Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Spyfall

Solid Easy to Learn Party Game for the entire family

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2024

Very simple but fun concept. Someone in your will most likely make it easy for the spy to figure out the location, but that's the fun of it.

We usually don't play for points, but sorta keep a tally of how many times the spy won.

Takes about a good 20 minutes to sort the cards into their sleeves. When you prep remember to put the spy card face down at the bottom of each stack to make it easy to discard based on the number of players.

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Patricia Mora Garcia

Pfct game

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2024

Style: Spyfall 2Verified Purchase

Its a great game for friends or family meetings! Love it!

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SaintHax

How it compares to the other top hidden role games.

Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2016

Style: SpyfallVerified Purchase

My favorite hidden role game, but for you to know which is right for you, it should be compared with the top competitors. If you don't know what a hidden role game is, everyone is dealt a role (good guys vs. bad guys) that is kept secret. During the game, the good guys have to identify the bad guys, and if they get it wrong, they lose. Get it right you win. These games are a lot of fun due to the social interactions and gaffs that happen.

1) "Are you a werewolf" this $10 game produced in 1986 by Looney Labs/Mayfair Games is so popular that there are many more expensive (ripoffs?) copies of it floating around by other publishers. What is great about this game is that it supports up to 15 players, it's small enough that it stays in the center console of my car, and it is fun. However, it requires 8 players, doesn't shine until 12, one player has to sit out to moderate. In addition it's player elimination, which isn't bad _except_ for the first 2 (or 3) players eliminated. In addition, some players have told me there are "no clues", and this is b/c of how abstract it is. It depends on you "lie detecting" and I've found people that are too "mathematical" thinking to struggle with how to get this out.

2) "Resistance" (and its expansions, and Resistance: Avalon) - this game requires 5, plays fairly quick, no one sits out, no player elimination. The entry price is about $12-$15, and you can spend money on expansions. The big difference in this game, compared to the other two, are that you can deduce the traitor with math along with lie detecting. The bad part is that figuring out how to get these clues is pretty complex, and requires your teammates to also understand it. More times than not the traitors win, however it's still lots of fun. The other important difference is the "stress" of this game. In Werewolf everyone always wants to be the werewolf-- it's the most fun part. In Spyfall, being the spy is something you don't want. In Resistance, it doesn't seem to matter either way, but sides are equally enjoyable (unless you are hung up on your win ratio).

3) "Spyfall" is the newest, enters in at $20 and it says it can be played with 3 people-- I doubt that, and it starts to shine with 5-8. It is played with an 8 minute timer (or ditch it if you want), one traitor/spy, no one sits out, and guides you into player interaction. Spyfall ranks highest on "laugh potential" as you laugh at your mistakes, or you other players bizarre behavior, with Werewolf being 2nd, and Resistance being last in laugh factor. It gives hidden information, unlike Werewolf, so clues can be gathered and you don't have to depend on just reading people. It's boon of forcing interaction, is also a fault for some-- if you don't like asking questions, and rather just deduce quietly, the other two games are better.

All in all, Spyfall is my favorite. I'd recommend Resistance for people less social and more mathematical though. If you like laughing at mistakes, then this is a solid hit.

118 people found this helpful

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Walter Stoneburner

Fantastic Party Game for Large Groups

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017

Style: SpyfallVerified Purchase

The game goes like this: a bunch of plastic bags containing piles of cards are placed on the table face down and shuffled; one is selected.

In any give bag the cards are all "identical" showing the picture of a location (night club, bank, cruise ship, space station, ...) except for one card that says SPY. The spy card and enough location cards are counted off so that each player will get one card; the cards are shuffled, and everyone gets a random one. In short, one person is getting the SPY card ...and no one knows who.

Everyone looks at their card. For extra fun, in the bottom left there's a 'role' (such as bartender, teller, mechanic, astronaut) that's applicable to that card. The spy looks at their card too, doing so for the same length of time as the others -- further hiding the identity from metagamers.

Here's where the fun starts. Players start asking each other questions and responding, trying to determine which players belong in the location all the while trying to confuse the spy. For instance one might ask "What's the weather like outside?" knowing full good and well they're on a submarine, and the response might be "Wet." or "I can't see." Really clever questions are things like, "Where might a find a shoe?" which in the context of a casino may mean something totally different than at a shopping mall.

The person asked then gets to ask someone else a different question.

If the players think they've figured out the spy, from either out of place questions or inappropriate answers, they call a vote and if everyone agrees -- the person called out has to reveal their role. If that person is the spy, they loose. If not, the spy wins. If no consensus is had, the accuser may not accuse anyone else and the game resumes.

The game is also timed. If the spy can stay hidden (say for 10 minutes), they also win.

Additionally, the spy is listening in on all the questions and answers and can play along, fooling the other players with generic answers. At any time the spy can reveal they are the spy, look at the list of locations (of all the plastic bag decks) and if the right one is named, the spy wins. If wrong, the spy loses.

