tabletoppingboardgames 
Agent Avenue is a two-player game about spies pretending to be normal suburban neighbors. You live next door to each other, you smile, you wave… and you’re both trying to expose the other without getting caught yourself. I mean, it’s basically a cold war happening behind a hedge.
The theme is intentionally small and domestic. No world-ending plot, no giant explosions. Just a street where every chat, every favor, every “nice weather today” hides a move in a spy duel. You recruit locals as agents, build risky sets, and race across the board trying to catch your opponent before they catch you. It feels playful, but the decisions bite harder than you expect.
👥 2 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 10-15 minutes
📝 Designers: Christian Kudahl & Laura Kudahl
🎨 Artwork: Fanny Pastor-Berlie
🏢 Publisher: Nerdlab Games (review copy provided by Asmodee Belgium).
Gameplay overview
The entire game revolves around a very simple structure: you offer your opponent a choice, and neither option is safe.
Both players start at home on opposite sides of the board and draw four agent cards. On your turn, you play two different cards from your hand to the center. One face up, one face down. Your opponent chooses one card to recruit. You automatically take the other. After that, you draw back up to four cards if you can.
That’s it. That’s the engine. And honestly, it’s impressive how much pressure comes from something so small.
After recruiting, both players move their meeple based on the agent they just took. Movement depends on how many copies of that agent you already have. Each agent has three tiers printed on the card. When you recruit your first copy, you use the top value. With two copies, you use the middle value. With three or more, you use the bottom one. It’s not always a straight upgrade. Some agents change direction or behave differently as the set grows, which is where a lot of the risk comes from. Sets escalate quickly, and that scaling is where mistakes start to matter. Every choice pushes both players closer to a breaking point.
The main goal is positional. If you reach or pass your opponent on the track, you catch them and win. But there are extra win and loss conditions layered on top. Three Codebreakers means you win at the end of the turn. Three Daredevils means you lose at the end of the turn. Yes, you can lose because you built too strong a set. It’s a rare game where success can be self-sabotage.
There’s also a deck exhaustion rule. If the deck runs out and a player can’t properly take their next turn, the game ends and whoever is closer to catching the other wins. It keeps the endgame tight and stops things from dragging.
The advanced mode adds black market cards. These trigger when you land exactly on specific spaces. Some effects resolve instantly, others stay active for the rest of the game. They twist movement, recruitment, and sometimes victory conditions. The turn structure stays the same, but now there’s a second layer of positioning. We won’t play it anymore without this mode. The base game works, but after a few plays it can feel a bit solved. The advanced rules shake that up in a way we really prefer.
There’s also a team variant for three or four players. Teammates share position and recruited agents, but keep separate hands. You’re not allowed to describe your cards, so coordination becomes half the game. It’s funny how quickly that turns into silent staring and aggressive eyebrow communication.
At its core, the board is just a scoreboard. The real game is reading your opponent. Every card you offer is a question: how greedy are you right now?
Artwork, components, and visual design
The art is bright and cartoonish, focused on animal agents dressed like spy movie stereotypes. Trench coats, gadgets, suspicious looks. It’s playful without feeling cluttered.
Each card focuses on one character, almost like a movie poster. The color coding is clear, which matters because you’re scanning sets constantly. Icons are big enough to read across the table.
The board is compact. It’s a circular track around a painted neighborhood scene. It looks peaceful, which is funny considering how aggressive the game can feel. The white path stands out clearly, so positions are always readable.
The meeples are chunky and shaped like little characters instead of generic pawns. They’re easy to grab, easy to see, and they match the tone of the artwork. It’s not a deluxe production flex. It’s just thoughtful.
Black market cards look slightly different, showing wider scenes instead of portraits. They feel more cinematic, which helps them stand apart mechanically too.
Card quality is solid. The finish cuts down glare well, and the colors stay clear under bright light. Nothing fancy, but nothing cheap either. After a few minutes you stop thinking about the components entirely, which is honestly what you want.
Our experience
The first thing that hits you is how clean the system is. Present two cards, opponent chooses, both players move. That’s the entire loop. It takes minutes to explain. New players get it immediately. And yet every round feels loaded.
Games are fast. Early plays took maybe 15 minutes. Once we knew the values by heart, rounds started flying by. It’s the kind of duel where you finish and immediately want another go. The downside is that if you play five times in a row, you start seeing the skeleton of the system. Without the advanced mode, repetition creeps in. With it, the game holds up much longer.
The alternate win and loss sets are where a game can end out of nowhere. Someone recruits a third Codebreaker and the mood at the table changes instantly. But because victory is checked at the end of the turn, not instantly, there are wild moments where a player almost wins and still gets caught. Those timing quirks sound fiddly on paper, but in play they lead to a lot of double-checking and nervous laughs.
The discard rule looks tiny but matters a lot. You can throw away a card face down to redraw, but only four times in the entire game. New players spend those early just to fix bad hands. Experienced players hoard them like emergency brakes. That small restriction creates pacing. Early chaos, late precision.
After a few sessions, the decisions stop being about card strength and start being about thresholds. You’re asking: does this push them into a dangerous set next turn? The face-down card becomes psychological pressure. The face-up card becomes bait. At that point, the game stops being about movement and becomes about information. You’re not racing the board. You’re racing their comfort level.
There’s also a built-in way for the game to pull players back together. The player in the lead has to offer riskier options. Being ahead feels unstable. The trailing player has less to lose and can gamble harder. That push and pull keeps games close without an obvious catch-up rule.
The advanced mode changes how the game feels more than we expected. Black market spaces become mini targets. Sometimes you’ll choose a weaker movement just to land exactly on one. That means you’re thinking about exact board positions, not just the cards. It’s not a huge rules jump, but it makes the duel feel richer. We honestly treat advanced mode as the default now.
The game scales strangely with skill. First plays are swingy and funny. Experienced play becomes sharp and a bit mean, in a good way. You start laying traps instead of making offers. Replay value comes from rivalry, not content volume. This shines when the same two people keep playing and building history.
There are limits. Random draw can ruin a careful plan. The system isn’t trying to be deep long-term strategy. It’s immediate interaction. If you want an hour-long tactical puzzle, this isn’t it. But as a short duel full of pressure, it works.
Our thoughts
Agent Avenue works because its pressure comes from structure, not from complicated card text. You’re interacting with the other player, not just the deck. That’s rare in a small game.
The multiple win conditions stop the race from feeling linear. You’re watching the track and the dangerous sets at the same time. Attention is split, and that keeps the duel alive. You’re never just running forward. You’re constantly checking what might explode.
The advanced mode is the version we prefer. Simple mode feels like a pure psychological duel. Advanced adds positional puzzles and weird swings. Same rules, different feel. That modular design works well for us, even if we wish there were a few more black market cards for extra variety.
The biggest strength is social. Every hidden card asks a question about your opponent. Are they cautious? Greedy? Spiteful? Bluffing too hard? The other player becomes the content of the game. If someone disengages, the system falls flat. But when both players lean in, the duel starts feeling very personal.
I know some players won’t click with this. The short arc means limited long-term strategy. Heavy repeat play in one sitting can feel samey. Random swings can end a game abruptly. Some players will want more control than the deck allows. And yeah, I can see that frustrating some players.
For us, it works best as a rivalry game. Something you pull out with the same partner over time. Familiarity makes the mind games stronger. With the right opponent, you end up playing the person more than the deck. At that point the cards are just an excuse.
📝 We received a copy of the game from Asmodee Belgium.
