Little Red Book #0: Introduction

by SyxP

Welcome to your journey to improve Sniper Play.

Fundamentally, there are two categories when studying Sniper Play.  The division is between Theoretical Sniper Play and Practical Sniper Play. Theoretical Sniper Play lay emphasis on things a perfect Sniper would see, for example, the distance where NPCs can see. This is important as when the NPCs return a briefcase to an ambassador, he will stop when he notices the ambassador is busy. This distance is very difficult to determine for a human sniper though, so falls into the category of Theoretical Sniper Play.

Practical Sniper Play emphasizes on things you can directly apply to your game. For example, the information that NPCs pause after landing at a Statue landing pad and before picking up the Statue. This knowledge could be applied to your game directly, and you can identify the spy from that. The division is rather nebulous, as Theory can become Practical if someone discover a way to make approximations or attain previously difficult-to-attain metrics. This guide is structured in such a way that there will is an emphasis on Theoretical Sniper Play and allowing you, the reader, to discover how this information can be suitably applied to your game.

I would assume that you could be someone who just started SpyParty, as this lessons are most suitable for. I would strongly recommend to play with people on similar skill levels. Someone who has slightly more wins than you can utterly decimate you, due to the high difficult curve of the game. Moreover, I would recommend that you play on Beginner vs Beginner Ballroom. This map is suited for the Beginner Sniper. (For games against people much better than you, “mentoring games”, follow the advice of your mentor. This is because they know better and it is completely unfair to you otherwise.) Finally, a word on the terms I will be using, there might be various terms which I do not properly explain. I would try to define them as I deem fit, but if you have any queries, feel free to ask in the comments section.

There will be two sections in each tutorial. The first section will cover the bare-bones, minimal amount of information to get you started. This is where you should concentrate your efforts. You should try to follow the exercises I suggest, which will be a guided process on how to improve your game. The second section is targeted at the readers who have mastered what is listed in the first section, preferably having done the entire lecture already (having completed the first section in each lesson). It would list further directions where you could look into, and other things you could consider while playing.

This is a tough journey, but I urge you to never lose hope. It would take a while before you will see an improvement in your game, but I assure you. After about two dozen games, and following what you will learn, there will be a distinctive improvement in the level of your play.  I hope you can have fun in this process of improvement and come to appreciate the beauty of Sniper Play, the most beautiful aspect of SpyParty.