It's as simple as that, but with a group small as three and up to eight, this can be really exciting. Suspicion will shift all over the place. The time will fly by. And the clever questioning will get more elaborate.

Note that players who try to be too clever end up giving away the location to the spy, so the game self-balances.

Easy to teach. Easy to play. No real setup. Most certainly a go to game.

8 people found this helpful

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Joe K

Fun party game but not as easy as you think.

Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a fun, easy-to-learn, easy-to-teach party game. It is always good for a few laughs and embarrassing moments and you and your friends/family scramble to try to lie.

Each player gets a card face down - all but one of them are the same location. This is followed up by asking each other questions where you subtly attempt to indicate you know where you are, without giving away the location to the spy. It is a tough balance since you want other people to know you aren't the spy, but you don't want to let the spy guess.

The hardest part of this game is coming up with questions to ask each other -- especially for new players. Everyone I have played with tends to just stutter and try to come up with something. It is funny and usually eases up after a couple rounds, but can be a bit difficult to get past. I also find that people have awful poker faces (and mine isn't as good as I thought!). It is tough to see that "spy" card and not react.

If you play a lot and learn the locations, it makes it easier to play - but the bottom line is that most of the time is just a party game with people who have never played it. This makes it tough because no one learns the places and tough to play the spy.

We have played very few rounds where the spy actually won. It also feels like everyone tends to move on from it after about 4-5 rounds. With these few negatives, I would still give it 4/5 stars.

5 people found this helpful

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Cortney R. Chowning

Awesomely fun.

Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2024

Style: Spyfall 2Verified Purchase

Great game for game night! Is great for a wide range of ages as well! Played New Year’s Eve and ages ranged from 10 years old to 52 years old.

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apoem

This is a great game for a group.

Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2018

Style: SpyfallVerified Purchase

The concept of this game is fairly simple.
You have a set of 8 cards that are all the same except for the spy card.
You pass out these 8 cards to 8 players and then you start a timer. You start asking questions until you are sure you know who the spy is or until the time runs out. Then you decide who the spy is. If you guess correctly, you win points. However, while you are trying to guess who the spy is; the spy is trying to figure out the location.

Obviously less than 8 can play but the more the merrier.

After going around a few times you will notice that each location card also has a career associated with it. So, you might be a clown at the circus, an astronaut at the space station and so on. So while you are answering questions you can key them into what you are as a career.

And after going around a few more times we found that we could ask better questions that didn't give hints about where we were while still trying to figure out where we were. What is the most someone might earn when working in this place? How much would it cost to get to this place? etc.

The more we played the more we learned about playing this game and the more fun we had.
So while it is very simple with a very simple set up, it can be very complex.

Enjoy.

6 people found this helpful

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Christopher

More Locations to an Excellent Game

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2020

Style: Spyfall 2Verified Purchase

This Game Is one of my favorite party games hands down. If you've never played, There's sets of cards with a location, lets say a prison, and each player also has a "role" listed on the bottom of the card (guard/cook/prisoner). The kick is that one of the cards has the word spy on it. (In a 6 player game, 5 have the location and 1 has spy). Then the fun begins. Looking at the card you have you think of a question that is not too specific so as to let the spy know where you are but that also reveals the spy. How's the weather? (Doesn't work if the location is indoors/underground but on the other hand does not work if you're role is one that is indoors).

The original is fun. This 2nd is even more fun. In addition to additional locations, you get to run 2 spies at once.

I highly recommend this game.

One person found this helpful

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onoballer

Only good if you play with different group everytime

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2023

Style: Spyfall 2Verified Purchase

So to me, the game is not replayable with the same group even though it has many locations. Because after 1-2 round, we ran out of good question. Question was keep repeating and it get boring after that. Also, game is hard for the spy with group less than 6, because either you dont have enoughy information or you are exposed because the question is hard to come up if you are the spy

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Gadget Man Dan

Very fun game for up to 12 players

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2017

Style: Spyfall 2Verified Purchase

If you like social deduction games, party games, and games with spy themes, this might be the game for you. While the spy theme is somewhat thin (It could be any number of themes), it is a very fun party game, and allows a lot of players.

Other reviews tell you how it's played, so I won't repeat it here.

We played it on Easter with 9 players representing middle school, high school, college, adults, and seniors. Everyone had a blast. It is so much fun trying to figure out who the spy is, and coming up with useful questions and answers. Out first game was a little sketchy, but once we started to get the hang of it, the game took off. It's most fun when every player role plays the role they receive on their card, and don;t just answer questions based on their location. With such a wide age group, most players didn't really get into their roles, but I'm sure this will change in the future, depending on the group.

The major downside is there are not multiple copies of the locations so all players have access to the list. I designed my own and printed 12 card stock cards with all the locations. Problem solved.

10 people found this helpful

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