SPY INTRIGUE is definitely my favorite game of the comp, and one of my favorite IF experiences ever. I’ve played it through to the end twice now, digging up as many tidbits as I could along the way, and there’s still more to be discovered in there. I really could not recommend it enough.
The thing I respect most about SPY INTRIGUE is that it dances between absolutely hilarious and gut-punchingly emotional, often within the same paragraph, and it works. It hits highs and lows with such perfect precision.
Like, for example, from quite early in the game:
[spoiler]THERE ARE YOUNG PEOPLE FROLICKING ON THE BEACH, DANCING IN THE WAVES, SCARED TO DEATH THEY MIGHT BE IN LOVE WITH THE PERSON NEXT TO THEM AND THAT PERSON MIGHT NOT BE, TERRIFIED THEY MIGHT NOT BE LOVABLE, THAT THEY MIGHT NOT BE SMART, THAT EVERYTHING THEY DREAMED MIGHT COLLAPSE WHEN SUBJECT TO THE SLIGHTEST PRESSURE, LIKE DRY-ROTTED WOOD
(click an option)
BUT YOU DONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THAT NOW BECAUSE YOUVE GOT BRA AND A LICENSE TO KILL
IF YOU WERE A WHALE YOU’D HAVE A LICENSE TO KRILL
HAHAHA YEAH
ACTUALLY NOT ALL WHALES EAT KRILL AND SOME DON’T EVEN HAVE BALEEN. FOR EXAMPLE, THE—[/spoiler]
It handles its humor with such a perfect double-helix of self-awareness: It makes the cheap jokes before you have a chance to do it, before you can distance yourself from the narrative to make fun of it; and then it makes fun of its cheap jokes in a way that builds trust, the way that friends bond through inappropriate humor in the face of terrible things.
The other thing I love, love, love about this game is the way it understands that in order for something to feel universal, to resonate on that level that makes you go, “Shit, yeah, I know exactly how that feels”…it has to be incredibly personal and specific. The experiences of the PC in SPY INTRIGUE are not like the experiences of any person alive. They can’t be. They’re deeply rooted in a well-wrought, complex dystopian world, and intensely personal besides. But in their specificity, the emotions become resonant.
The way it feels to be hurt by an adult, but not question it because of the power differential.
The way it feels to hang out with people you thought were your friends but who are actually using you as the butt of their jokes.
The way it feels to love something with every fiber of your being and be rejected by it, because it cannot love you the way you need it to.
These are intensely familiar themes. These are snapshots from my life, and the life of people I know. And SPY INTRIGUE invites me to share in that pain and then break the tension with laughter…like a good friend does. And I think that’s what I love most about this game, is that it somehow made me its friend.