Skip to content
Login / Register
Menu
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
Other
Novels – Books
Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
Search for:
Home
/
Shop
/
Board Games
/
Family and Children
Add to Wishlist
Spy Club
45m - 45m
2 - 4 Players
Ages 10+
Games that use the Memory mechanic require players to recall previous game events or information in order to reach an objective.
Memory
The primary goal of a set collection mechanic is to encourage a player to collect a set of items.
Set Collection
Deduction
39.00
€
30 day low:
Out of stock
Search for:
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
Other
Novels – Books
Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
Login
Cart
Your cart is empty!
Return to shop
Skip to content
Open toolbar
Accessibility Tools
Accessibility Tools
Increase Text
Increase Text
Decrease Text
Decrease Text
Grayscale
Grayscale
High Contrast
High Contrast
Negative Contrast
Negative Contrast
Light Background
Light Background
Links Underline
Links Underline
Readable Font
Readable Font
Reset
Reset
ashleyrains
Like new, never played. $15 I hope to have a VFM table but can meet outside of the VFM room if not. I may also be able to meet on Wednesday afternoon or evening. Cash, Venmo, or Zelle.
hackryder
Kickstarter backer. Received July 2018. Terrific coop game with an excellent theme. If you grew up on Scooby Doo, Encyclopedia Brown, McGurk, and Choose Your Own Adventures this will be in your wheelhouse. Players are friends that team up to solve local neighborhood crimes. As with most coops, there are two primary mechanics: what the players must do to win, and the automated game "engine" that raises the stakes and that you must beat before time runs out. In each "case," players solve five different "aspects" of the case to win: Motive, Suspect, Location, Crime, & Object. Each aspect is a different color. These five aspects comprise a deck of Clue Cards in varying frequencies (spanning as few as 14 red Motive cards and as many as 24 yellow Object cards. Also in the deck are 15 grey Distraction cards - these are not one of the five needed Aspects to win, but can help or hinder your progress. Finally, all Clue Cards are double-sided. Some will be the same aspect on either side, while some will not. Card facing is important during gameplay, and only the face-up sides of cards are active and can be looked at freely. Players are dealt a face up hand of four Clue cards onto the table. The remaining deck of Clue Cards is put in the draw tray provided. 2-3 Clue Cards are splayed face up beside the draw deck (depending on number of players), and then the top card of the draw deck is turned face up. Players also receive a Focus token (Magnifying Glass) which they can move back and forth under any one of their four cards in their Hand during the game. Finally, players will receive one Idea token (light bulb). There is a finite supply of Idea tokens in the game, which is one of several ticking clocks that trigger the game end and complicate solving the crime. Players will take turns & various actions in order to draw, discard, swap, or flip their cards in hand in order to collectively play five Aspects of the same color face-up on the main game board. (These matching cards can be duplicates; as long as all five are the same color, it still counts as a solve). When an aspect is solved the cards on the array are swept/discarded and players then begin again to solve another Aspect with five cards of the same color. Each turn players have actions available that will allow you to manipulate or acquire cards: "Shift Focus" allows you to move your Focus token from one of your current hand cards to another. This allows you to gain more Idea tokens at the rate of one per each Aspect color of that type in your hand. It also makes the Confirm action cheaper to do (see below). Finally, it can possibly allow you to take free actions with fellow players (see below). "Investigate" lets you flip cards in your hand to their other side (which may change the Aspect color/type). "Scout" allows you to draw new Clue cards from the face-up choices on offer on either the Clue draw deck or the face up cards next to it. These cost variable Idea tokens to acquire, with Clue cards from the draw deck being more expensive and Clue cards furthest from the draw deck in the splay area cheaper and/or no cost. "Confirm" is when you play a card from your hand to the main array in the hopes of contributing to or completing five of a kind. Confirming a card costs no Idea tokens if your Focus token is under the card you choose. But cards on either side of the current Focus costs 1 idea token, and cards two slots away from your current Focus cost 2 idea points. If your Focus token is on or is moved to an Aspect color that matches the Focus/Aspect of any other players, you can now take free Teamwork Actions. These include 