Game: Spy

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Carrotteer — 2008-06-29T20:12:32+00:00

Spy inside of the box

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Carrotteer — 2008-06-29T20:11:01+00:00

Spy boxback of dutch edition by 999 Games

Thread: Re: A Bite-Size Review

MisterCranky — 2008-05-28T17:59:10+00:00

Okay, somebody has to come here and lend some support for the idea that this game is a stinker of the highest order. If I want a diversion that requires almost no mental aptitude of any kind, I will just participate in the Chit Chat forum, which, thankfully, is free of charge. I was not happy to have spent actual money on this game. And that's coming from somebody who throws his money at games featuring wind-up toy zombies, electronic machines that don't stop talking even after they've sat in a games closet for five years, etc., etc.

Thread: Re: Discarded cards

ryanmaesen — 2008-04-22T21:29:40+00:00

Thank you both very much!!

Thread: Re: Discarded cards

Spielguy — 2008-04-22T17:23:43+00:00

It is correct that the hidden cards in your hand will not get above three.

The cards you put down on the table are really an open extension of your hand. You can build those up until you decide to play the meld. The meld can be made from open cards in front of you and/or hidden cards in your hand. The meld cards are then discarded.

Thread: Re: Discarded cards

ryanmaesen — 2008-04-22T15:51:30+00:00

Thanks! I was laying in bed reading the rules before I went to bed. For such a short booklet of rules, it could've been written better.

So, I'm sure we will try to play again tonight, but let me get this straight...

At any time, whenever you have 3 cards in your hand, you must put at least one card down in front of you. So your hand size never gets to be more than 3?

Thread: Re: Discarded cards

Spielguy — 2008-04-22T15:02:49+00:00

You discard immediately which adds an element of push your luck to the game. If you continue to collect cards of a certain type you will be able to place more spies on the cards when you do play the meld. Unless your opponent plays the same meld first, then your cards are much less effective.

Thread: Re: Discarded cards

snoozefest — 2008-04-22T10:04:31+00:00

Discard immediately -- it would be awfully easy if you got to build on your previous melds!

Thread: Discarded cards

ryanmaesen — 2008-04-22T05:34:43+00:00

Can someone explain when you throw cards into the discard stack? We played our first (2 player)game tonight and had some confusion with the rule book. I know we're doing something wrong. Once you've dropped a certain amount of cards and gotten your spies on the target area, do you discard you "meld" into the discard stack, or do they stay in front of you to add onto more and more as the game progresses?

What are we doing wrong?

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Me 262 Schwalbe — 2008-04-09T20:14:51+00:00

Dutch edition boxcover

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Me 262 Schwalbe — 2008-04-09T20:02:35+00:00

Dutch box opened

Thread: Re: A Bite-Size Review

snoozefest — 2008-01-29T01:21:41+00:00

No problem

I'll have to try your play-fast strategy next time. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get this game to the table! Oh well, there are a lot of good games out there!

Thread: Re: A Bite-Size Review

Stormparkiet — 2008-01-22T17:16:50+00:00

Thanks for this extremely civilized reply snoozefest.

About the gameplay, we'll just have to agree to disagree! I tried the wait-a-little-longer tactic, but found that other people would just play their cards first, thereby nullifying the extra number of spies my waiting was going to gain me. Conclusion: just get rid of your spies as soon as you can. I won my first and third game like this (I suppose because the cards fell my way).

I suppose it all depends on what you're expecting from a game, and I agree with you about Battle Line being superior (from my point of view: far superior).

Game on.

Thread: Re: A Bite-Size Review

snoozefest — 2008-01-22T16:34:18+00:00

Thanks for the review. Given the relatively low rating this game currently has (although not as low as yours!), I think most people agree it's not one of RK's best efforts. However, I disagree: I think it's actually pretty good (not great -- I give it a 6). Addressing your points:

Components
I agree: Serviceable, decent quality; artwork is pretty boring, though.

Theme
Clearly, pasted on. That doesn't bother me much - the game plays very quickly - but it may be an issue for some.

Rules
The English rules are very easy to learn:
SETUP: Lay out the 6 continent and 6 tool cards in center of table, with 1 token on each. Divide the rest of the tokens amongst players evenly. Deal 3 cards/player (kept secret, in hand). The player to the left of the dealer begins play.
TURN (IN ORDER):
1. You MAY play a card (but if you have 3 cards you MUST play a card). Cards are played to your own play area, placed in groups according to the spy tool pictured.
2. You MAY "send spies on a mission" to one of the 12 cards in the center: discard cards (from your play area and/or your hand) that match the picture (either continent or spy tool) on one of the cards in the center; place a number of your tokens onto the target card equal to: (number of cards you gathered) minus (number of tokens already on the target card). You may conduct as many "missions" as you like.
3. Finally, draw a card from the draw deck. Play passes to the left.
GAME END: when a player places their last token = winner.

