Overview
Play as a secret agent attempting to thwart subversive elements working against the government, or play as the resistance attempting to liberate themselves from their tyrannical leaders.
Game type: Social, Deduction, Deception, Misdirection
Number of players: 5-10
Suggested age: Teen+
Game Pieces
- 10 character cards
- 10 mission cards
- 15 plot cards
- 5 team tokens
- 10 approve and 10 reject vote tokens
- 1 round marker
- 1 vote tracker marker
- 3 score tableaus
Pregame Setup
Select the tableaus that correspond with the number of players participating and place that tableaus int the middle of the play area with the score markers, team tokens, and mission cards. Each player receives a set (two) of vote tokens.
Select a leader randomly and give that player the leader token.
Resistance team will always have more players than the spy team, and players are assigned with the character cards dealt out by the leader (face down) at random. The number of character cards available depends on the number of players. These cards are secret and shouldn’t be seen by other players.
5 players = 3R (resistance) 2S (spies). 6 players = 4R 2S, 7 players = 4R, 3S,
8 players =5R 3S, 9 players = 6R 3S, 10 players = 6R, 4S
Now that every player knows which team they are on, the leader will now announce for everyone to close their eyes (including themselves). The leader then announces for the spies to open their eyes and look at each other. This is done so that spies know who the other spies are, but the resistance team should not know who the spies are or who the other resistance players are.
After the spies have seen each other then the leader announces for the spies to close their eyes again and then announces for everyone to open their eyes once a moment was given for the spies to close their eyes again.
Playing the Game
Depending on which mission you are on, the leader will take a number of team tokens and assign them to players. Each player may only receive 1 token per round and the leader may assign a token to themselves.
Number of tokens to be assigned per mission is determined by the number of players and the mission that you are on.
5 players in order from 1st mission to 5th mission = 2, 3, 2, 3, 3 team tokens
6 players 1st mission to 5th = 2, 3, 4, 3, 4 team tokens
7 players 1st mission to 5th = 2, 3, 3, 4, 4 team tokens
8 players 1st mission to 5th = 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 team tokens
9 players 1st mission to 5th = 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 team tokens
10 players 1st mission to 5th = 3, 4, 4, 5, 5 team tokens
After the leader has assigned the appropriate number of tokens for the mission, all players, whether they are on the mission or not, vote on whether or not to proceed with the mission.
Each player selects a vote token to indicate whether or not they like the team for the mission. The vote is secret until every player has selected their vote and the leader asks for the votes to be revealed.
Once the votes are revealed, if the majority has approved, then the round continues to the mission phase. If the team is rejected then the round ends without starting the mission, and the leader passes to the left and the team building phase is repeated.
If this happens 5 times in a row without the mission proceeding then the resistance loses the game.
Once in the mission phase, the leader will assign a set of mission cards to each of the players on the mission. The mission cards will indicate whether or not the mission succeeds or fails. Once a player selects their response, they return it, face down, to the leader who then shuffles the responses so that it cannot be determined who gave which answer. The unused mission cards should also be shuffled before the votes are revealed. No other player should know who voted what.
The votes are then revealed. If there are 1 or more fail votes, then the mission fails (exception: 4th mission of 7 or more players require an additional fail vote for the mission to fail), otherwise the mission is successful. Place a blue or red score marker on the mission space to indicate success (blue) or failure (red) and move the round marker to the next mission space.
The round is over and leader passes to the left.
During the game players are allowed to say anything they wish to try to figure out who the spy is, or the spy may say anything they wish to try to misdirect other players from detecting them.
If a spy is “found out” they are still in the game and may still try to deceive other players.
Winning the Game
Resistance win the game if three missions are successful. Spies win the game if 3 missions fail or if 5 missions failed to start in a row due to votes.
Other variants
Targeting: The leader chooses the mission instead of taking the next mission in order and then assigns the appropriate number of players to that mission. The players vote on the mission and the team. As with the normal game, each mission can only be attempted once. The 5th mission may only be selected after 2 other missions have been completed.
Blind Spies: Skip the spy reveal phase so that the spies do not know each other.