Do Move Say

Note: I open with an incredibly brief history of independent video game development to make a point. It started as a paragraph, but that wasn’t enough. I gloss over significant bits, and this is almost entirely from personal observations in the world, so yell at me in the comments. For a cited, academic take, see Celia Pearce 's book on the history of IndieCade.

Once upon a time, all games were indie games.

There was no industry, only hobbyists creating something fun. This changed when games entered the public - creating a Pong cabinet was not a task for most hobbyists. Almost everyone was content with letting companies create playful experiences. This trend extended to consoles, as most had proprietary disk or cartridge formats requiring specialized manufacturing and, more importantly, distribution to stores. The PC was the lone standout - a dedicated coder could create and share their titles without corporate backing.

Note: “Indie” is a blurry designation, meaning the company is small and likely self-funded. That blurriness was even more pronounced in the early days, as most of the companies that made it big were, at some point, a small self-funded operation. Most - not all (Sorry, EA, you have no indie-cred).

PCs were more complicated for consumers than game consoles. The PC game market has grown or maintained its presence since the late ‘70s, but other platforms often overshadowed it. Creating your own game for PCs was not always an easy task. Coders were tasked with building all the tools themselves - there were few existing resources in the early days to help hobbyists realize their fantasies. Some ambitious creators modified existing games, and then some games were released with modding tools, allowing anyone to change the game assets or create new scenarios. These modding tools were replaced with entire game engines - programs that alleviate some of the most demanding work.

Note: I call myself a modder. I take existing frameworks and create something new in much of my work. Often, like with Do Move Say, that is not my goal. Games want to evolve over time, and if you’re a willing designer, you let them.

Until the early 2000’s, the issue that any independent game creator faced was not the toolset, although there was much to be desired, it was distribution. The central place to play games was consoles, with PC games always a bit behind. Even so, all of the games were sold in brick-and-mortar stores. You could build games, as many did, for the PC, but there was no easy way to get your game in front of the public and make money. One of the most ubiquitous tools to create PC games was Flash, a browser-based animation engine. The expectation for Flash games or mods using other engines, such as Warcraft 3, was that they were free to play.

Microsoft released the Xbox Game Store, a digital game distribution service, in 2005 to serve the new Xbox 360. The platform was ahead of its time - while many of us saw digital software distribution as the future, physical media would be the primary distribution of console games for another decade. The store was ambitious and, unfortunately, quickly became inundated with shovelware and clones. It took a lot of work to find the gems. Sony’s PlayStation store was released soon after the PS3 and was overly curated. They created a walled garden to protect the overall quality of the available titles (which was ok since developing the cell architecture was a nightmare). Those represented the two opposite approaches to indie game distribution on consoles - the “Wild West” versus hand-selected curation.

Note: I had both a PS3 and Xbox 360 at this time. The digital games on the PS3 were a revelation. It was terrific having games available on a console without having to switch disks! And there were so many great titles and developers - one of my favorites was the precursor to Rocket League called Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars. Yes, that was the name. It played almost identically to Rocket League but had a crummy title and was not as popular (perhaps due to the title - not enough bacon…).

“But Pete,” you ask, “why haven’t you done a live version of Rocket League if you like it so much?” Great question! I have had many iterations of live versions on paper, but they mostly rely on radio-controlled cars, and it turns out that’s too obvious and lame. So stay tuned - I’ll come up with something.

The iPhone App Store was released in 2008, with support from Unity, a free-ish multi-platform game engine. This legitimate storefront revolutionized the indie scene. Apple started with a reasonably thorough curation process, although it was less stringent (by far) than Sony. Smartphones became another gaming console, and the tools to manifest one's imagination were available for basically nothing. Around 2010, Unity started supporting traditional video game consoles, and the number of indie games grew exponentially.

It is hard to overstate how different the video gaming world was in 2010. There were so few independently created titles for any platform (not counting Flash games on the PC) that tracking new ideas was relatively easy. New games shown at festivals had a significant chance of doing well because there was so little competition for attention - assuming they had a means of distribution to a storefront.

One such game was Spy Party by Chris Hecker. He spent 2009 working on a prototype of his idea since 2005 and showed it off at various gatherings nationwide. The press covered his tour extensively - everyone loved the game. The game mechanic was novel and exciting, and indie as a concept was a great human interest story.