Gameplay
This is a light, fast game. There aren't deep strategic or tactical decisions, but there is tension and some decision-making: how far should you push your luck? which "mission" are the other players going to go for? when should you pull the trigger, NOW or wait to get a larger set of cards? Obviously there's luck-of-the-draw ... but it's a card game! I find this game to be more interesting and tense than the much-praised Lost Cities, which just seems to sort of putter along as you hope to draw the right card(s)! Battle Line is better than both, of course; but at least Spy can play with 3 or 4 people.

Clearly you're entitled to your opinion. But while I don't think this is a great game by any stretch of the imagination, I think it gets short shrift here.

Thread: A Bite-Size Review

Stormparkiet — 2008-01-22T11:53:21+00:00

]]>I was fortunate (?) enough to get the opportunity to try out one of Knizia’s bite-size games, Spy, while at a family visit. My non-gamer nieces got it as a present and were more than happy to leave the rules-reading and explaining to me. Which suits me fine, as I like reading the rules of a new game, and always seem to end up the one to do the explaining, even among seasoned gamers.

I played it 3 times, and deemed this largely sufficient for a short review.

Components

This game comes in a small box and consists basically of a deck of cards and some ‘spy’ chits. I don’t know about durability, but the graphics are nothing impressive. Very basic.

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Theme

This is not only a euro but a KNIZIA, and even for Herr Knizia the theme is very, very, very arbitrary. I think anyone with half an hour of free time could come up with a better one that at least did something with either set collecting, travel or both.

Rules

The version I used was in Dutch, so this may be different in other languages, but the rules were written in a way that made it very difficult to understand. This is really quite amazing, as the rules are really extremely simple. I suppose this was translated by someone who didn’t bother to try and understand what they were writing. Could have been much clearer with half the words.

Gameplay

This game has no tension, no interaction, no decision-making, and is decided by luck of the draw. Totally braindead.

I’ve seen comments about holding on to cards in order to make a larger profit, which seems to hint at some kind of strategy and decision-making, but I had to conclude that the best way to play is simply get rid of your spy chits when you can and hope you get the right cards before your opponents do. Maybe the hold-on-to-your-cards 'strategy' is a bit more viable in 2-player games, but not with 3 or 4 players.

Conclusion

This is a bad, bad game, the first game I gave a 3 rating (which is probably too generous still). If I were Reiner, I wouldn’t want my name on the box of this one.

It’s a pity to have to write such a harsh review, but there aren’t many reviews for this game and some were much too mild to my liking. I wouldn’t want anyone to make the mistake of buying this expecting they got a decent game.

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Randy Cox — 2007-10-26T13:04:54+00:00

Mid Game (with some cards played down as "on call") - no pics in system mid-play

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SoliDeoGloria — 2007-07-18T03:48:54+00:00

group cards by continent or by item

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ArtEmiSa64 — 2007-03-19T19:09:59+00:00

http://simplyfun.com/products/spy/

Thread: Re: Question about playing cards into your area

DougOrleans — 2007-01-07T08:34:44+00:00

The only reason I can tell is that it makes it easier for others to see what cards you have. In particular, the "tools" are harder to see than the colors, so it's better to organize them that way.

Thread: Question about playing cards into your area

Brad Oliver — 2007-01-07T01:46:33+00:00

The rules state that if you have 3 cards, you must drop one into your play area face-up, organized into columns by "tool".

When you build sets, you can build from any combination of cards in your hand or in front of you.

So here's the question: why must you play the cards into columns organized by tool if you can later pull them out in any old order to make sets? Why not just drop them in front of you in any order you see fit instead of in columns of tools?

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Shakar — 2005-08-02T15:41:20+00:00

Kosmos edition, back of the box (german)

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Shakar — 2005-08-02T15:41:19+00:00

Kosmos edition (german).

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Titan — 2005-07-29T12:32:49+00:00

Close up spy tokens

Thread: Session Report

bop517 — 2005-02-04T18:02:57+00:00

My wife and I decided to play a game of this after work while waiting for the pizza to be delivered. She wanted to play a short game that wasn't very intense. So, looking through the games, we decided on Spy over Lost Cities and Express.