1) trading your Focus card to them for one of theirs; or 2) taking any number of Idea tokens from another player (with their consent). As for Spy Club's "automated" game actions and ticking clock: the mastermind behind the crime you are solving is trying to flee the city... but not before complicating your attempt to solve the crime in various ways. A gray Suspect meeple moves clockwise around the "board," - that is, a board comprised of each player's hand cards, with each of the four cards counting as one space. Additionally there is a matching grey chip that keeps track of the "Escape Meter" on the main board. Finally, there is a Movement deck of cards that are randomly shuffled and prepared in setup that determine the Suspect's movement. At the end of each player's turn a movement card is drawn from the Movement Deck to see how far the Suspect has gone. Each card has three numbers on it (top middle bottom edge) and show the Suspect next to one of these numbers. The number is how many "spaces" the Suspect moves. The card color the Suspect ends movement on then determines the punitive result. Depending on where the Suspect stops, each Aspect color triggers a different (usually) negative outcome for the players. For example: Motive Cards/Red means all cards in all players' hands are flipped over (and this is probably the most benign outcome). Other outcomes include loss of Idea tokens (from use for the rest of the game), discards of face-up Clue cards on display, or advancing the Escape marker up the meter and closer to Spy Club defeat. Additionally several of the Movement cards also include an icon that triggers the Escape token to move up one on the meter. Which means it's possible for the suspect to "click" twice in a turn if the players are not paying attention. Players can lose the game four different ways: If the Escape token gets to the "Escaped" space on the Escape meter; If players run out of Idea tokens when they need to spend one; If the Clue draw deck runs out; If the Movement card deck runs out The cooperative aspects of this game are not only intuitive but they are multi-dimensional when discussing strategy. All hands are open information, as are which cards are available to Scout and acquire each turn. Each Movement card "teases" the three possible movement points the Suspect meeple will spend on its next move around the table, so one can tweak their hands to avoid certain disastrous events or mitigate the havoc the Suspect can wreak. The game is well-balanced on that tightrope of winning/losing given the difficulties and the juggling of the four ways your can lose. Even though players can lose on multiple fronts and are sometimes subject to the luck of the draw, there is a lot of ways that luck can be mitigated. Double-sided cards and the ability to flip them is huge. As are free Teamwork actions to share Ideas or chain consecutive players' turns by coordinating Focus card swaps and placements. And having four possible Actions to choose from and only three allowed per turn is a sweet-spot nexus of suspense and planning that doesn't tip over into crippling analysis paralysis. Finally, in our games there has not been a lot of quarterbacking or alpha-player issues. No one player feels left out of contributions to solving the case. This alone has put Spy Club high on the list of "best coop games" above some tried-and-true ones like Pandemic, which suffers greatly from the Coop QB. Thus far, Spy Game is one I highly recommend. But Spy Club's unique "mosaic" style legacy rules make this game even better as represented by Campaign Mode. Players that wish to play five "cases" linked loosely together in a campaign will be able to pull cards from the two Campaign decks, which are a huge bag of tricks that make each game uniquely different. Folks who have played Fabled Fruit may have see overlap, but Spy Club takes those concepts and IMO improves on them with a Choose Your Own Adventure element to determining how the new content (rules, powers, winning conditions) unlocks from game to game. Even the order in which these new cards introduce new gameplay will affect how your games are played. Spy Club is a rousing success as a friendly coop game that's family-friendly and deep enough for experienced gamers. It also conjures the storytelling aspects of a series of newer games (Time Stories, Legacy of Dragonholt, Mythos Tales, Consulting Detective), but to me does so in ways that "solve" the issue of replayability that those games have. By itself Spy Club warrants a few plays. But with Campaign Mode and 40 different new and unique features that tweak the game, there seems to be a deeper narrative and replayability, that could easily be revisited with expansions that are only new decks of cards. I highly recommend this game.
eddavison
Great game, starts off easy and simple but the modules really make it a lot harder and more interesting