I’ve been addicted to SpyParty for over four years.
I tend to throw myself into whatever game I’m playing, forgetting to pace myself. I burn out on most of them, and move on to a new game. And I’m worried that is happening with SpyParty. This is a pretty normal cycle for me when it comes to playing video games. The unusual part is, with SpyParty, I don’t want to burn out.
I think of my time with SpyParty as consisting of four phases: Sprinting, Jogging, Stumbling, and Crawling.
On April 17th, 2012, I was lucky enough to become one of the first internet strangers to play SpyParty. And boy did I play. This was the sprinting: every day after work I would jump into the lobby and wait for someone to join. But as is the case with every other game I’ve played, I wasn’t satisfied just by playing it. I wanted to delve into the mechanics of the game, and with SpyParty that meant studying the AI.
Studying the AI wasn’t easy back then: we didn’t have replays, guides, or even veteran players. Everything was fresh. Everything still had to be discovered, learned, and shared. So I got to it.