The game started and I made the first move early in the game, tossing out a set of three on South America. My wife bid her time well, waiting to claim items with four cards. While she waited, I was getting some good cards and was able to whittle myself down to only four spies left (when she still had 7). WAM! She started to play her hands to where she was down to three and where I had to play four cards to get to three myself. She was waiting for a hat, and I knew that. But, because the last hand I played I used all my cards in my hand, I had to refill my hand (we play you have to refill your hand before you are able to claim - makes the decision of holding hidden cards in your hand a bit more tense). That was the killer for me as during that time and shortly after, she was able to get the cards she needed and went out.

As always, a fun, quick, tense game. I definately like this game with two players. Three, not so much. It has a good place in the collection.

Thread: Re:User Review

Alan Kwan — 2004-12-15T00:25:08+00:00

TomVasel (#49702),

Good review, Tom. Coincidentally, my wife loves this game also!

Thread: Re:User Review

Alan Kwan — 2004-11-12T05:03:18+00:00

rthornqu wrote:
If your opponent is the type that claims cards for only one spy every time, you probably want to claim the card quickly - before he has a chance to. If he is the kind to accumulate cards in an effort to grab as many spies as possible, then you may want to try to push your luck and get more cards.

An interesting thing is that this actually works both ways. If your opponent is the type that claims quickly, it may be safer for you to wait: since he has not claimed, it is likely that he doesn't have those cards, and even when he claims, he adds just one more spy.

OTOH, if your opponent is the type that waits, it may be more dangerous for you to wait, because he may have already collected several of those cards in his hand, and once he claims, it becomes a lot more difficult and costly (instead of just slightly more costly) for you to play spies on the same set.

When I play, I tend to make my decisions based on more visible factors such as the spy-card ratio (if there is one spy and my opponent is showing a pair, I'll play a pair to place a spy because 1 spy for 2 cards is not bad; but if there are 2 spies and my opponent is showing a triple or more, I'll usually not play my triple too early because it's too costly for me). Or the alternate utility of my cards in the set: if my 3 lighters are of continents with only 1 spy on them, I'll feel less hurry to play them than if they are of continents already with many spies. (This factor is IMO especially important in the early-mid game.)

Thread: Re:User Review

budblan — 2004-11-03T13:35:14+00:00

captkayoss (#55000),

To me, this game has the feel of Tabula Rosa. In Tabula Rosa, you have to decide between using a card for a color or a number? In Spy, you have to decide where you use the Europe Suitcase card, if you are collecting both Europe and Suitcases.

Thread: Re:User Review

Alan Kwan — 2004-11-03T00:50:07+00:00

gschloesser (#55664),

This game cannot be devoid of strategy, although it is after all a light game and there is some luck.

Note that every player gets to draw the same number of cards throughout the game. Thus the winner is the one who places spies at a better ratio to the number of cards played. If you always play many cards just to play one spy, and your opponent plays large sets to place several spies at once, you're surely lose.

When you are not winning outright, there is no reason to play a set unless you are worried that an opponent may play the same set before you do. In such case, it is always better to wait and try to draw more cards for the set to play at once. If you play your set too hastily, you are merely blocking yourself if you later draw more cards for the set.

There are 48 spies in the game, and 12 target cards, for an average of 4 spies per target card - more than the typical mid-game picture of 3 spies per target card. Thus it is most likely that, after an opening stage of racing to play sets on 1-spy targets, we reach the endgame stage where all target cards have at least 2 spies, most with 3, a few with more. From this stage on, the winner will be determined largely as the player who has played for the best card efficiency, the player who has placed more or less the same number of spies as the others, but have more cards left, so that he can finish placing the rest of his spies more easily than the others. The player who have more cards left will have a much better chance of drawing all the cards he needs to place all his spies at once and win the game faster than the others.

Especially in the late-game stage, don't play a set unless you're either winning outright or you feel the very set is being threatened. The more unplayed sets you are holding, the more chances you have of drawing another card with which you can place one more spy, and the closer you are to "going out".

Thread: Re:User Review

Deleted User 1 — 2004-09-21T00:52:50+00:00

Greg -

There are two main decisions to be made during the game the game.

The first is what card to place face-up in front of you. Here you are trying to mislead the other players as to which target cards you are going for. If you are going for a particular target card you should try keeping those cards secreted away in your hand - if you put them down then other players will be more likely to claim that target before you do. If aren't going for a particular target you should put those ones down - this will make the other players more likely to claim them early, instead of waiting for more cards and getting more spies out of it.

The second main decision is when to claim a particular target. This is determined by the target cards you have, what cards your opponents have down, and also by the psychology of your opponent. If you have the cards to claim a target you may want to wait to get more cards so you can claim more spies. If your opponent is the type that claims cards for only one spy every time, you probably want to claim the card quickly - before he has a chance to. If he is the kind to accumulate cards in an effort to grab as many spies as possible, then you may want to try to push your luck and get more cards.

