Rock, Paper, Shotgun

SpyParty remains one of the most fascinating propositions in indie gaming, but it’s perhaps not all that clear from the outside how the game plays out. Fortunately for the SpyParty-oblivious, Indiegames have spotted that Mr Hecker has posted a tutorial video for his early-access beta folk, and that gives us a good impression of the game’s systems, as well as an idea of how to play. Go take a look, below!
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Chris Hecker has posted over on the SpyParty blog to explain his early-access beta pricing for the game of spy-spotting. “$15 gets you access to the beta SpyParty and all the updates during the beta, access to the private beta website, which includes forums for announcements, finding games, and discussing strategies, and eventually a bug/feature tracking system,” says Hecker. He’s also allow the truly excited to pay more on top of that if they really want to support the project.

Hecker also confirms that he’ll probably miss the “mid-June” launch date for this beta, but he’s busy working ahead on it anyway, and there should be more news soon.

Andy “Monaco” Schatz’s cat is being slowly broiled alive. It crawled behind the oven, which was in the process of cooking Macaroni & Cheese. It’s only later that Andy’s Delightful Wife is alerted by the frantic yelping of a distressed pussycat. We’re about to play SpyParty at my hotel room when the alert comes through, leading to a frantic cross-San Diego dash to try and rescue the pipping-hot cat from its furnace-crammed state. The Andy is trying to get his landlord on the phone, to see if there’s any reason why they can’t just pull the oven around. He’s failed. Meanwhile, Spy-Party-dev Chris Hecker is insisting that it’ll be fine, and we should just act immediately heft the cooker to release it. Let’s do this thing! We do this thing, and the cat runs free.

I’m not sure this is a metaphor about Chris’s position in the industry or SpyParty or how he’s a man capable of making hard decisions swiftly, but it was too good not to share. And I wanted something to separate this initial report of SpyParty from all the other pieces online, because I’m basically going to echo what they all said. This is looking like something genuinely startling.
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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.