The Spymaster Web site (Screenshot by HowStuffWorks.com)

I’d seen a few posts by people I follow on Twitter related to a game called Spymaster, but I didn’t know what it was until this morning, when I read a post by Rafe Needleman on CNET. According to the Web site, the point of the game is to build a network of spies — the people who follow them on Twitter. If those people are playing the game, too, you have a more powerful network.

You become more powerful, still, by attacking other spymasters and performing in-game tasks successfully. You also earn virtual money. There are games like this in Facebook, but this one is the first I’ve heard of in Twitter.

iList, the creators of Spymaster, has the game in private beta, which means the company is testing the game with a restricted list of people. But that actually may be an advantage. Apparently the default settings of the game allows Spymaster to send messages regarding what you’re doing when you play the game. That’s driving some Twitter users crazy, because if you’re doing lots of stuff in the game, it’s effectively spamming your Twitter list with messages.

iList CEO Chris Abad told Needleman that you have the option to turn off the messaging when you join the game. Although Spymaster rewards you for sending tweets, Abad said that other game activities reward you more effectively and the company isn’t encouraging people to spam Twitter.

If you want to, there are Twitter clients that will let you filter out hashtags. Or you can go to the opt-out page to have your account removed from the list.

For more on Twitter, social networking and spies, take a covert look at these links:

How Spies Work
How Twitter Works
How Facebook Works
Does the IRS really want your World of Warcraft gold?