- Rick

Thread: Re:User Review

gschloesser — 2004-09-21T00:20:48+00:00

qrux (#55607),

I'm honestly interested ... what strategy do you see in this game? I've played a few times -- both with gamers and as a 2-player with my wife -- and found the game to be bland, unexciting and almostly completely devoid of any real strategy. I certainly could be missing something, but I'd love to hear someone explain just what strategies are inherent in the game.

Thread: Re:User Review

fofluff — 2004-09-20T22:52:26+00:00

"...$16.00 U.S. is too much for a deck of cards and a few cardboard counters."

Yes! However, Spy is currently selling at Fairplay for $8.95 - I am a sucker for games under $10 so I now have this one

Thread: Re:User Review

Favre4MVP — 2004-09-20T20:46:54+00:00

Oh, and one more thing...I always play it where you can only play one set per turn. I played it the way the rules are written (lay as many sets as you want on a turn) and I didn't like it at all. Maybe give it another try this way and see what you think.

Thread: Re:User Review

qrux — 2004-09-20T19:55:46+00:00

gschloesser (#55257),

I was not impressed when I played the first time however, this has recently replaced Battle Line at the lunch time card games and I found the two-player game to be a good time. I prefer this to Lost Cities. There is more to the game than what first appears and different players have different styles. I'd give it another try.

Thread: Re:User Review

Favre4MVP — 2004-09-20T17:00:19+00:00

gschloesser (#55257),

Well Greg, I agree with you 99% of the time, but I disagree with you on this one. I think Phil is dead on with his review. It's not one of the greatest games ever, but as a filler, the press your luck tension is great. I prefer it as a 2 player game.

Thread: Re:User Review

gschloesser — 2004-09-18T05:29:25+00:00

captkayoss (#55000),

Sorry to disagree with your assessment, Phil, but I found the game to be abysmal. Really bad. It is SO simple, with very little skill or decision making involved. I played both with gamers and as a 2-player game with my wife. Even she was bored with the game, and she tends to like "easier" fare. I cannot recommend this game at all.

Thread: User Review

captkayoss — 2004-09-17T13:46:09+00:00

Introduction

Spy is a simple set collecting game in which you dispatch spies with hidden secret documents around the globe.

Game Play and Rules

Each player begins the game with a predetermined number (contingent upon the number of players) of agents. His goal is to be the first player to dispatch all of his agents. There are 12 cards in the center of the table where spies may be dispatched: the six inhabited continents on one side, and six items: pen, camera, hat, watch, glasses and lighter on the other. Each of these cards begins the game with an agent marker atop it.

To deploy your agents to a card you must collect sets of cards with the corresponding picture exceeding the number of spies already on the card in the center of the table. The catch is that each card you draw will have two pictures – one of the continents and one of the items. Therefore if you wish to deploy an agent to North America, you must have two or more cards with North America on them. At the beginning of the game, if you were to turn in two cards with North America and place one spy on the North America card, the next player would need to turn in three cards with North America in order to place one agent on the North America card.

Players begin the game with three cards and at no time may they hold more than three in their hands. If a player has three cards he must play one or more face up in front of him, turn one more in as part of a set. At the end of a turn a player draws one card. That’s all there is to a turn.

The game is simple to be sure; but the beauty of this game lies in its simplicity. It is not a game of grand strategy or blind luck, but rather of risk tolerance. As play unfolds, your opponents are more aware of your possible options, and you must decide whether to cash in now at a low reward, or to push your luck and turn in a large set later. The benefit of this is that now subsequent players will have to collect more cards to place fewer spies. The risk is that your opponents may do the same to you.

Summary

While this game is certainly not Reiner Knizia’s master piece, it shares many of the qualities of his other games. It is mathematical. Its theme seems almost an afterthought. Most importantly, the play is deeper than first glance would indicate (although not by as much in this title as in some of his others). As filler, I think this game shines.

Physical quality and value rating: 6.5. This is not a criticism of UberPlay’s components, which are of good quality, as it is the price. I think $16.00 U.S. is too much for a deck of cards and a few cardboard counters.

Game Play rating: 7. This is a slow boil. The tension at the end is good.

Overall tilt: 7. Take it for what it is and enjoy. Just don’t be sucked in by the title – the theme is thin, thin thin.

