sneaky clues · secret agents · one dangerous mole
CHOOSE YOUR MISSION
Clear a location to unlock its routes. Fewer burners (guesses), tighter slip (miss) budgets — the deep field is unforgiving.
Two rival spy agencies — Team Scarlet and Team Cobalt — race to make contact with all of their undercover agents, who are hiding behind a grid of 25 code words.
Pick a Handler for each team. Handlers secretly see which words hide Scarlet agents, which hide Cobalt agents, which are harmless civilians — and which one is THE MOLE. Everyone else is a field Agent.
Handlers transmit clues. On your team's turn, your Handler says one word + one number — like "OCEAN · 3" — meaning three words on the grid connect to OCEAN. The clue must be about what words mean, can't be a word on the grid, and the Handler's face must stay ice-cold. No hints!
Agents guess. Tap a word to make contact. Find a friendly agent? Keep going — you get up to the clue's number + 1 guesses. Hit a civilian or an enemy agent and your turn ends immediately (and the enemy says thanks). You may stop guessing whenever you like. A clue number of 0 means guess as many as you dare.
Win — or wake the Mole. The first team to contact all of its agents wins. But tap THE MOLE and your team loses on the spot. The team that goes first has 9 agents to find; the other has 8.
House rules of honour: clues are a single word; no rhyming-with or starts-with-the-same-letter tricks; Handlers keep a poker face. Argue loudly, accuse everyone, have fun.
No rivals this time. You are all one spy network, split into Cell Alpha and Cell Omega — and you're racing the clock together.
Two secret briefings, one grid. Each cell sees its own version of the truth: 9 words hide friendly agents, 3 hide MOLES, the rest are civilians. The catch — the two briefings overlap. A word that's an agent for Alpha might be a civilian, or even a MOLE, for Omega. Between you there are 15 unique agents to find.
Take turns transmitting. The cells alternate: one transmits a one-word clue + number about its own agents, and the other cell taps words. A tap is judged by the clue-giver's briefing. Find an agent? Keep tapping as long as you keep being right — there's no limit, but you must tap at least once. Hit a civilian and the turn ends.
9 burners (guesses) = 9 clues. Every clue burns one phone, whether the turn goes well or badly. When the last burner dies it's RADIO SILENCE: no more clues — you may still tap words you're sure of, but one civilian now ends everything. If a cell's 9 agents are all found, the other cell transmits every remaining clue.
Win together or fall together. Contact all 15 agents before the network collapses and everyone wins. Tap any MOLE — from either briefing — and the whole network is blown, instantly.
Tour the world. The World Tour map starts you in Geneva with a comfortable 9 burners and 9 slips (the civilians you're allowed to hit, total). Every cleared location unlocks its routes to harder postings — fewer burners, brutal slip budgets — all the way to a certain research station at the bottom of the world. One slip over budget and the mission fails on the spot.
Duo tip: a word one cell "wasted" a turn on can still be an agent for the other cell — watch the little civilian marks, they only apply to the cell that tapped.
Start a room and share its code.
Friends join at jbdm.ca/spyphrase → Online Room → this code. Tap the code to copy an invite link.