User:Arb/Spy Ring

Spy Ring is a spy / secret agent themed board game designed by Terence Hall and originally published by Waddingtons of Leeds, United Kingdom in 1965. It is considered to be a cult classic in the UK and is regularly bought and sold on-line.

Publication history

 * English language
 * First edition 1965; box lid states "By the makers of Cluedo", wireless aerials made of metal.
 * Second edition (post 1965); box lid states "By the makers of "Monopoly", wireless aerials made of coloured plastic.
 * 1978 version; revised format makes play easier but less interesting.
 * 1986 version.


 * Other languages
 * Brazilian (Espião)
 * French (Service Secret)
 * Romanian (Spion)
 * Spanish (Contraespionaje)

Equipment
The following were included in the game box:
 * One Game Board of stout cardboard with a single fold, measuring 19+5/8 x overall and depicting in plan view "the newly-created, international city of Espiona" with "sixteen embassies ... grouped in the quarter of Buldt, built on the site of an earlier town ... honeycombed with tunnels". There are no roads; only footpaths separated by trees.
 * Four 15/16 in tall plastic playing pieces called Spies, in the form of the bust of a man dressed in a late 1950s style trilby, trench coat, shirt and tie, and coloured green, red, yellow and blue.
 * Four matching 15/16 in tall plastic playing pieces called Contact Men (Con. Men), in the form of the bust of a bare-headed man dressed in a late 1950s style trench coat, shirt and tie, and coloured green, red, yellow and blue.
 * Four Wireless Aerials of 1 in long stiff, "copper" wire. Each Spy has a small hole in the centre of his hat into which an aerial may be placed when play so requires.
 * Sixteen 3/4 x Secret Tokens of white plastic, each with a 1/4 in diameter coloured dot on the centre of one side; four each of green, red, yellow and blue to match the playing pieces.
 * Forty 3+3/8 x tan coloured Secret Cards with black printing, each showing at the top left an icon representing one of a spy's tools of the trade; on the left and taking up most of the card, eight rows of four columns being: a language name, the word "fish" in that language, a transliteration to show its pronunciation, and its point value; and on the right two letters one above the other, large, bold and in block capitals.
 * One dice.

Reactions
"...you could only 'use the radio' by sticking a one inch long piece of [stiff] copper [wire] into the head of the playing piece, something [that] these days would be banned under health and safety rules."

- Nic Holc-Thompson, Havant

"Spy Ring taught me how to spell the word “fish” in lots of different languages!"

- Mike Jones