Thread: User Review

TomVasel — 2004-08-18T21:09:23+00:00

For a while, Kosmos’ two-player games have reigned supreme, and still do to a certain degree (although Crocodile Pool Party does make one wonder). But in recent years, other companies have started to issue their own series of small-boxed games; and the competition is growing. Uberplay has done this recently, releasing several “small box” games, including Spy (Uberplay, 2004 - Reiner Knizia). Spy has all the earmarks of a Kosmos two-player game, and if it wasn’t for the box size (smaller than that of the Kosmos’ series), I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

The difference is that Uberplay’s small box games are often able to be played by more than two players, and Spy is no exception. Although I think it’s a fine two-player game, even an excellent (albeit light) one; it also works fairly well with more than two players. The game is vastly superior with two, and works well, as long as only one or two rounds are played. The game isn’t as good as some of Knizia’s other works, such as Lost Cities or Schotten Totten, but is fun, fast, and easy to play with a rummy-type feel; and it has seen a lot of play in my circles.

Twelve “Target” cards are arranged face-up in two rows in the middle of the table. Six of them show secret hiding places (hat, glasses, cigarette lighter, watch, camera, and pen), and the others show six continents, each in a different color ( yellow Africa, purple Australia, red North America, blue South America, orange Europe, and green Asia). One spy token is placed on top of each card, with the remainder of the spy tokens divided equally to the remainder of the players. A deck of 108 cards is shuffled, and each player is dealt a hand of three cards with the remainder forming a draw pile. Each card is a combination of one continent and one secret hiding place. One player is chosen to start, and then play goes in a clockwise order.

On their turn, if a player has three cards in their hand, they MUST play one of the cards on the table in front of them, keeping the card “on call”. After this, the player optionally may try to carry out a Mission. They do this by playing cards from their hand and/or table of one suit. The player discards all cards played and places spy tokens on the Target card that matches the suit of all cards played. The number of tokens placed on the Target card is the difference between the amount of tokens already on the card, and the amount of cards played. (If Bill plays four orange cards, and there are two tokens already on the orange Target card; he places two of his spy tokens on the card, bringing the total on that card up to four.) A player may carry out as many missions as they can on their turn, if they so choose.

After this, a player must draw one card and add it to their hand. The round ends when one player runs out of spy tokens. This player is then declared the winner, if the game consists of only one round; otherwise, the other players score penalty points for each token still in their possession. After one round for each player in the game is played, whoever has the least penalty points is the winner!

Some comments on the game...

1.) Components: I really like the size of Uberplay’s small box games. They’re square, sturdy, small, yet hold the components very well. This one is no exception and has a very nice plastic insert that holds the cards and tokens well. The Spy tokens are black with a pair of “spy” eyes staring at the gamer and are of decent quality. The cards, also of good quality, are very well designed with the symbols being very clear. I especially like the continent suits. While most people will just call out the colors, rather than the name of the continent, the different shapes will help color-blind folk. Also, the continent symbol and hiding place symbol are on the card five times, making it very clear which components are on each card. The box is black, with “spit” type artwork, wrapping up the game in a fairly attractive package.

2.) Rules: The rules are printed on a small four-page booklet - white font with a black background, helping with the theme of the game. The game is very simplistic, so the four pages are used to show some colored pictures and illustrations. The game is easy to teach - I was able to explain it in less than a minute to some people - and the strategies were simple to pick up. I would compare the difficulty setting to just below that of Lost Cities.

3.) Players: The back of the box states that the game is for two to four players, and that the game is “very good for two players”. I have to agree wholeheartedly. While a multiplayer game adds some interesting facets not found in a two player game, it also adds a lot of chaos that really isn’t that necessary for a light game of this flavor. The two player game was much more interesting, and there was less information to keep track of. With so many good multiplayer game fillers out there, I doubt I’ll ever bring this out as a multiplayer game, keeping it on my two- player shelf instead.

4.) Rounds: I very much recommend only playing one round, because the game can a bit tiresome for some when played with more than one round. It’s also not fun to try to overcome a point deficit. We preferred to just play the next round as a rematch, with the score boards cleared.

5.) Strategy and Fun Factor: The game has the exact same tension that I feel in a Rummy game. How long will you hoard your cards? One ends up watching like a hawk the cards the other player places in front of them, wondering just what three cards are in the other player’s hand? It’s also interesting (and fiendishly fun) to play cards of the same suit the opposing player is planning to play - the turn before they do so. Of course, when the same thing happens to you, the fun isn’t so great; but still, it makes the game interesting. Players can have heaps of cards in front of them, hoping for a few huge missions that will assure them the lead; or accomplish every mission the moment they can, hoping to keep the other player at bay, making their missions less useful. Or a player can mix and match these strategies. There is nothing brain-burning about the game; the strategies are short and simple. Do you accomplish missions this turn or not? And there is some luck of the draw, but the tactical nature of the game just demands that you plan around the cards you get.

