Who's the Spy dev log: moderating clues without stopping the game

Who's the Spy is a game about typing words in front of strangers, so it needed moderation. The question was how to do it without killing the round.

Refusing a message felt wrong: the player gets told off by a form, the round stalls, and people start probing the filter to see what gets through. So the filter masks instead. A swear word in a clue, the chat or a player name is shown as dots, and everything else goes through. It undoes the usual disguises with numbers and repeated letters, and it works word by word, so ordinary words that happen to contain a rude one are left alone.

Two smaller changes from our last test pass:

• Your card is dealt face up and stays up. There used to be a hold-to-peek; now the word is always in view.
• On a phone, the side seats keep their names on screen.

Everyone shares a secret word except the spy, who only knows the category; one clue each, then a vote. 3 to 8 players online, or up to 12 around one phone. Also at playboardit.com.