With all of the consternation and hot takes about the Apple Watch, it’s hard to believe that a. it was only announced a month ago and b. it’s not even out yet. Today, Bossa Studios joined the slowly-swelling ranks of developers making games for the thing by announcing Spy_Watch.
Bossa is calling Spy_Watch “a new type of game for a new type of hardware," but it’s not exactly clear to me how this game actually works. It uses the watch’s Push Notifications to update you on narrative and gameplay elements in order to tell the story of a disreputable spy agency attempting to restore its good name. (Someone’s been watching Archer, it seems.) You’ll do this by, say, surveilling the president during a trip to Italy, or training new operatives in the dark arts of espionage.
“We are now all used to communicating via short text based messages and we felt this would be a really interesting and accessible way to tell an interactive story," says Imre Jele, Bossa co-founder, in a press release. The idea is to evoke the high-tech gadgetry of popular spy fiction, and especially Ian Fleming’s James Bond. The Apple Watch, he says, “brings the thrill of espionage to your wrist."
(Sidebar: Simogo’s Device 6 ($3.99) secret agent story and mid-century pop-futurism worked so well because they also toyed with the idea of the iPhone-as-spy-gadget. Bossa Studios are in good company.)
From the screenshots below, you can see that there are funds to collect in order to buy upgrades and, perhaps worryingly, some sort of timer.
Spy_Watch, of course, isn’t Bossa Studios’ first go-round with the App Store: they’re the team behind 2013’s Deep Dungeon of Doom ($1.99) and last year’s cult hit wackadoo physics game Surgeon Simulator ($4.99). Their latest, the equally bizarre I am Bread, has been confirmed for iOS as well.
Normally, this is where I’d mention that we’ll keep you updated for any future news: trailers, screenshots, snippets of information. No need with Spy_Watch, however: the game is planned to release alongside the Apple Watch on April 24th.
