A Specter Slips Slyly Through Shadows with Emerson Matsuuchi

Our discussion with Emerson focuses on his inspirations for Spector Ops and how the game evolved from a police chase to a dystopian future. We also talk about the physical components of the game and how they help lend to the secrecy aspect of the game. Emerson shares a memory from one of his demos that includes a risky but ingenious move taken by an agent player.

Specter Ops, designed by Emerson Matsuuchi, is a deduction and hidden movement game pitting two groups of players against each other: the agent and the hunter(s). One player takes on the role of the agent whose goal is to sabotage 3 of the 4 potential sites on the board while evading the other players who play as hunters. This sounds easy for the agent except that the agent has to successfully escape the board after completing his or her mission. Each turn the agent moves secretly (marking down his or her movement on a sheet of paper), and the hunters have to try to locate the agent using line of sight. Not only is this deduction game challenging and fun, it has high quality components.

Link to blog post: clickity click