Spy Guy Pyramid

• Designer: Mariusz Majchrowski
• Publisher: Trefl
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 5+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/48jtmBb  (not to same version)
• Played with copy provided by publisher

Spy Guy Pyramid is an observation game in which you will explore an ancient pyramid. During the gameplay you will have to manipulate a large spatial board to reveal hidden clues. However, as you discover some clues, you will obscure others. .

To play this cooperative game, you first have to build the pyramid.  Of the sixteen pages in the rules, NINE of them are devoted to putting together the three level pyramid!  It’s not hard to do, but it will take a bit of prep time to get this one to the table…

Once constructed, the pyramid/board is placed on the table, and the Spy Guy is placed on the first space of his path.  Moritz, who you are trying to find, is placed on the starting space for the appropriate player count. The clue card deck is shuffled and placed as a face down stack.  The pyramid tokens are spread out around the board, randomized as to which face is up.

On the Spy Guy’s turn, someone flips up the top card of the clue deck and everyone looks at the card.  You’ll see the clue which everyone needs to look for.  Beneath it is an evidence hashtag, the rightmost digit tells you how many of those clues are on the board.  Finally, at the bottom of the card, you’ll see a movement allocation for Moritz.

Once the card has been seen, immediately flip over the sand timer and everyone looks around the board trying to find the same image as on the card.  Each time a player finds one, mark it with a blue clue marker.  Note that some of the clues might be hidden!  There are a number of movable pieces of the board and you may have to alter the board to find everything.  Of course, as you move things, you might obscure other clues – so be sure to look everywhere

When the timer runs out, Spy Guy moves forward a number of spaces equal to the number of blue clue chips successfully placed on the board.  Then Moritz moves forward the number of spaces specified on the bottom of the clue card.  Moritz wins if he gets to the vault at the top level of the pyramid.  The players win if Spy Guy catches up to Moritz before that happens.

My thoughts on the game

So, when I first saw this at the press conference at Essen, I wasn’t quite sure what to think… It definitely looked pretty cool in the display case, but the box also proclaimed that it was a kids’ game.  Nevertheless, the Trefl press rep said that I should really try it because they have had plenty of adults who have enjoyed the game.

I dutifully took one home, and we got it to the table this week.  It falls into the genre of look-for-things games that has recently also been done with Spotlight and Micro Marcro – but this one feels a bit different.  It’s cooperative, and it’s a blast to play.  There are some many different places for the images to hide, and enough different images that frankly you’re never going to remember where things are long-term.

Sure, you might look inside the dark box for an image, and then remember on the next turn that the spear-thingy was also in there, but I doubt that you’ll remember where all the blue feathers are even if you get the same card next week.

As I mentioned, everything about the game is just fun.  It’s a bit of a challenge trying to look at all the different surfaces on the board, especially when some things are obscured by moving board elements.  There is a bit of player count dependency – obviously, it’s easier to scour the board with more eyes; but the game also compensates for that with the different starting locations for Moritz based on player count.

The only thing that I’m not a fan of is the sand timer.  Don’t get me wrong, it works fine – there is no component issue. It’s just that I get so involved looking for the images on the board that I often forget to check the timer – or I don’t want to be distracted from my searching to glance at the timer.  We’re now using a phone timer app to be able to play the game without having to worry about the clock as much (and making sure we don’t give ourselves extra time).

In the end, this might be the best look-and-find-it game for a group.  Everyone can participate equally, and it feels like it is the most fun.  Yeah, it’s a kids game at heart, but there’s room for an occasional game of this even with the regular game group (as also referenced by the number of HABA games still in my collection that still get occasional plays).

This game is at least the fourth in the series, and the Amazon link below will show you one of the other versions – the Spy Guy Pyramid game is not yet available here in the US as far as I can tell.

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/48jtmBb 

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Melissa – Fraser and I played this last night and it’s a hoot! A definite keeper. As someone who researches hybrid games, I 100% agree about the hourglass. Using a digital timer would also allow you to adjust the length of rounds e.g. to make them longer when playing with small children. Or perhaps with older adults – in my experience, the children are often faster at spotting things than we are! Or to make them shorter – as it is, the game is fairly simple. We have one of the other Spy Guy titles as well but wonder whether we have ruined it for ourselves by playing this multi-level game first – it has excellent toy factor!

Adding – apparently there IS a timer in the Spy Guy app, where you can choose between 30 / 45 / 60 seconds. The app also has a playable spy guy / hidden object game, which I’ve not tried, but no other content for the boardgame.

Fraser – When we were setting this up, which was also fun even if it did take a little while, I was concerned that people might be able to memorise where everything is.  Afterwards I realised that there were 56 different items that you may be looking for plus the board is littered with items that are not included in the 56 items that you may actually be looking for, e.g. I noticed at least three different wooden items on the board, only one of them appears in the 56.  We only got through a quarter of the cards by the end of the game, so unless somebody has a photographic memory the replayability is definitely not an issue.  Oh and then there are the six pyramid tiles with stuff on both sides that we totally forgot about (and possibly Dale’s group did too).  A digital timer would definitely be better than the hour glass, especially if it gave a 5 or 10 second warning too. We have since played  Spy Guy Fantasy and admittedly based on play of each, Spy Guy Fantasy was the tighter game, i.e. it felt more difficult to beat the game, but it lacks the 3D aspect of Spy Guy Pyramids.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y, Fraser, Melissa
• I like it. Ryan P, John P
• Neutral.
• Not for me…