Designed by: Wolfgang Kramer
In Top Secret Spies (also published as Heimlich and Co) the players are secret agents moving around a board and scoring points whenever they encounter a safe: the only thing is, nobody can be certain who is who.
The board is set up with a certain number of agents present: the game can play seven, but with less players there may be some extra agents present serving as potential decoys. Players are dealt a card to tell them which colour secret agent they are and the game begins.
On your turn you roll a die that gives you movement points. You can then split the movement points between as many agents as you like, moving one agent many spaces, several agents one space each, or whatever division of the points you like. Somewhere on the buildings the agents move between is the safe piece: if any agent stops here, all agents score the points for the position they currently occupy: anything between -3 and +10 depending on the location. The safe is moved to a new location and play recommences.
The key to the game is to try and engineer your agent into high-scoring positions without giving away which agent you are, as doing so will encourage other players to move you into the low-scoring places.
Play continues until any one agent reaches the 41 point mark on the score track, at which point the game ends and the player – not necessarily the agent, who might be a decoy! – furthest along the score track wins. Play can be spiced up by adding a guessing round before agents are revealed at final scoring, with everyone scoring 5pts for guessing an opponents agent correctly. And there are also additional spy cards to bring into play to give the game yet more variation as well.
If anyone gets a sniff or which agent you are, they may well move you into that rotten -3 spot.
Low. It's a fast-moving game.
The only real thing to consider here is the balance between moving your agent and giving away who you are.
It's not a game with massive variety, but dice rolls (and cards, if you play with them) give some randomness.
2-7
Players
6+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
A rather simple game, but ingenious with it. It's old-fashioned in its use of roll-and-move, but the catch is: move whom? You don't want to simply move your own piece as that will give the game away. But neither do you want to leave it lingering in those rubbish low-scoring spots. Simple enough for young kids to get, but intriguing enough for adults to enjoy.