See these little boxes? Well ok, I didn't leave anything for scale so you'll just have to believe me that they're little, but they are. These are 4 (secretly 5 but I'll get to that) games by Jon Perry, one of my favorite designers working right now. I like his stuff so much I wrote a spotlight piece about his work a while back. Since then two new ones have come out, though one is a new version of Air, Land, & Sea so I packed them both into the new box. I'm super excited to try both.
Spies, Lies, & Supplies is basically "What if the game you know, but more unhinged?" The card effects are wild and it makes good use of its new concepts, plus it does nice quality of life things like putting player aids on the flip side of each theater. If Time Barons is any indication Perry is amazing at cards that do wild things, so this should be a great shakeup.
Spots is him doing a dice game, but with wildly variable setup. If you know Sushi Go Party this is kinda like that - you set tiles out that change the available actions each game. I gave this a go tonight and it seems pretty doggone interesting. Ha. Ha haaaah. I write words on the internet. Anyway you push your luck and look at all the cute dog art. How could you go wrong?
Perry continues to impress, especially considering all these games do so much with relatively little. Small box games are a fascinating space and he's one of the best at 'em. I'd keep these little guys before most of my others.
