Codenames has been around for many, many years. It’s just one of those iconic games that become a staple of boardgame shelves at cafes and inside houses throughout the world. The game itself is simple; you play as a team of spies looking to find out their secret code.
In the setup of Codenames, you will place out a five by five grid of different word cards. Once the grid is down, you split into two teams and pick a team’s leader. The leaders will look at a square card that only they can see, which is on a stand, that shows which words represent bystanders, which ones represent the individual ages on each team, and which word is an assassin. The outside of the hidden card has a colored triangle, which shows who is going first and who has more words to find than the other team. Then the game begins.
The leader in Codenames will say a word that can link up several of the words on the grid and a number to show the number of cards their word is referring to. One of our rounds had Kangaroo, Bear and Bee – and the leader said “animal 2” so we needed to pick which cards best represented animal. This gets more challenging as less cards are on the table in view.
Teams do not need to get the total number of cards hinted at, which is good, and if a team reveals the other team’s cards or a bystander, their turn instantly ends and the other team gets their hint and to look. If anyone reveals the assassin, the game is over and that team loses.
I do love the design of Codenames. The cards that represent agents, bystanders and the like are very well done. We also felt the fact that the words were able to be read from both sides of the table, as they are written underneath the white boxed word, so that you can see it from the other side is just good design. Getting the word association can be quite a challenge, but it’s fun to try and we very much understood why this is such an iconic, well-played game.
Codenames can be found on Amazon.
