Operation Barclay is one of the most inspired marriages of setting and mechanic that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. How did designer Maurice Suckling get the idea to pair the story of Operation Barclay, the Allied plan to feed the Axis false information about an upcoming Mediterranean invasion, with poker and a shell game? It’s such a remarkable idea, such a perfect idea. Most game designers would sacrifice body parts in exchange for an idea this good.

While the real Operation Barclay was about convincing the Axis that the Allies would invade Greece when they were in fact planning to invade Sicily, Operation Barclay the game gives us a bit more ambiguity than that. There are five possible areas of attack, stretching from Morocco-to-France and Egypt-to-Turkey. The Allied player places wooden Intelligence tokens into each of them. One lane, whichever the Allied player decides to make the Primary Offensive Sector, gets four positive Intelligence tokens and one negative. The Secondary Offensive Sector gets three of the first and two of the second, and the other three Sectors, red herrings all, get two and three.

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I approached Telephone in a dark, isolated room, far from where prying eyes might see us and ears might hear us.

“Telephone, I’m going to make you deal.”

He didn’t say anything. I knew he wouldn’t. Telephone had survived in proximity to the Supreme Socket by being a good listener. I took a drag from my cigarette, its red light dimly reflecting off the gold accents on the walls.

“Neither of us are replacing the Supreme Appliance. You know it and I know it. We don’t have to like it, but we have to face the facts. You’ve turned too many people off, and I...”

“You’ve burned too many people.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

A long pause. Not even a dial tone. He really knew how to draw you out.

“We both like Toaster,” I ventured.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“We both know how to handle Toaster.”

“Sure. I know how to keep my bread from getting burnt.”

“Blender and Radio are disorganized and at one another’s throats. Let them waste their energy. If we work together to back Toaster…”

“It works out better for both of us.”

“Exactly.”

“I see your point. You have a deal.”

For now, at least. So it goes. A temporary truce is better than a permanent war. I turned to leave.

…

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What a charmer, this Honeypot. It has a great hook. It’s hard to have a bad time when you’re tucking cards into tiny manila folders. Also, there are bear costumes. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Honeypot isn’t quite I Split, You Choose, but it’s close. I Arrange, You Decide, maybe. I Slice, You Bite? I’ll work on it. As secret agent bears across five brisk ursine rounds, players draw six cards from the massive deck, arrange them however they see fit, place them in the aforementioned manila folders, and hand said folders to the next player in the direction of play. On your turn, you open your little gift and look at the first two cards. Now you have to make decisions.

[caption id="attachment_328210" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Photo by Ilya Ushakov[/caption]

If you want the two cards you revealed, great. You keep them and that’s your turn. But what are the odds your opponent, this rival secret agent bear with a grin on their face, would put the best cards at the top? The honey only gets sweeter the further down you go, right? If you think there’s something better deeper in the dossier,…

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Opening the Dossier

The year is 1960. Well, no, it’s 2025, but play with me in this space. Spies and secret agents are gathering intelligence on heads of state, technology, military operations, and anything else of value. However, as is the case with most spy stories, the risk of intel leaks runs high, and all one agency needs to get a leg up is the right piece of information. This sets the stage for Shadow Network, a 1-5 player worker placement game from the team at Talon Strikes Studios. Each player will take turns deploying their workers around the world to various sites to collect intel pieces, which can be combined to create cases against high-profile targets and earn influence. It’s all dripping in sexy spy novel pastiche, which makes for an alluring theme.

On your turn, you will send one of your four agents to a location where you do not already have an agent. You’ll have your choice between your two on-call agents, who must be deployed each round, and two optional agents who can be deployed, but can also be saved for end-of-round bonuses. Then, your agents will collect any data at the location where they’ve been deployed. Every time an agent moves to a location…

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