Legendary designer Mike Gray on the surprising origins of his 1986 boardgame Spy vs Spy

Mike, I’ve always been a fan of Spy vs Spy… I wrote a Cult Corner piece on it for our sister magazine, Brands Untapped. People can read it here. But back in 1986, you created the licensed Spy vs Spy Board Game. How did it play?
The idea was that you had to build tunnels by laying one tile at a time from your hand of four. You wanted to take bombs and bring them back to your home base… Sometimes your opponents could block the tunnel tiles, though. At other times, the bombs went off – or your opponents could steal them.

They’re fun-looking components; the bombs were 3D…
The bombs were 3D and had different instructions on their bases. So after you moved your spy to a tunnel tile, you’d use the die to see if the bomb would blow up. If it didn’t, you could get the bomb home safely and read the message on its base… Remove a tile, take a free turn, move a bomb. That sort of thing!

Perfect! And this was a Milton Bradley release… How did it come about?
I was working for MB at the time that they got the license – and I got the assignment. I had a few days to mock up a prototype and show it to the licensor. Since I didn’t have much time, I modified and enhanced the first game I ever invented. That was called The Hungry Ant Game. In that, players were ants. You had to collect food from a picnic blanket by building tunnels under it. To make it work for Spy vs Spy, I changed the ants into tunneling spies and added the bombs!

That’s an unusual origin story! Love it. Did Spy vs Spy sell well? Was there a lot of love for that brand?
There was quite a lot of love for the brand at that time, yes. I don’t know how well it sold though – sales numbers were confidential! I remember taking the prototype to MAD Magazine HQ in New York and showing it to Bill Gaines… Bill was the founder and publisher of MAD Magazine. He had a really cool office with zeppelins hanging from the ceiling! And I remember his office was on the 13th floor of the building… The elevator actually went to floor 13! In any case, Bill liked the game, approved it and we made it. That’s about all I remember.

Well, to be fair, Mike, it was a while ago! Of which, since we first did an interview about your winning the I.D.I.O.T. Award – which people can read here – I often get asked what you’re up to! What are you doing currently?
I play games online with other people several hours every single day… I’m 74 now and living the dream! For the last nine years, I studied Buddhism and meditated a lot. I learned to be happy, kind and patient. This year, my wife Andrea and I celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary and I have two fantastic kids and three perfect grandkids. The grandkids call me GamePa!

GamePa? Love it!
Yes! Ha! So life is good. All I really need is more friends who live nearby and want to play boardgames…

Be careful what you wish for, Mike! Ha!

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