By Kieron Gillen on March 26th, 2010 at 9:50 am.
I’ve wanted to write about SpyParty for a week now, since Destructoid’s brilliant write-up. When Wired article’s followed the urge only got worse but… well, I’ve really got nothing else to add to the coverage, as I haven’t played it. So I’ll just point you there. Read both pieces and get excited. It’s the every-controversial Ex-Maxis’ Chris Hecker’s indie game of competitive asymmetrical multiplayer. One player is a spy, trying to perform set tasks at a party. The other is a sniper, with a single bullet, who has to shoot the spy. Pure battle of wits stuff here, and seems totally fascinating. It’s a couple of years away, at least in part due to a major general aesthetic upgrade, but we’ll be watching it. Closely. Trying to work out if it’s a spy.
Like ‘The Ship’ filtered through purifying idea-rock?
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The Ship – Occam Remix
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Ze Engineer Iz A Spy!
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This reminds me of one of the Indie Game Jam games from way back when. This place was filled with millions or whatever of Doom sprites and you had one bullet and you had to shoot the unique guy.
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Lol. Good memory, because after reading a bit about the game now, that is exactly the game that inspired Chris Hecker in this project. Great minds…
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@Donkeydeathtasticelastic
Hopefully in this one you don’t have to identify the bad guy by sonar!
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The biggest pitfall here, in my opinion, will be how hard it is for the sniper to hit their intended target. I can’t imagine anything more frustrating than carefully picking out which person is the spy, watching him make a handover, taking my shot, and accidentally potting the ambassador’s wife.
(Damned Turkish embassy. Damned trade negotiations.Damned Turkish secret police.)
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Spoi arrahnd ‘ere!
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This. I have been saying for years that if Hitman was multiplayer, this is what it would be. I am glad this exists.
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I would give a kidney for hitman coop though.
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I’m going to soundtrack this with Portishead’s To Kill A Dead Man, I think.
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And will definitely be wearing a black polo neck with a black leather jacket when playing the assassin.
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I have a feeling from one of the writeups that I read, that once you select your target as the sniper, the shot never misses.
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This was posted on the forums a few days ago, so I’ll just reiterate what I said there.
This sounds awesome. I love the idea of a very small scale multiplayer and the personal battle between the spy and the sniper. The tension in this must be unbelievable. Definitely be keeping an eye on this one.
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Sounds very much like The Ship in the sense of pretending to be AI controlled in certain gamemodes to avoid getting killed.
(Edit via forum – what happened to the edit button?) Note that I only played The Ship during it’s early mod days. I have no idea how much they refined it once going paid for.
Free (bad) Games || Mountainbiking Videos || Gaming Videos
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YOUR TIMEFRAME IS SLIPPING, 47
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I miss you, too 47. Won’t you please come back to us? :(
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I have to admit, this sounds a bit naff for multi player. Does the sniper just sit there for 10 minutes waiting for the other guy to do the hardest (most obvious) task? Does the spy spend 10 minutes just walking back and forth trying to pretend to be as glitchy as the rest of the AI? The whole thing just seems too limited on its own, which is a shame as I love the idea of multiplayer sneaky spying. Perhaps closer to the style of The Ship with multiple couples going at it (ooh er) where the assassin is also trying to avoid detection and is also being hunted,
This to me sounds like it would work better in single player a la Sniper Assassin http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/412273
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Much like others, this made me think of The Ship. Which is cool until I consider that no one plays The Ship anymore. :(
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I read “ex Maxis’” as “ex Maxim’”. Didn’t really change what I thought but hey, it definitely happened.
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It made me think of Werewolf / Mafia, but I never did have a proper got at The Ship for some reason.
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I played the ship during a free weekend… thought it was quite good, but only really fun when you were up against opponents that knew what they were doing. This does seem alot like it, in a way… a novel multiplayer mechanic, a battle of ‘wits’ almost, rather than shooty skills.
Is interesting, and I will keep an eye on this one.
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Crane, from what I have gathered, there is a sort of lock-on system to prevent that. I think they’ll try to make the actual sniping as simple as they can, since the aim of the game is to identify the spy, rather than be a crack-shot.
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Yeah, sorry, but The Ship was quite fun and complex, and I can’t imagine this could top it.
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I can’t see how it will work unless there are human playing the “innocents” as well.
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I don’t want to wait for two years just for something as irrelevant as graphics!
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It’s a simple but brilliant idea and can easily be expanded (although it seems as though it would be far easier to expand the game for the spy than for the sniper). The same concept could also be used with different roles. You could have a guard looking out for a thief, a warden making sure no prisoner tries to escape, some scientist monitoring his androids in case they start thinking for themselves and go rogue… and so on.
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Man, the Ship was ace. Extremely ace. If this is as good as that – hell, if it’s half as good, it’s worth checking out.
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About the sniping issue, I read in one write up that a player always tried to maintain behind the AI people, so that even if he was indentified the assassin could still lose the game by sniping the wrong person.
So definetely not locked it seems, but I doubt it will be much of an issue.
Seems great. hope there will be some early demo.
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This game reminds me of Gravity Bone and The Ship
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Seems like you guys should revive a Ship server.
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It would suit you well to read the articles before you comment. That way you will find out how the game actually plays.
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Yeah, these here comments work perfectly – *especially* the reply button.
Well, my above comment is for everyone who comments without knowing what the game is about. For now that would be Torgen and Bhazor.
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Yeah – I love the concept and really want to try it… but it seems very much like something that about 17 people total might be interested in playing.
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This does remind of The Ship, but by the time I got around to buying that game, there was only one server up, in which people ran around killing each other deathmatch style. I feel robbed of a unique gameplay experience. Hopefully this game turns out better. It sure seems like it will.
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Unfortunately not many gamers like to ‘think’ when they play online games. So as much as I love the sound of this game, I have a feeling it will not be played by many. The few that do play the game will be very good at it and will just scare off new people by being too good at the game.
To be honest that is what happens to many many phenomenal MODs. Games/mods with small player bases tend to be very unbalanced since there aren’t enough people to level the skill/wits factor involved. Here’s to hoping that I am wrong with this one though :)
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I think we all have our beloved games that have much to few players in respect to there qualities, that being so, I guess there is a realistic chance that this game will not get the attention it deserves.
However, I think the Indie scene is increasingly growing so I have high hopes.
I do hope that the game will pull of the sense that it is really a battle between too brains, without too much issues about APM, “built orders” (for lack of a better word in this game), units knowledge etc.
In short, that anyone can conclude a near optimal gameplan after 10 games.
Meaning that after 10 games you have all the knowledge presented to you that is available and it’s up to you too conclude out of this knowledge the best action against your particular opponent.
If it can do that, I think this game will go very far.
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So, I’m not quite sure.
If you finish all your tasks as the spy, do you win?
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Thanks very much for sharing.
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