Tales of Codenames

 

A fairy tale ending

Lots of family games traditionally came with the ages 8-80 printed on the side of the box, but Codenames doesn’t set an upper limit. So I decided tested this by playing with my grandfather, PJ. He’s 84 years old. After an unfortunate round one assassination he picked it up quickly, culminating in a particularly impressive JILL: 2, leading to Jack and Well. Thank goodness it didn’t all come tumbling down!

 

God save the Queen

My father was looking at the board trying to think of a link for Bow and Diamond, suddenly a flash of inspiration stuck. The Queen! She owns many diamonds and people bow to her, the perfect clue! He says Queen: 2 and sits back waiting for the points to roll in. His wife says “Well one of them is really easy” and points to… Mercury. An ashen look of horror crosses his face.

“Why on earth would you do that!?”

Then realisation hits: Freddie Mercury. It has the extra sting of the fact that he is a massive fan of Queen and for the first time, they have been his downfall. We are not the champions after all.

 

Hakuna matata

You can’t say Stampede and be annoyed when someone picks Buffalo. Next.

 

The Cost of Success

I have never been so rapidly mocked in my life as when I used Chaffing: 2 to link Vacuum and Pants.

 

Look at my horse, my horse is amazing

“Horse: 2”, says my friend Tim. His team is slightly concerned. The last few clues have been tricky. But then they spot unicorn, and get a nice simple point. However that second word hangs ominously in the air. No other words left seem to have anything at all to do with horses.

In my safe haven of being on the other team, I spot something. Its arguably way too obscure, but perhaps Tim is intending the other word to be Duck, a reference to the famous “would you rather” question about fighting a horse sized duck.  I look at the other team, the word duck has been instantly dismissed from consideration. I look at Tim and hope desperately that he hasn’t been that obscure for the sake of the other teams wrath on finding out what he meant.

They fail to get the other word and my team wins on the next go.  We ask Tim what the other Horse word was.  He says “Eagle”. An explanation is required.

“Because Horses turn people into Eagles.”

The room falls into an unnatural silence as an internal scream of “WHAT!” fills everyone there.

“There’s a video on the internet of them doing it.”

“Is it a popular video?”

“Not especially, I suppose it would be hard to get if you haven’t seen it.”

Yes, yes it would.

 

Clue construction issues

I once tried to use Engineer 4 to do Doctor, Iron, Sparks and Force.  I had not realised the assassin was Bridge. I am an idiot.

 

Shaken not stirred

“Words that go with Royal… hmmm… what about casino? Royal Casino, Royal Casino, Royal Casino… that doesn’t work at all”

<Cue exploding head of clue giver>

“Casino Royale is definitely a real thing!”

 

---

Do you have any good Codenames anecdotes? Why not share them in the comments!