Note: I need to overemphasize a point - this game was a tech demo and had the full attention of Wired (among others). This is incredibly unlikely today. I was a prominent member of the NYC indie game meetup Playcrafting for many years following this, and the number of impressive prototypes and early-release candidates was astounding. There was the same kind of novelty and innovation, it’s just that a single game can’t garner that attention in a world flooded with titles - that is, until the game becomes a world-wide phenomenon (like Among Us).?

Spy Party was unique. There are only two players: the Spy and the Sniper. The Spy has three goals to complete at a cocktail party, while the Sniper looks in from outside, trying to identify the Spy. The Sniper gets one shot at someone in the party - if they are correct, they win. If they are wrong, the Spy wins. They win if the Spy can complete their missions before the Sniper takes a shot. The key to the game is that the cocktail party comprises non-playing characters (NPCs). The Spy is forced to behave like an NPC to survive - act too much like a human, and it’s clear to the Sniper who to shoot.

I read about the game and discovered that Chris was showing it at an NYU party in the city. I was unable to go due to a prior obligation and was bummed - I wanted to play Spy Party! It was clear the game wasn’t coming out soon (he said it would take a couple more years of development - it wasn’t released until 2018). I did the obvious thing - I made my own live-action version.

Note: This is one of many times that I made my own version of a game after falling in love with the mechanic before ever playing the game. I programmed my own version of the card game Codenames before the holidays as I couldn’t get a hold of a copy fast enough. I made my own digital version of Wavelength (called 1 to 100) during COVID-19 to play with my family and friends. After reading about The Mind, I modded two decks of playing cards to try it out (still surprisingly fun).

Live-action social deduction games are plentiful and popular with some gamers. Many of these games skirt around the problem that some players are technically NPCs and have little to no agency (such as Villagers who can vote but have no powers). The challenge in Spy Party is that there are only two players but many more NPCs. Could I create a game that’s fun to play even if you’re not playing? Well, it worked in Field Frogger!

The success of Field Frogger, a game where almost the entire cast of players were NPCs, proved that participation is not just limited to those who can win or lose. Players can be players if they’re allowed to play, regardless of their role in the game. They accommodate and create the experience for the lucky two, hoping the same could happen for them. And even if they didn’t get to be Frogger, the actions were more a delight than a chore.

Like Field Frogger, I needed to program the NPCs to behave in a particular way. This needed to be predictable with some variants to keep it interesting. The solution was to create an action loop for the NPCs - everyone is given three main actions: a Do, a Move, and a Say. They can execute these in any order but must repeat them repeatedly throughout the round.

For example:

DO: Give a standing ovation to another player.

MOVE: Walk as slowly as possible.

SAY: Sing a song to another player.

Note: It’s been a while since I revisited this game, and I love it. If you’re reading this, you can imagine how fun doing this with friends and strangers can be. No one knows what’s on the cards, so I’m permitting everyone to be silly. It’s a great time.

Each card has two If / Then statements to keep it interesting. These are to be executed if the conditions are right.

For example:

If a player near you… is skipping in place…

Then, walk up to any player and… ask, “How much is a train ticket?”

If a player approaches you and… gives a high five…

Then, for one minute… be an alien.

This elegantly solved the NPC challenge. The mechanic of players walking around following crazy instructions and, at times, reacting to one another in a seemingly random way created the perfect ambiance for a two-player game of Live Action Spy Party.

The rest of the game was roughly the same as the original. The Spy was required to carry out three actions: kill three players, deliver the note, and find the key. Everyone was instructed that if someone pinched their elbow, they would dramatically but safely collapse to the floor and remove themselves from the game space. If someone handed them a note, they must conceal it as discreetly as possible. And if someone asked for a key and they had the key, they were required to hand it over secretly. The Sniper stood outside the playspace during the game and could stop everything if they wanted to take a shot. And there was a timer, which would require the Sniper to choose at the end (if the Spy hadn’t completed the tasks at that time but evaded death, it was a draw).

The game worked. I tested it at Eyebeam and then premiered it at LAPDAWG. This was followed up at Come Out and Play, where it was a bonafide hit. The Spy learned quickly to act ridiculous like the NPCs around them. The clever ones could fit in without anyone, including the Sniper, the wiser. It was a massive spectacle, with a line of players waiting to join.

Note: I wasn’t the only one excited to try out Spy Party. The Come Out and Play audience was filled with others like me who had read about the prototype video game and were interested in any semblance of the experience.

