Arman says:

    Can you give us a release date for Xbox one?

    • checker says:

      No, and I’m terrible with hitting dates so you shouldn’t believe me if I did give you one! I definitely want to put it on consoles though!

  38. tella says:

    Hi can you please, please, please, do another matchmaking system ? Cause actuelle, by example, only 7 peoples are online … 4 aways … 2 playing and one spectate …

    i just buy the game yesterday, but cause of that, i don’t want any of my friend buy this game :( cause you can’t have fun in “solo” mod

    thanks for your understanding

    • checker says:

      Hi, yeah, I’m working on the matchmaking system and it will hopefully help massively shorten the time to find games! I have high hopes for it!

  39. Blawal says:

    Hey Chris, I really want to play the game with my brother (we live in the same house). However, buying 2 copies of the same game is pricey for me. Since you’re not sure when we’ll have access to spawn copies, would it be possible to get a discount? Also, my second computer is an older model so in case it doesn’t work, would I be able to get a refund? 

    • checker says:

      Hi, we don’t currently have a discount unfortunately. You can definitely get a refund if the game doesn’t work on your machine, though! It should run on pretty old hardware, I develop it on an ancient laptop to keep myself honest.

  40. Allen says:

    Hi! I am having a weird problem. So I bought this game for a friend awhile back (almost 2 years ago) and his computer couldn’t handle the game at the time. He has a better pc and we remembered this game. So we both transferred our copies to steam. However, if he logs on the game, he is logged on as my name, and I can’t login because i get the “duplicate login” message. So he logged out (on his steam account) and then I can log in. So when he re logged on his account, he now gets the “duplicate login” message. How did we both get the same name on two different steam accounts?

    • checker says:

      Hmm, that is weird. Can you both try launching the game, going to Settings, and Account Management, and check Clear Credentials on Exit? Then restart the game. If that doesn’t fix it, send me mail at support at spyparty dot com.

  41. kinetic says:

    What major features do you want to implement next?

    • checker says:

      I’m working on a long-overdue bugfix build and then I’m going to do “No Wait Matchmaking” where you’ll be able to get a game instantly, backfilling with replay sniping if there aren’t available games. Should be cool.

  42. ane says:

    Will you put the Mac version on Steam as well at some point?
    Also, do you have an estimated time/year that you’ll hope to release the full game on?
    Last note: really cool game!

    • checker says:

      Yeah, once I get either the native MacOS version working, or get a robust version using Wine that I can link to Steam, I’ll put it up. If you want to run the Steam version on MacOS a player figured out how to do it with a bit of messing around: https://spyparty.fandom.com/wiki/MacOS_HOWTO

      I have no idea when I’ll release the full game, and even if I did, I wouldn’t trust me, I’m so bad at dates. :) Glad you like it!

I have temporarily disabled blog comments due to spammers, come join us on the SpyParty Discord if you have questions or comments!