I really enjoyed this game; it was short and simple, fast and fun. It’s been a while since a played a short, fun two-player game of this stature, one that is enjoyable, simple, and yet addicting. I’ve played it with several people; but the lone judge, the one with whom it must pass its most excruciating test is my wife. And she loves it, and immediately wanted to play another game after our first, which is a rarity with the two- player genre. It’s a terrific game for couples, and even heavy gamers will enjoy it as a distraction. But on the pile of games my wife likes, this one is rising to the top; and I certainly don’t mind.

Tom Vasel
“Real men play board games.”

Thread: Session Report

John Greenwood — 2004-07-25T22:17:39+00:00

The first game I played this evening with Ivan was Spy by Reiner Knizia. It was a first playing for both of us. The rules were straightforward, solid, and “clean” so it didn’t take long to dive into the game after we set up the initial layout. I won the first game with Ivan just having 2 spies left to assign. We played a second game and Ivan won and I also had 2 spies remaining to assign. Both of us liked the game and would play it again.

I liked the “push your luck” tension of the game, the hand management decisions since the cards can be melded two different ways, and decisions as to what sets you decide to “show” your opponent and what you keep hidden in your hand. I also like the competing tension of deciding whether to play small melds quickly to build up the threshold your opponent needs to meet or setting up lots of sets and going for big plays.

Thread: strategy

Alan Kwan — 2004-07-11T01:00:36+00:00

I believe that this game plays better with 2 players than with more. The entire premise of the game is not the luck-fest of seeing who can draw the sets, but rather the timing of placing your spies just before your opponent does. If there are more than one opponents, it becomes difficult to watch them all, so you often have to place your spies when you can place a few.

One subtle point in the strategy is that, how damaging it is for you to be beaten by your opponent to a target card first depends on the identity of the cards which make up your set. For example, if you have 2 yellow watches and yellow has only one spy on it, it is not a big problem if your opponent beats you to the watch first, because even then you can spend your cards on yellow. But if your watches are red and blue, and both colors already have several cards on them, then being beaten to the watches is pretty bad. In the former case you can afford to wait for more cards, but in the latter case you should hurry even if you're playing only a pair to place one spy.

Generally you should strife for a better spies-per-card efficiency ratio: playing 3 cards to place 2 spies is great, but if you have a 5-card set for a target already with 3 spies, it may be worth waiting for more. After all, it is more likely for your opponent to have a pair for the former case, than it is for him to have a 4-card set in the latter case.

Once the game has reached the stage when most or all targets have several spies on them, it is often worth it to wait for more cards before playing a set, until you can win outright or unless you see competition from your opponent for the same target. The more unplayed sets you have, the easier it is for you to draw a card which will allow you to place one more spy.

When played with the correct strategy, this game is full of tension and interaction. (When played with the incorreect strategy, one cannot win against an opponent who plays better.) This is another clever game from Knizia, simple yet very effective.

Thread: Session Report

snoozefest — 2004-06-29T23:12:04+00:00

Me, Mary, Brian. Second game for me and B, 3rd for M.

There's not much to the game. It plays quickly. You have to keep an eye out on what everyone is collecting. There was little competition initially, and I was able to play several spies. For some reason, B and I were under the (mistaken) impression that you needed at least a set of 3 to go on a mission, but we eventually figured out that that wasn't the case (when M sent 2 cards out!). M spent the early game collecting a large number of cards in front of her, while B and I played cards more often. She eventually played them, but too late; B and I had already played 11 of our 12 spies while M was only at 9. I got a lucky draw and was able to play my last spy to red (had 2 tokens on it; M and I had both been waiting for a red card - me for 3rd in set, her for 5th?).

Fast, pretty fun game. I'd initially thought it had a lot in common with Lost Cities. Not so sure anymore. I still think there are similarities, but there are also differences. I'm not sure why this has gotten relative low ratings. It's not a great game, but it's not that much different from LC! Anyway, good fast filler.

Thread: Session Report

snoozefest — 2004-06-17T03:09:24+00:00

My and my wife just got this game, and played it as a quick filler before we (and some others) played Stephenson's Rocket. I just submitted a review - check that for the detailed rules. Very simply: you play cards to your play area for a while. Then, use them from the table or hand (max 3 cards) to try to discard some tokens to one of 12 target cards in the center. The more tokens on those cards, the larger set of cards you need to discard additional tokens there. Repeat as desired, then draw 1 card at the end of your turn.

