Cast of Snowflakes: The 'new art' characters are wildly varied among many different axes, including age, ability, ethnicity, and religion.

This often takes form in a phrase such as 'Always shoot orange dress' or ' It's Always The Monopoly Guy.

Butt-Monkey: Certain characters have a reputation for always being the Spy among communities, causing that character to be shot even when that character has done nothing suspicious.

Bluff the Eavesdropper: The Spy can utter the code phrase ' Banana Bread' even when not in a conversation with a Double Agent, hoping to throw the Sniper off their trail.

Bloodless Carnage: The Sniper's target simply falls down when shot, signaling the end of the game.

It's even possible to let the AI take over the spy's movements, so the latter Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing when the sniper shoots the wrong person. The twist is that all the other NPCs milling around make it hard to identify which one is the spy, and perform movements that look almost exactly like the spy's, so the sniper has to be very certain he doesn't pull a Murder by Mistake.

Blending-In Stealth Gameplay: One player is a spy at an upper-class party, who must carry out different tasks (planting bugs, stealing documents, talking to other agents, etc.) while the other is a sniper who must identify the spy and kill him.

Black-Tie Infiltration: The game's setting is that of an upper-class cocktail party, with each character dressed for the occasion.

Asymmetric Multiplayer: The Spy and the Sniper play completely differently, though players traditionally alternate roles from game to game.

Both new art and old art levels are in the game, leading to drastic art style shifts when changing between the two. Art Shift: The game's art assets began as crude figures with basic animations for gameplay testing, but are slowly being replaced with beautiful 'new art' characters and locations.

(The popular fan explanation is that the spy is wearing fancy contacts that lets them see outside the visible spectrum.)

This is to make sure the spy has the best chance of blending in, and knows where the sniper is at all times. Acceptable Breaks from Reality: The sniper's laser can be seen by the spy when it's close, yet nobody else at the party notices this.

Spyparty microfilm