Our Guys in Salisbury

Players begin the game with their pieces on the Moscow space.^[5] Throughout the game, players roll dice to move through various cities visited by the two suspects, including Minsk, Tel Aviv, Geneva, Paris, Amsterdam and London.^{[1][3][2][5][6]} To win, players must reach Salisbury with the most points.^[3]

Salisbury is decorated on the game's board with a picture of Salisbury Cathedral in crosshairs,^[6] below two figures in hazmat suits taken from photographs of the police response to the poisoning.^[2] A spray bottle depicting a green skull and crossbones is depicted on the bottom left of the board, which The Guardian and Euronews stated was a reference to the perfume bottle containing the similar Novichok nerve agent which killed Dawn Sturgess in the Amesbury poisonings months after the Salisbury incident.^[7][2] Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin, the suspects in the poisoning, are depicted in the bottom right of the board.^[2]

In an interview, designer Bober stated that the game was intended as an "answer to western media: enough already. To us it’s not funny any more. It’s sad. This needs to stop." He said he also meant the game as "a kind of joke, and a bridge of friendship," and that "we wanted to support our countrymen who might be offended by this situation" as "a lot of things are said and a lot of it without any proof."^[2] He also told TV Rain that the game was a "humorous response" to British allegations which he said came from "Russophobia".^[8]

Upon the first reports and images of the game, doubts were cast on whether it really existed. Dmitry Kolezev, a Russian journalist, published an early photograph of the game's box in November 2018 with the caption "I can’t understand, is this photoshop or not?"^[2] It was later also discovered by Reuters reporter Polina Ivanova, prompting more speculation on whether it was real.^[4][2]

Jo Broom, the former Mayor of Salisbury, stated that the game was a "kick in the teeth," and that it "shows a shocking disregard really for all those that have been involved in the tragedy last year."^[4] Matthew Rowley, the brother of Amesbury poisoning victim Charlie Rowley, called for the game to be withdrawn from sale and for its developers to be fined.^[9][10] The Guardian stated that the game "reflects how the response to the Salisbury poisonings in particular have been treated as something of a joke in Russia"^[2]