The conspirators is a networked multiplayer experience. Players enter a small town to observe its inhabitants, becoming foreign intruders meddling in an unfamiliar culture.
The people in the town are autonomously driven characters wandering about and responding to each other as they pass. Initially, they appear to ignore the players presence, as if we are invisible to them. The men have a tendency to collect in groups on the street, engaging in conversation unknown to the players - with the intent to invoke paranoid curiosity – approaching a small group may cause them to disband.
Players must quell the growing conspiracies by distracting them – one means is by placing packages in their path, which they will gather and seek hiding places for the goods they have collected. As conspiracy groups grow in size, the player must exercise caution in approaching. Tossing a package into the group is one way to disband them, although the supply of packages is limited, and the player must deduce where more packages may be found.
Players have other means of influencing the residents - including hypnosis – allowing the player to control the movement of a man. This can be used to infiltrate conspiracies, or to explore possibilities such as taking a hypnotized man on a bike ride. As a player freely explores the village, other networked players may eventually be discovered, with the realization that the player him or herself is also a sort of bathysphere with a single staring eye that has come to impose upon the people here.
Whether discovering the process independently or by observing other players, the game is not really a game in the common sense, but a commentary about entering and attempting to manipulate another culture while risking one's own discovery, with the impending capture and attempts by the residents to throw the player down a well.