Despite the bad press, this was a decent game. It's a card game, subject to luck of the draw, but that is mitigated by being able to see the cards your opponent(s) is collecting. You can try to make their life more difficult by placing tokens on their targets before they do. In a 3 or 4 player game, you should have even more opportunity to mess with other players. In our case, the game moved pretty quickly after we got through the rules. I was able to win, leaving M stuck with 4 tokens ... she'd needed only 1 more card to have a set of 5, which would have allowed her to discard all of those and given her the game. So, luck of the draw or skillful play earlier? Probably a little of both.

This is a nice, quick filler game. After only one play, I'd give this a 6.5 or so.

Thread: User Review

snoozefest — 2004-06-17T03:01:22+00:00

James Bond. Our Man Flint. Jack Ryan (see Tom Clancy). All spies, in on national secrets, dealing with peoples lives, playing with cool gadgets. Well Spy (the game) is to espionage as James Bond is to James Spader: nothing in common but the name. This is an abstract card game, nothing more. But ...

Components/Setup
-Cards: all decent quality, functional but not pretty. Color-blindness should not be a significant issue, since (hopefully) you can tell the continents apart from one another. If not ... stop playing so many games and go look at a map!
..There are 6 cards with colored pictures of continents on them, and 6 with images of "spy tool" (watch, pen, ... really makes no difference). These are used to lay out the playing board: 1 row of continents, 1 row of tools.
..The rest of the cards show both a continent (same color as above) and a spy tool -- these are the draw deck.
-Tokens: There are 48 "spy" tokens, although (again) any convenient marker would work just fine. Good quality tokens.
..Place 1 spy token on each of the 12 cards
..Divide the rest equally between all players.

Rules
The short summary provided is pretty clear. The winner is the first player to get rid of all his spy tokens.
1. At the start, the dealer deals 3 cards from the draw deck to each player. These go into his hand. The player to the left of the dealer begins play.
2. On your turn, if you have 3 cards you _must_ play a card (if you have fewer than 3 you may still play them, although there's probably little reason to do so except to try to mislead your opponents). Cards are played in your own play area, and placed in groups according to the spy tool. So, each player could have 6 columns of cards.
3. Next, you may choose to "send spies on a mission" to one of the 12 cards in the center. To do this, you gather cards that match the picture (either continent or spy tool) on one of the cards in the center. These cards may come from your play area and/or from your hand. You get to place a number of your tokens onto the target card that is equal to: (the number of cards you gathered) minus (the number of tokens already on the target card). The cards you use go to the discard pile. You may conduct as many "missions" as you like.
4. Finally, draw 1 card from the draw deck - play passes to the left.

Game Play
That is all there is to it! You (may) play a card in front of you each turn. After a few turns of accumulating cards, you play them and place some tokens. Just don't wait too long, or your opponent(s) will play first and place some tokens on a target card, making it harder for you to target that card.

Comments
With 2 players, this plays very quickly. Also, it is easy to see what your opponent is collecting (except, of course, for the 3 cards hidden in their hands). With 3 or 4 players, especially if everyone organizes columns in a different sequence it could be harder to figure out what each player is collecting. Still, "harder" is relative - this is not a terribly deep game, but rather is more of a quick filler. It plays quickly with 2, 3 or 4 players. There are meaningful decisions - keep collecting a set? play a set of tools vs continents? how to maximize set size? which cards to hold/play?

This game has gotten a lot of fair-bad reviews, which I think is undeserved. In many ways it is sort of a multi-player version of another RK game ... Lost Cities. Both have luck of the draw, open and hidden cards, targets, speed of game play, and a clearly tacked on theme. LC does have better artwork, but those cards are so dang big!

In summary, I think this is a decent, quick filler game. It likely won't appeal to the die-hard deep-strategy-only gamer, but it should have wider appeal. If you like Lost Cities I think you might like Spy, too. Just don't expect to save the world or get the girl (or guy)!

Thread: Re:Question re: assigning cards (step 2)

Latria — 2004-06-15T02:49:40+00:00

pusboyau (#39175),
I dont see anywhere in the rules where you have to forfeit step two. If you can assign with only two cards, go ahead.

Thread: Session Report

dpfaigin — 2004-06-13T17:35:40+00:00

nnicole and I played this game a lunch today. The game was relatively easy to learn. For such a simple game, the strategy became quite apparant. The following comments apply to a two-player game -- I don't know if they scale:

First, it is not always in your interest to place your spies first, for it then makes it more difficult for you to add spies later to a platform.

Second, subterfuge is your friend, i.e., organizing your cards by continent and then placing by symbol.

Thirdly, preemptive strikes are good. For those platforms where you won't be building, placing 1-2 spies is good because it makes it harder for the other player.

In the end, I won (for a change, nnicole usually wins our lunch games).

