The sniper is one of the two player roles that can be chosen to compete as in SpyParty. Positioned on the outside of the party, the sniper is tasked with identifying and eliminating the spy before they can complete their appointed missions. While the sniper has a superior perspective and the clock on their side, they face the challenges of information overload, missing information and a manipulative spy standing in their way.
Gameplay[]
The sniper has a first-person view from the outside of the party location. Using the WASD or left thumb stick on the controller, they can zoom in and out and move along a horizontal track around the outside of the party. The mouse or right thumb stick is used to aim. The sniper can also lean with the Q and E keys or the controller shoulder buttons, which can help look around obstructions.
The sniper always projects a visible red (or green, in case you change your settings) laser straight from their crosshair so the spy has some idea of where the sniper's field of view or focus is. This laser is blocked by certain obstacles in the environment, such as the wall between windows on Ballroom.
By putting the crosshair on targets and pressing the left mouse button or the controller triggers, the sniper can also highlight or lowlight partygoers to aid in remembering suspicious behavior. A roster of partygoers is displayed at the bottom of the screen for the sniper to keep track of those they have marked.
The sniper can also see labels for certain partygoers: the ambassador, any suspected double agents (0-3 depending on the venue), and Toby and Damon.
Finally, the sniper is armed with a single bullet, which immediately ends the game when fired. To fire, you must first release the safety, which is done by holding Shift or pressing either stick. Once the safety is released, left click or pull the right controller trigger to fire. The bullet will only fire if the crosshair is on a person (who will be highlighted in red); anywhere else, nothing happens.
Victory Conditions[]
The sniper wins if they shoot the spy, or when the spy runs out of time. If the spy completes all their missions, or the sniper shoots the wrong person, the spy wins.
Strategy[]
- People with arrows over their heads cannot be the spy, so don't shoot them.
- Use your tools! Highlighting and lowlighting are important tools for the sniper. The more information you can record, the less your brain has to process.
- Only lowlight people you know that can't be the spy. A lot of snipers lose because they think that the spy won't do certain things so they lowlight the spy, and they end up losing the game.
- If you follow the rule above, never bring a lowlight back to suspicion by unmarking them.
- Learn how each mission works and what information you can glean from the spy's attempts to complete them.
- Study and practice: the more familiar you are with the spy's tells, the better you will be able to spot them in the wild. Also know action test tells, especially for ones that throw suspicion on an NPC, like the green action test for Swap Statue mission.
- Conceal your laser when possible; place it on an outside wall where the spy can't see it. Similarly, don't point your laser directly at what you're looking at if you can help it.
- Be aware of the clock. Against a good spy, the more time that ticks down, the closer you are to losing. Similarly, if you see the clock jump time, you know the spy is at a window pad.
- If possible, narrow your focus to the minimum number of missions you need to stop in order to win. A sniper trying to track every mission will have trouble paying attention to multiple targets.
- If the game goes into overtime (the clock shows 0:00 and there is a continuous beeping), the spy has completed their missions. Trust your instincts and shoot your top suspect if this happens, since if you do nothing, the spy will win.
- On the other hand, if the clock doesn't reach 0:00, don't feel that you must shoot every game. If you believe the spy will run out of time, it is safer to refrain from shooting, especially if you aren't very confident about the spy's identity. A spy who notices that you always shoot may opt to do nothing the entire game and let the law of averages hand them the victory.