Someone is a spy and you need to take them out. There’s only thirty seconds left for them to bug the ambassador and complete their mission. You see movement out of the corner of your eye? Is that balding man reaching towards the ambassador’s pocket? You take the shot and the party goers scream. Over Skype, your friend…
It’s been nearly a decade since designer Chris Hecker announced the subterfuge multiplayer game SpyParty, and it’s been even longer since he first started working on it. In just a week, short of a meteor strike or other cataclysm, SpyParty will finally hit Steam.
In most multiplayer video games, you’re on equal footing with your opponents. You’re on the same map, with the same moves and tools, and the more skilled player will theoretically win. That’s not the case with Spy Party, a two-player game where each player’s role couldn’t be more different.
SOMA is a standout game, and one of the many ways it distinguishes itself is through its restrained use of achievements. There are 10 on Steam (or 10 trophies on PlayStation), and each is nothing more than a progress marker. They come infrequently and unexpectedly. I wasn’t sure when one would pop up or why. They…
Game designer Chris Hecker, best known for his long-in-development game SpyParty and for his consistently insightful comments on the video game industry, is here to answer your questions.
Not just one old person. A few of them. Not just one shade of brown person but lighter and darker tones. Not just able-bodied people. People in wheelchairs, too.
We've been following asymmetrical multiplayer game Spy Party for years. We've been wondering for nearly as long when game designer Chris Hecker was ever going to swap out his programmer art for something a little more 21st-century. He's getting close!
Beautiful place for a headshot, no? And players won’t need to worry about staining the handsome furnishings after killing someone in SpyParty because there won’t be any blood.
When SpyParty creator Chris Hecker says he wants his tense, psychological espionage simulation to be the most diverse game ever, he's talking triple-decker diversity.
You can now watch the "Hotheaded Developers Rant Back" panel from the Game Developers Conference. Panelists like Eric Zimmerman, Anna Anthropy, Kellee Santiago, Anna Marsh, Naomi Clark and Mitu Khandaker all talked frankly and often rousingly about issues ranging from poor planning to crunch time to racial and gender…
It's revealing that at first I didn't get the point of this, which is Chris Hecker's rant at Game Developers Conference 2013. So much of the nonstop big budget press conference bullshit you hear in this business all sounds alike, forcing me into a kind of weird active listening where I'm trying to decode pabulum and…
"This needs to be a subtle art style to go with a subtle game," Chris Hecker told me during our latest conversation about one of the contenders for World's Most Interesting Video Game.
Two of the most talented and fiercely independent video game creators I've ever met are joining us today, right below these words I'm writing, to answer your best questions.
We've been optimistic about SpyParty, the long-in-the-making competitive multiplayer game that pits one player as suave spy in a party and the other as a sniper who has one bullet and perfect aim.
Why are so many games just copies of past games? Who is responsible for this state of affairs? Does the industry need more variety to survive?
I've been impressed with SpyParty since the day I first played it, but soon you'll no longer have to take my word for it. The game's creator, Chris Hecker, is about to pull a Minecraft and launch a $15 beta.
Chris Hecker, who strikes me as not the kind of man who enjoys going to parties, spends a lot of time thinking about parties and the tricky things spies might do at them.
Andy and Chris are going to Seattle this weekend. They are going to the Penny Arcade Expo where they will share a booth and let the public, for the first time, try their games. Things are looking good.. for Andy.
Seldom in life does someone cackle in front of you like a James Bond villain, explaining how they will deliver your demise. When game designer Chris Hecker did this to me in San Francisco recently, I knew I had him.
Electronic Arts' recent attempt to "focus" Spore developer Maxis—which was a nicer way of saying some people got laid off—includes one of its more rant-ready folks, Chris Hecker, a Technology Fellow at the company. Remember him?
