A free Spyfall alternative.
Spyfall is the one with the locations: everyone knows you are all on a submarine except the spy, who has to work it out from the questions. Side Eye is the word version of the same bluff. It is free, it plays on one phone or on everyone’s, and a round takes five minutes. Here is how the two compare and when you would pick each.
How Spyfall plays
Every player gets a card with the same location, and most get a role there too (the lifeguard, the surfer). One card just says spy. For about eight minutes, players take turns asking one another questions: “What did you bring with you?” The answers have to prove you know where you are without saying it, because the spy is listening with a list of every possible location. At any point a player can accuse; if the table agrees and is right, they win. The spy can stop the round at any time and name the location, and wins if right.
How Side Eye plays
Everyone gets the same secret word except the imposter, who gets the category. Instead of questions, each player says one word about the secret word, going round the table twice. Talk, point on three, and a caught imposter gets one guess at the word. The full rules, including the scoring and the tie.
What you lose, what you gain
| Spyfall | Side Eye | |
|---|---|---|
| A turn | A question and an answer. Richer, and the best part of the game. | One word. Faster, and nobody freezes. |
| The bluffer | Has the list of locations, works it out from the answers, can stop and guess at any time. | Has the category, or a grid of sixteen words, or nothing. Guesses only if caught. |
| Players | 3 to 8, 12 with the second box. | 3 to 20, with two imposters from eleven. |
| A round | About eight minutes. | About five. |
| Kit | The cards, or a web version. | One phone, or everyone’s phone, in a browser. |
| Ties and timing | Whoever reads the rules decides. | The app: a timer, a written tie rule, the vote counted. |
A spy-style round in Side Eye
- Pick Places & Buildings or Travel & Landmarks, so the secret word is somewhere you could be.
- Set Imposter sees to Word grid. The imposter gets sixteen places and has to work out which, the way the spy works down the location list.
- Set the clue passes to Open, so the clues keep going round until the table is ready to vote, like Spyfall’s timer.
- Caught? One guess from the sixteen. Right, and the imposter still scores.
Deal one in your browser to see it, no app needed.
Playing apart
Start a room, send the link, and everyone plays from their own phone over whatever call you are on. Nothing to install, no account, free. How online play works.
Questions
Is Side Eye the same as Spyfall?
No. Same family, different turn. Spyfall is questions about a location; Side Eye is one-word clues about a word. If you like Spyfall for the interrogation, you will miss that. If you like it for the moment everyone turns on one person, Side Eye has that five times an hour.
Can I play Spyfall itself online?
Web versions of Spyfall exist; Side Eye is not one of them, and this page is not a review of them. It is the word version of the same bluff.
How many players does Side Eye take?
Three to twenty. Spyfall’s cards stop at eight, or twelve with the second set.
Spyfall, The Chameleon, Undercover, Insider and Werewolf are other people’s games, named here to describe how they play. Side Eye is made by Empyreal and is not connected to any of them.
