In SpyParty, Your Prejudices Might Just Be Why You Got Shot in the Head

“But within the games themselves, there’s so little diversity [that adding some] just seems like all positives,” Hecker observed. “Not only positives, because ‘hey, it’s the right thing to do from a social justice/societal standpoint.’ But, [also] from the standpoint that my game is so compatible with exploring in that direction that it would be a crime to not actually explore it, because it increases the level of subtlety. It causes you to think about cognitive biases. My game is all about playing with cognitive biases.

“One of the aesthetic goals of my game is to explore consequential decisions with partial information. Things like racism, sexism, homophobia, all of these add tiny little biases that people might not even realize. All of that kind of stuff comes up in the milieu of the game when you’ve got all of these different diverse characters.

“People can choose their sex, their race. There’s sexuality. That’s actually a gameplay mechanic in my game because there’s a ‘Seduce Target’ mission and it doesn’t constrain you on who your target is. You just pick which target it is. Let’s say you were homophobic and decided if you were a male spy you would never pick a male seduction target.

“Let’s say you didn’t know this consciously; it’s just something that came naturally. That’s a bias the sniper could exploit. If they figured that out about you—that you always picked the opposite gender as the seduction target—then, boom! Half the [decoys in the] party eliminated right off the bat.”

“I don’t want to be heavy handed about this,” Hecker warned. “It’s not me saying, ‘You must pick all different genders in order to play the game correctly.’ It’s a natural outflow of the way information travels around in the game. I think that kind of thing is great.

“It’s awesome to have a game where—instead of it being diversity in a cut scene, where you have a shallow kind of diversity, like, ‘I’ve got a menu choice about who I have sex with in some giant RPG that’s not really about people at all’—every three minutes you’re making these tiny little subtle choices that can’t help but elucidate biases and maybe make people think about it. If not, at least make the game a more interesting experience overall.”

Hecker: “We’re going to have a custom skeleton per character, which means custom animations for every character… As far as I know, there’s no game that’s done that…”

I’ve experienced this aspect of SpyParty firsthand. The few times I played the game as the spy, I thought, ‘Well, it will be really obvious if I pick the black guy, so I’m not going to pick the black guy.’ But if somebody knows I’m playing and thinks, “Oh, it’s Evan, so he’s not going to pick the black guy,” then I can go ahead and pick a black guy. There’s an interesting layer that you wouldn’t necessarily get in a game that’s structured differently. And, with Hecker’s determination to have a cast of characters with wide-ranging looks, there might even be SpyParty cocktail parties with–gasp!–more than one black guy. Or older white women. Or handicapped secret agents.

“That’s so different than if they were squares,” Hecker asserted. “You bring in an entire lifetime of biases both conscious and unconscious to these decisions of what character you pick and who you pick for your other guys.” (Note: You’re also able to pick the avatars for key characters that you’ll need to interact with in SpyParty, like an ambassador, for example.)

Hecker says that he and the other creators working on SpyParty won’t just be skinning characters in different looks. They’re trying to make it so that each character animates in uniquely specific ways, with no repetition or re-use of virtual skeletons. “When we started doing the new art style it was totally with an eye towards diversity. The way most games work, what happens is the animation is done on the skeleton and then the skeleton moves the polygons around. A whole bunch of the characters share a skeleton because the animations take a lot of time. What you want to do is use the animations on as many characters as you possibly can, because production costs are insane. Well, being idiots, we’re not doing that.

Hecker: “Am I worried I will sell less copies because I tell people not to call people faggots? … That would be sad to sell less copies. But if I do, that’s not the kind of person I want in the beta, anyway, playing the game.” …”

“We’re going to have a custom skeleton per character, which means custom animations for every character. Now, the cost of that is huge in terms of time and effort and technology and all this stuff. People with limps. People in wheelchairs. Different body mass sizes like larger people versus small people, and they’ll actually walk different. As far as I know, there’s no game that’s done that, [in terms of] a custom rig per character. We’re going to have this incredibly bespoke feeling where every character has custom animations.

“It’s costing us way more money and effort but I think it’s going to be totally worth it because the game is going to look and feel like something completely different. When you’re doing that, why would you not do diversity? You’re already paying for it. You’ve got this awesome opportunity.”

As Hecker discussed these opportunities afforded by bespoke skeletons and a commitment to populating SpyParty with folks from different backgrounds, I asked him about the possible loss of another kind of opportunity. Was he afraid of losing buzz or cashflow if players from other communities came to SpyParty and found that they couldn’t talk trash the way they do elsewhere? Did he think that ‘play nice while you’re in my house’ ethos could affect the way the game disseminates? The game’s open beta costs $15 to join, after all. And, if too few people open their wallets, Hecker’s grand experimental game about subtle human behavior won’t find an audience big enough to help it thrive. (Note: players who pay up now will have a lifetime license for the game, meaning that they won’t ever have to pay for incremental updates or the shiniest version of the game when it finally heads to store shelves.) What if SpyParty gets tagged as ‘snooty’ or ‘overly PC’?

“Am I worried I will sell less copies because I tell people not to call people faggots?” Hecker replied. “I hope I don’t. That would be sad to sell less copies. But if I do, that’s not the kind of person I want in the beta, anyway, playing the game.”

The San Francisco-based developer sees a matrix of interlocking diversity as crucial to the future of SpyParty. One element comes from the representations of the in-game characters, bespoke animations and all. Another form of difference is the difference in ability. “There’s diversity of player skill,” Hecker said. “Handicapping games is really important. I have all kind of modes to try and handicap skill gaps.” But it’s yet another kind of diversity that might be the most important: the people who’ll be playing SpyParty.

“I would much rather have a healthy, supportive and interesting community that includes both newbies and people who are incredibly good at the game than I would an extra $15 from somebody who can’t act nice once they’re over at my place,” he elaborated.

“A lot of times on the internet, there’s this idea that, if you’re asking someone to change their language, that you’re violating their right to free speech,” Hecker explained. “I don’t buy that. There is no word worth hurting somebody’s feelings for.”