It was so easy to run that I brought it everywhere! I played the game with hundreds of people for the following year. In November 2011, I was invited to showcase some games at a new event called the DC Games Festival. I created a new game, A Web of Hope, for the event and brought along Live Action Spy Party.

Note: I was concerned about going to a festival that took place on Veteran’s Day. I wanted to mark that by making a game-like experience reflecting on and celebrating world peace.

“Teams race to create a ceiling of connections, using ribbon and string and then hang as many ornaments of hope within a ray of light as possible. The challenge is that no one is allowed in the center of the space - all connections must be made by working with the opposing team. Work together to compose a complex sculpture of future wishes and finish the experience with a parade through the space!”

The game's rules were fuzzy at best, but I pulled it off. It’s not worth its own article, but I want to bring it up because the photos were great.

The DC Games Festival was a bit different than the others, as players didn’t disappear at the end; they stuck around. This meant that after I ran Live Action Spy Party a couple of times as the finale for the day, I was asked to do an impromptu Q&A session. I love being the center of attention, so this thrilled me!

I was challenged by a participant on a critical point - they called me out for creating so many new games while repeating Live Action Spy Party. Why not let the game go? I conceded that the game was easy to run and a crowd favorite - I was explicitly asked to bring it. This prompted a discussion about releasing it for others to run themselves, perhaps even as a card-based game. And if I’m doing that, I should rename it as the game has morphed into something new - maybe “Do Move Say.”

So that’s what I did.

I approached Ed and pitched that I wanted to do a Kickstarter. The site was a couple of years old and making waves in the creative space. Cards Against Humanity raised just over $15,000 and was a huge success. Maybe Do Move Say could be as successful.

The project was laborious. The first challenge was to rethink aspects of the game. It needed more replayability. I added six mod cards and many, many more NPCs. This made it unlikely that anyone would be stuck doing precisely the same thing from one round to another. I also took away any semblance of Spy Party or violence. It was now the Mastermind versus the Detective. I spent another six months testing and tweaking the changes to ensure they were sound.

Art was created, and the cards were beautifully laid out in a playing card format. We ( Shaelyn Amaio did a lot of the heavy lifting!) budgeted the production costs, researched playing card styles, and sourced a printer, eventually going for black-core to ensure no one could see through the card. I recorded a ton of videos and overthought the entire Kickstarter presentation. On June 25, 2012, the Kickstarter launched for $15,000. I encourage you to check out the video on the Kickstarter site - it’s pretty good!

Do Move Say achieved its funding goal. It was not easy at all. Running this Kickstarter took everything I had to give. I tapped all of my contacts and all of their contacts. I did a severe social media push, went to every game meet-up I could find, and even handed out cards at Union Square - while doing the crazy behaviors myself (not sure that was as effective as I hoped). The experience was like running a marathon; afterward, I vowed never to do it again (even though I did several years later).

Trying to enter the printed game community was a challenge. Some folks were incredibly generous and enthusiastic: the game was voluntarily translated into three languages for the Print and Play version, one requiring a font size so small that it’s likely unusable (darn Finnish!). But the reception in board game forums was brutal. I was flat-out told on Reddit that I wasn’t experienced enough to release a card game (uh, what?). The reviews on BoardGameGeek were brutal, and frankly, they were right.

I made a game for festivals that I facilitate. It’s incredible with many players, but that’s hardly the board game enthusiast's audience. And it’s best with facilitation - particularly from someone like me. In my tests, there was always a skilled large-group facilitator. Without motivating many people to act ridiculous, the entire experience falls flat.

The experiment succeeded in many ways - the game got published, and I could return to creating new games. It wasn’t, however, a product for most people. It was for a small audience and likely sits unused on many gaming shelves (including mine - if you want a copy, just let me know!). After the blowback, I moved on to other projects, but I’ll likely start playing this again with large groups. It is tremendously fun when the right conditions are met.

Note: I occasionally searched for the game to see what would turn up - and it was mostly nothing. One time, however, I noticed a dedicated “Do Move Say” session at a big festival that was enthusiastically attended (neat!). It turned out to be a furry convention. Huh.

Further Note: I was invited to show the game off at Lunacon, the oldest sci-fi convention in the US. I was super excited, but no one showed up during the allocated “Do Move Say” game times over a two-day span. Oh well.