"We could start a Spy Club," suggested Beatrice. "You know — search for clues and try to find mysteries to solve!"
In Spy Club, players work together as young detectives to solve neighborhood mysteries. It includes a replayable campaign format, with variable unlocking content, for playing a series of 5 games connected together to tell a larger story. Throughout the campaign, you'll unlock new modules with additional rules and story elements. With 40 new modules and 174 cards in the campaign deck, you can reset everything and play multiple campaigns — with a different story and gameplay experience emerging each time.
In the standard game, each player has double-sided clue cards in front of them. On your turn, you use actions to flip, draw, and trade clue cards, gain ideas, and confirm clue cards as evidence. Confirm 5 clues of the same type to solve part of the case. As you discover more and more of the solution, a story starts to emerge: your Neighbor stole something from the ice cream shop, but what? And why? To crack the case, you must find the solution to all 5 parts before the suspect escapes or you run out of clues.
You can always play a single, standalone game of Spy Club, but the campaign mode is the recommended way to play:
Each game plays in 45 minutes, and each campaign consists of 5 games.
Some elements from each game carry forward and affect future games, with new rules and story elements are unlocked each play.
The sequence of content isn’t scripted, so each campaign will unfold differently.
Everything can be fully reset and replayed.
You only unlock a small portion of the total content in one campaign (just 4 of the 40 modules), so you can play multiple campaigns and continue unlocking new content each time!
- Complete pile of trash
- Luck fest
- Fundamentally unbalanced cards
- Football matches are all based on random dice
- Takes forever to play and finish
- Looks horrible
- Terrible rule book
- Designers and publishers can't take criticism
- Football Manager
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Card Play — Fundamentally unbalanced cards for football players.
- Dice Rolling — Football matches are based on random dice.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Imperial Steam. Oh god. Maybe this one's been a bit harsh because I have only played it the once a friend of mine to me, the one who likes train games. But I do remember disliking it.
- It it it's punishing. It's a boring theme. Like anything to do with trains is a boring theme. Yeah, fight me.
- This game is trash.
- I worry about the sort of games you play if you think this is fun. Seriously, this game is trash.
- Terraforming Mars, I think I might have rated a three or four when I first played it.
- Before Mars is still a six out of 10 for me.
- And Great Western Trail, you know, you know, my jump to New Zealand, you know, that one being one of my favorite games, you know, and uh despite hating the first edition of Great Western Trail.
- So, it seems I mean Feed the Kraken to some extent. Maybe Blood on the Tower a little bit. Imperial Steam just cuz I haven't played it that much, but even then not much.
- We all like different stuff. It's just the nature of the beast.
- What do you care if I hate them?
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Imperial Steam. Oh god. Maybe this one's been a bit harsh because I have only played it the once a friend of mine to me, the one who likes train games. But I do remember disliking it.
- It it it's punishing. It's a boring theme. Like anything to do with trains is a boring theme. Yeah, fight me.
- This game is trash.
- I worry about the sort of games you play if you think this is fun. Seriously, this game is trash.
- Terraforming Mars, I think I might have rated a three or four when I first played it.
- Before Mars is still a six out of 10 for me.
- And Great Western Trail, you know, you know, my jump to New Zealand, you know, that one being one of my favorite games, you know, and uh despite hating the first edition of Great Western Trail.
- So, it seems I mean Feed the Kraken to some extent. Maybe Blood on the Tower a little bit. Imperial Steam just cuz I haven't played it that much, but even then not much.
- We all like different stuff. It's just the nature of the beast.
- What do you care if I hate them?
References (from this video)
- High replayability from modular modules
- Strong family appeal
- Module rules can be confusing initially
- cooperative mystery solving with modules
- Neighborhood mysteries; kid detectives
- mosaic, module-driven variability
- Unlock!
- Mysterium
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Card Crafting — Trade cards with others to align focus types.
- Card trading — Trade cards with others to align focus types.
- Cooperative Game — Work together to uncover clues and solve cases.
- cooperative play — Work together to uncover clues and solve cases.
- Modular Board — Unlock modules that change rules and add variety each game.
- Modular modules — Unlock modules that change rules and add variety each game.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- This is $5 on the site.
- A great onboarding pro game to get people to understand new hobby games.
