
- BGG rank
- BGG #650
- BGG rating
- 7.8
Detective: City of Angels
- 1–5 players
- 30–150 min
- Complexity 2.4/5
- 2019

2018
Rules assistance for Spy Club
Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.
For 2 players

What would you like to know?
Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.
Spy Club is a board game released in 2018 for 2–4 players, 45 minutes per game, and ages 10 and up. It was designed by Jason D. Kingsley and Randy Hoyt and its main mechanics are Set Collection, Memory, and Cooperative Game.
"We could start a Spy Club," suggested Beatrice. "You know — search for clues and try to find mysteries to solve!" In Spy Club, players work together as young detectives to solve neighborhood mysteries. It includes a replayable campaign format, with variable unlocking content, for playing a series of 5 games connected together to tell a larger story. Throughout the campaign, you'll unlock new modules with additional rules and story elements. With 40 new modules and 174 cards in the campaign deck, you can reset everything and play multiple campaigns — with a different story and gameplay experience emerging each time. In the standard game, each player has double-sided clue cards in front of them. On your turn, you use actions to flip, draw, and trade clue cards, gain ideas, and confirm clue cards as evidence. Confirm 5 clues of the same type to solve part of the case. As you discover more and more of the solution, a story starts to emerge: your Neighbor stole something from the ice cream shop, but what? And why? To crack the case, you must find the solution to all 5 parts before the suspect escapes or you run out of clues. You can always play a single, standalone game of Spy Club, but the campaign mode is the recommended way to play: Each game plays in 45 minutes, and each campaign consists of 5 games. Some elements from each game carry forward and affect future games, with new rules and story elements are unlocked each play. The sequence of content isn’t scripted, so each campaign will unfold differently. Everything can be fully reset and replayed. You only unlock a small portion of the total content in one campaign (just 4 of the 40 modules), so you can play multiple campaigns and continue unlocking new content each time!
Spy Club supports 2–4 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.
The listed playing time for Spy Club is 45 minutes. This is the publisher’s estimate for a full game. The actual duration depends on the group, the player count and familiarity with the rules: first sessions usually run longer, while experienced groups often finish faster. Setup and teaching time are not included in this estimate.
The catalogue lists Spy Club for ages 10 and up. This is the publisher’s recommendation and reflects reading demands, rule complexity and small components rather than theme alone. Younger players can often join with help from an adult, so check the age guidance on your edition and consider your group’s experience with board games.
Spy Club has a complexity rating of 2.2 out of 5 from BoardGameGeek players, which makes it a medium-light game. The rating reflects how much rules knowledge, planning and decision-making a typical game demands. Expect a longer first teach for heavier games, and use a preparation guide before game night.
Spy Club belongs to these categories: Card Game and Murder / Mystery. Its main mechanics are Set Collection, Memory, and Cooperative Game. Categories describe the theme and setting of a game, while mechanics describe what players actually do on their turns. Each mechanic links to a catalogue hub with similar games, which helps when you want something comparable.
The credited designers of Spy Club are: Jason D. Kingsley and Randy Hoyt. These credits come from the published game data and name the people responsible for the game’s design, not its illustrators or publishers. Designer pages on MeepleRules collect other titles by the same designers, which helps when you enjoy a game and want to find similar ones.
The catalogue lists Spy Club as a base game. It can be played on its own with the components in the box and does not require any other title. Expansions, if any exist, add new content or rules on top of it and are listed separately in the catalogue with a link back to this base game.