Thread: Question re: assigning cards (step 2)

pusboyau — 2004-06-08T12:08:25+00:00

It doesn't seem clear from the rules whether you can still assign cards (from tabled and/or held cards), if you have less than 3 cards at the start of your turn. In other words, if you have less than 3 cards in step 1, must you forfeit step 2 and go onto step 3 and draw a card?

Thread: User Review

Eggo — 2004-04-25T14:07:35+00:00

SPY
This minor offering by Knizia had to be tried out as Peter and Guenther of our group momentarily try to do a full listing of the „master’s“ complete works.
This is one of Knizia’s simpler games: Every player starts with 9 agent markers and tries to place them at either continent cards or item cards. The player who first loses all his agents wins.
Each “region/item” card starts out with one agent, this means that to place an agent there you have to top this with at least one card more showing this symbol, the difference will be the number of agents you can place. So if you play three “pen” (item symbol) cards on the “pen” symbol with one agent already there you can place two agents there 3-1=2). The next player playing the symbol would then have to play at least 4 symbol cards to lose at least one agent, making it more difficult for the players who wait too long and try to build up longer sets of cards to lose more agents.
All cards bear two symbols, so they can be theoretically used in two different kinds of sets. You can hold a maximum of three cards in your hand, if you have more you have to place them openly before you, which gives other players some kind of information about what you might collect.
And this is basically it: Playing the game you usually follow a very simple strategy:
- collect sets until you have at least two more cards than necessary (losing 1 agent is only worth it in the end phase of the game)
- place, if possible, cards before you which DON’T belong to the sets you collect, to confuse the other players
- Wait before you play a set, but not too long. The longer you wait the greater the chance that another player will play a set on it.

Apart of that there is very little except luck of the draw or position in playing order. This might work better with 2 players (in fact it is especially recommended for 2 players), but with more players there is very little that can keep the attention of the jaded gamer, except as a very light filler.
Not specifically recommended...
Moritz Eggert
www.westpark-gamers.de

Thread: Re:Session Report

Latria — 2004-04-15T03:15:07+00:00

garrylloyd (#31460),
I played a three-player game. The other two player went for the incremental approach, while I endure to put two spies at one go. In the end my strategy paid off. I think in your case, perhaps 3 spies at a time is pushing the luck too far?

Thread: Session Report

garrylloyd — 2004-03-26T05:30:22+00:00

We finished off with one of the new Kosmos/Uberplay small box games that had arrived in the UK this week. Spy is a card game by Reiner Knizia in which players try to get rid of their chips by playing sets of cards in 12 target categories. The categories are either one of six continents or one of six pieces of spy equipment. Each card in the deck shows one continent and one piece of equipment so each card can be used towards two different sets. Players are allowed to accumulate cards by drawing one at the end of each turn but can only have three in their hand; all others are displayed for all to see in front of you. Each target starts with one spy chip on it and if you choose to play (discard) more cards of a particular target category than there are spy chips on that target, you get to add the difference to the target from your supply. The round ends once one player is out of chips and the remaining players record penalty points equal to the number of chips they have left. The game is played over a number of rounds and the person with the fewest penalty points at the end is the winner.

I didn't particularly enjoy this one, although I'm not sure if it was due to the style of play or whether the game breaks down the way we played it. The quickest way to get rid of chips is to play a set of cards well in excess of the current number of chips on the target. If you play a set of 5 on a target with just 1 chip on it, you lose 4 of your chips in one go. However, if a player plays a set of 2 before you, they lose a chip and you can then only lose 3 chips when you lay your 5 cards. This resulted in our game of a scramble to get rid of chips one at a time, before someone else jumped in. Yes, you only get a small gain but you score more often, and as players have a good idea of what you are collecting because most of the cards are face up before you, there is added incentive to get in early. I tried to build up a reasonable sized (but not too large) hand a few times, only to find Mark's incremental strategy beating me to the punch. I did manage in one round to lose my last three chips in one go, but I think that was probably lucky card draw. Because of this, everyone kept in fairly close contention and it just so happened that the first player in each round also managed to go out, leaving the other players with just 2 or 3 cards left. Hence it felt a bit like a crap-shoot. We played three rounds and Nige emerged victorious as he managed to be left with a penalty of just 2 chips on one of the rounds instead of 3 which was the consistent penalty the rest of the time.

I hope it plays differently if people try to build up bigger scoring hands, but I'm not sure whether the incremental approach is just too dominant. Nige and Mark seemed to enjoy it better than I did, but I was hoping for something better from this one.

Players Result Ratings
Nige -5 6
Garry -6 5
Mark G -6 7