Board Game: 'Spy Club' (2018)

Forty Variations Of Something Nice

With one whole campaign of this co-operative now in the bag, playing solitaire as two players and only going slightly mad in the process, it's time to talk a little about 'Spy Club'.

This board/card game popped up on Kickstarter a year ago, and arrived just a couple of weeks ago. It's a quietly fascinating non-destructive and replayable campaign game, which is effectively a set of forty variations of a basic game, with some extra modifier cards which are persistent once they've been unlocked.

The basic game is about working out the details of a minor crime as a bunch of kid detectives, which is achieved by collecting sets of cards of each of five colours, one at a time. The 'bad stuff' phase, typical of almost all co-operative board games, is managed by a little suspect pawn who moves around the different player boards in a circle, with a set event occurring for each colour of card he might land on.

The base game is pretty hard, but the theme is wonderful and light, with none of the lurking dread common to most co-op games. Even if you don't fully succeed, you will pin down some of the aspects of the crime, to pass on to the police. There is no absolute failure here, but there is a definite race against time in that there will be only twenty-two turns, and several other other fail conditions. The potential for storytelling goodness is very good, as you try to build a narrative between the motive, suspect, location, object and crime cards that you've successfully nominated. What could link the garbage man, the ice cream shop, revenge, a stamp and a prank? What? And how does it relate to the 'master crime' being pinned down in the campaign?

The campaign of variations is a great concept and well executed. My experience is limited to a small number of games, but the ingenuity that has been employed in finding different ways to 'solve' the case using only the equipment provided is clear to see. Sometimes the variations make it harder, and sometimes easier. Sometimes they change the game in a major way, and sometimes just add an extra condition for winning. The only minor gripe I would have after this limited experience is that the campaign persistent modifications seem quite rare.

Aesthetically, it's very pretty, very thematic and very light. There is no gloom or doom here. The illustrations and art are beautiful. This is a recommended game.

Now, we just need a few more co-operative games which are thematically on the lighter side.

O.