The free spy party game Find the Spy

How to play Find the Spy

You need 3 to 12 people and one phone. Everyone knows where you are except the spy, who has to bluff, listen and work it out. Everyone else has to find the spy without making the location too obvious.

1. 1Pick a location pack: Everyday places, Travel, Food spots, Fun & events, or Mixed. Choose 1 spy, or 2 if you have 7 or more players.
2. 2Set the timer for the questioning round: 5, 8 or 10 minutes.
3. 3Pass the phone around. Each player taps to see their card in private, then hands it on.
4. 4Most cards show the same location and a role there, like Airport and Pilot. The spy's card just says “You're the spy.”
5. 5Start the timer. Take turns asking another player one question about the location, without naming it. An easy rhythm: whoever answers asks next.
6. 6Anyone can call a vote when they think they've found the spy. The spy can stop the game at any time to guess the location.
7. 7Tap Reveal to see who the spy was and where you all were.

A sample round: the location is the airport. Someone asks the pilot, “How early did you get here today?” “Way too early.” Next: “Was there a line?” “There's always a line.” The spy is listening hard. Early, lines… airport or train station? Then someone asks the spy what they're wearing. “Something comfortable,” they say. Sounds fine. For now.

Find the Spy locations

Every location comes with a set of roles, so each player gets a little character to play. Pick one pack, or Mixed to draw from all of them. Turn on the location list if you want to give the spy a fair shot. Every place is family-friendly.

Spies, the timer and who wins

With 3 to 6 players, one spy is plenty. From 7 players up you can add a second spy, and suddenly every odd answer could mean something.

Five minutes is quick and tense, eight is a good default, and ten gives a big group time to question everyone. If nobody has called a vote when time is up, take one last vote.

The location list is optional. When it's on, the spy can see every place in the pack. It doesn't say which one is right, but it turns a wild guess into a real deduction. Turn it on for new players and kids, and leave it off once your group gets sneaky.

For the spy, this is a guess-the-location game. For everyone else, it's about catching a bluffer. The screen shows a simple way to score it: the spy wins by surviving the vote or by guessing the location, and everyone else wins by catching the spy.

Tips for spies and everyone else

• Ask questions that someone at the location could answer easily but that don't give it away. “Would you come here on a weekday?” is good. “How bad was the turbulence?” is not.
• Answer like your role. A pilot and a passenger see the same airport very differently, and that's fun to play with.
• Spies, stay vague but confident. “Depends on the day” works for almost anything.
• Spies, listen more than you talk. Every answer crosses a few places off your mental list.
• Don't jump on the first strange answer. Sometimes a person is just bad at questions.
• Watch for oddly general questions. The spy is often fishing for clues, not testing anyone.
• Spies, once you're fairly sure of the place, guess. Waiting gives everyone else more time to vote you out.

Ways to play

Where Find the Spy works best

It's at its best with 5 to 8 people who can see each other's faces: a living room, a dinner table, a campfire, a dorm lounge. Bigger groups work too. Just use the longer timer so everyone gets asked.

Because it's all talking, it's quiet enough for a restaurant. It's also a good icebreaker for a new group, since nobody needs special knowledge, only a straight face and decent questions.

Teachers can use it with older kids to practice asking and answering questions, and the family-friendly locations mean there's nothing to screen first. When the group wants a change, ManyMini has other games that run on the same phone.

Where spy games come from

Hidden-role games have been around for decades. Mafia was created in the 1980s by Dmitry Davidoff, then a psychology student at Moscow State University, and spread from there to dorms and summer camps.

The secret-location twist came later. Spyfall, a card game by Alexandr Ushan published in Russia in 2014, gave every player the same location except one spy. Find the Spy is our own free take on that kind of game. It isn't that game and has no connection to it or its publisher. The locations and roles are ours, and it runs in any browser with no download or account.

Questions