Designed by Isik Nevo and published by Unique Board Games (UBG), Agent Who is a Guess Who?-style deduction card game for 2-5 players with a notional Cold War setting. Each player has a unique 'agent card' that shows three icons in specific positions (A, B and C). Mostly through a process of elimination, players are all trying to work out each other's agent card. The win goes to the player who correctly identifies two opposing agents, but there's an alternative 'uncovering vital intel' set collection win condition.
Players try to determine their opponents' agent card by passing them 'intel' cards that show one, two or three icons, naming a position (A, B or C) and asking if any of the icons are in that position. You can make a public inquiry using just one intel card but the other players may benefit from the yes or no answer at least as much as you do. Alternatively, you can make a private inquiry so that only you benefit from the reply but you need to pass across two intel cards for a private inquiry. Perhaps the Board's Eye View team are an overly secretive bunch, but in our plays we seemed to make almost exclusively private inquiries so as not to share valuable information with other players. Players on the receiving end of an inquiry have the option of remaining silent, but they need to pay for this by giving the inquirer one of their intel cards. Players may make assumptions about why an opponent has declined to answer, but therein lie opportunities for bluff and double bluff...
Players all have a sheet showing the unique grouping of icons on each of the 20 agent cards, so every reply - positive and negative - can help to eliminate cards and so help you home in on your opponents' agent cards. Unallocated agent cards are shuffled in with the intel deck, so they can turn up in the intel card display. Some tho' are set aside as a 'safe box' but players all have a single-use 'Spying' card that can be used to peek at these to eliminate them from their sheet. You can also use your Spying card to snatch a card from the face-up intel card display, but you're very unlikely to want to use it in this way unless it's to complete your 'uncovering vital intel' set.
In our Board's Eye View plays we found the set collection win quite hard to pull off because when you 'uncover vital intel' you are inevitably revealing information about your own agent card. It's certainly an option to pursue tho' if you think that other players have already deduced that your shared 'uncover vital info' icon is already common knowledge to the other players.
There are special rules to facilitate two-player games (inter alia you'll both have two agent cards) but this is a game that we think is at its best with four or five players. Even with five, Agent Who plays quickly: our plays mostly ran to 20-30 minutes, so they hit that filler-length sweet spot for a deduction game. And it's a big plus that there's no player elimination: even if your agent is identified, you continue to play and you are still in with a chance of securing two successful uncoverings before any of your opponents.
We can reveal that UBG have secret plans to bring Agent Who to Kickstarter on 1 November. But the secret is out! Click here to check out the KS!
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