Agent undercover

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Agent undercover
Game data
author Alexandr Ushan
graphic Sergey Dulin , Uildrim
publishing company Piatnik
Publishing year 2014
Art Card game
Teammates 3-8
Duration 60 minutes
Age from 12 years

Awards

Agent Undercover (original Russian title Находка для шпиона ), also known as Spyfall in English-speaking countries , is a card and party game by the Russian game designer Alexandr Ushan . The game was published in Russian and English by Hobby World in 2014, and in 2015 by the Austrian publisher Piatnik in German and Hungarian. In terms of content, the aim is to identify a spy among the players through clever questions.

Theme and equipment

In terms of content, the game is about identifying a spy among the other players through clever questions. With the exception of a spy, players are assigned a place and role at the start of the game that no one else knows. The spy's task is to guess the location before another player reveals him to be a spy. In addition to the game instructions, the game material consists of 25 decks of 8 cards each, on which the locations and roles of the other players are indicated, as well as 26 plastic bags for the card decks and 8 overview cards.

Style of play

Before the first round of the game, all cards are sorted by location and the decks are put into the plastic bags and a secret agent card is added to each deck. The bags are concealed in the middle of the table or in a game box. All players look at the possible locations in the game instructions and memorize which locations they could theoretically be. The players agree on how many rounds they want to play and whether they want to take on the appropriate roles. A starting player draws one of the decks and takes it out of the bag so that no one can see the cards. Then he removes excess cards from the lower part of the deck and shuffles the remaining cards before giving one of the cards to each player. Each player now has a card, whereby one of the players got the secret agent while all the others occupy a location card. When all players have looked at their cards, a stopwatch is started with a time of 8 minutes.

The starting player can now ask any question. The person asked should answer the question in such a way that he does not make himself suspicious of his fellow players as much as possible, but at the same time does not reveal the location too obviously. If roles are played, he gives the answer out of this role. After that, he or she may question every other player with the exception of the questioner. This process continues until the spy uncovered or found out the location.

If a player suspects another player to be the secret agent, he can stop the game at any time and express his suspicion. He asks the other players whether they support him and if all players suspect a person, the game ends prematurely - regardless of whether this person is actually the secret agent. If the one everyone suspects is actually the secret agent, then he has lost. If he isn't, the secret agent wins the round. The secret agent can also stop the game at any time by revealing his card and guess the location. If he guessed correctly, he won, otherwise he lost. If the secret agent has not been identified after 8 minutes, the round ends and the starting player asks all players to point to the player they suspect. If the one most players suspect is actually the secret agent, then the agent has lost. If he isn't, he wins the round.

Scoring takes place at the end of the round. If the secret agent wins, he gets 2 points. In addition, he receives 2 extra points if he has stopped the game and guessed the location, or if other players were suspected of being played prematurely. The other players receive one point each if they win. If you win early by uncovering the secret agent, the one who voiced the suspicion and stopped the game receives an extra point. Regardless of the outcome of the round, the last secret agent becomes the starting player for the next round. The winner of the game is the player who has the most points at the end of the agreed number of rounds.

Development and expenditure

The game Agent Undercover was developed by the Russian game designer Alexandr Ushan and published by Hobb World in 2014 as a Russian and an English edition. In the same year the game was published in Japanese and in 2015 several other translations of the game were published, including a bilingual version in German and Hungarian by Piatnik . Further editions were made in Spanish, French, Polish, Korean, Italian, Czech, Chinese, Turkish, Greek, Romanian and Dutch as well as in a multilingual version each in Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish and Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian and Russian.

In 2015, Agent Undercover was included in the recommendation list for Game of the Year and described as follows: "A sensitive communication game that is cold-blooded and sweaty at the same time."

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Game instructions Agent Undercover . Piatnik 2015.
  2. ↑ Versions of Agent Undercover in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on October 29, 2017.
  3. ^ Agent Undercover . on the website of the Spiel des Jahres eV; accessed on October 29, 2017.

Web links