It can get particularly nerve wracking for both sides at times.
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. 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. 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. 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. As the sniper, you’re able to pan your view around the level and you have a single shot to take out your target. 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 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”. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.”
Fast forward nearly ten years later and lo and behold, the game is officially out on Steam early access. 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.
The year is 2009, the location is GDC and an interesting multiplayer game called SpyParty has just been revealed.
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