PSA: Go Play Two Spies Right Now
Just before 2020 hit, a pretty cool multiplayer game hit the App Store. Two Spies is a one-on-one competitive game where you try to outwit and outmaneuver your opponent as you bounce all over Europe, capture cities for intel, and wait for the perfect opportunity to strike your enemy down.
I was really impressed with Two Spies and the way it offered up relatively uncomplicated gameplay that could feel really deep and tense due to the way information hiding works. At any given time, you can't know everything your opponent is doing, so you have to rely on your own ability to read your opponent while being careful not to make your own actions too predictable.
The only problem with all of this is that Two Spies launched with no seamless way to challenge players online. If you wanted to play an online match, you had to generate and share an invite to a game and literally wait in the lobby until someone joined before being able to play your game. You couldn't generate invites and leave the app, or even gather a friends list that you could send challenges to.
Recently, though, this has all changed. Two Spies got an update earlier this month that allows for automatic matchmaking with other players online, and it has been awesome to dive back into this game without having to worry about the logistics of getting a match started. If you were at all interested in Two Spies before, now is the time to be playing it.
The only strange thing about Two Spies's new multiplayer support is that it doesn't seem like it is here to stay. According to the patch notes introducing this functionality, developer Royal Pixel Service describes it as something that is only available for a "limited time." This could mean that there are other plans for more robust multiplayer options outside of random matchmaking, or it could mean that it's just a temporary experiment. I hope it's more the former than the latter, but in either case, make sure you go play Two Spies while it's in this extremely more playable form.