- It's a fantastic game that mixes card play and dice in Star Wars Destiny.
References (from this video)
- high replayability due to 40 modules
- campaign-driven structure adds depth and progression
- strong storytelling elements that support discussion and deduction
- art direction and module variety help keep each playthrough fresh
- can be complex for first-time players
- as a cooperative game, group dynamics and time commitment matter
- cooperative mystery solving with a storytelling bent
- Neighborhood detective setting with a focus on solving neighborhood crimes
- campaign-driven, modular storytelling with five aspects per case
- Dixit
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- campaign progression with modular story elements — solving cases unlocks new modules and story elements across a larger campaign
- case structure with five aspects — each case is analyzed through suspect, crime, location, instrument/clue, and motive
- cooperative deduction — players work together to determine who did what, where, with what, and why across five case aspects
- Modular Board — 40 modules in the box, fully resettable to vary gameplay
- replayability via modular content — 40 modules in the box, fully resettable to vary gameplay
- Storytelling — cards/assets provide narrative hooks to enrich discussion and deduction
- Storytelling prompts — cards/assets provide narrative hooks to enrich discussion and deduction
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- two to four player cooperative game you're playing neighborhood detectives solving neighborhood crimes think encyclopedia brown or hairy to spy kind of vibe in the game
- there are five aspects for each case or mystery you're trying to solve
- it's got a campaign mode so like I said each case has five aspects
- you can play 40 games of spy club without seeing everything in the box
- it's not a lot of fun to work on so I have to say I love this art
- the artist has done a lot of work with making them kind of feel a little like Dixit cards
- it's a two-player trick-taking game with the scoring where you want to win the most tricks but not too many
- the odd cards have powers when you play them that allow you to have control over what the trump suit is
- it's called Sunday Split… two to five players in about 15 to 20 minutes
- you're trying to build the best Sunday by mixing ice cream flavors with cherries and bananas and whipped cream sprinkles
References (from this video)
- high social energy and buzz when new
- engaging with large groups
- nerves and pressure can be intense for some players
- not everyone's cup of tea for party games
- spy vs players, social interaction
- hidden role party game about social deduction
- thematic but abstract social deduction
- Werewords
- Codenames
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Hidden Roles — some players are spies, others are regular players; you deduce roles through questions
- Question-based deduction — players ask questions to infer who is who while not revealing their own identity
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- you will never leave my collection yes that would be the sad day
- we got married yay us
- subscribe it's fun and it's free and makes us happy
- board games are what this channel is about
- thank you for watching i'm johannes i'm cinema and you've been watching board gaming ramblings and bye
- we're very happy to have videos again
- i like bonanza i think it has some cool things going for it
- the monsters looked really horrifying on the 3d app
References (from this video)
- Kid-friendly game
- Clever legacy system
- Cute game
- Ready to be reviewed
- Cooperative puzzle
- Mystery investigation
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Legacy system — Clever legacy system integration
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I used to call this a shelf of shame that was a pretty common thing to call it back in the day and I don't never really liked that term because I don't feel shame that I haven't got to these games
- this is mostly work like this is just a backload of things I probably should get to
- people will still be looking for it
- it doesn't matter if the game is like 20 years old people will still be looking for it
- I've painted this one and I spent a lot of time doing it
- there's no point putting them on the channel I think both of them have been out of print for like a decade
- one of the worst kickstarters by one of the worst studios in board gaming history
- Golden Bell Studios did everything wrong you could possibly think of
- purely toxic company run by incredibly terrible people
- it would be kind of a joke that I'd be able to do a three minute video of feudum
- this game has a tutorial video online that's like 40 minutes long
- The Rose explanation video feels like a parody but it's actually how the game is played
- nothing personally to me puts me off playing a game that then sitting down unboxing it and having a craft assignment
- stop making me spend hours assembling your damn games
- this is an uncontrollable mess right now
- I'm a full-time dad and I'm really doing this in the evenings
- I have a finite space and also it just puts pressure and stress on me having a whole bunch of crap there that I know I'm not going to get to
- I'm going to do a big cull
- I will be published by this company but that doesn't mean I'm going to be slavishly devoted to every single game they put out
- I am a sucker for cute animal games like I really am