Thoughts on… Codenames
“Come in agents! We have word there are enemy agents also infiltrating the party! We can guide you to your allies bizizztshhsrij…”
“Control! Please repeat!”
“Pssszvvesrrrtt…. Banana… zzvvptrsssh… 2!”
“Banana, 2? What are you talking about control?”
“Qqruzzsst… Codenames!… pxxxbrsssh… Banana, 2!”
“Oh! Of course! Codename Monkey, Tree and wait, what about Fruit?”
“Pzzzxsht… Oops… Tszzzssstzzz”
Imagine how much fun you can have with 25 nouns. I expect you aren’t imagining all that much! After all, nouns in general aren’t all that fun. Not by themselves. I mean, “marmalade” is a pretty fun word. “Squish”, “Splat” and other onomatopoeic words are exceptions too. But tell someone at a party you’re going to play a game about words and their meanings and they’ll look at you like you’ve got a screw lose. But that’s because they haven’t played Codenames yet!
You’ll lay out your 25 words printed on individual board game beige cards in a 5 x 5 grid. You’ll split your group of confused, slightly disbelieving friends into two teams and get them to volunteer a leader each. The cards have the words facing two directions because those lucky leaders will be sat on the other side of the table facing the accusing eyes of their friends. They’ll be responsible for what goes down here. They’ll be responsible for giving the clues.
These leaders are given access to the card that tells them who is hiding behind each code word in the grid. The words might correspond to an agent of the red or blue team, they might be a forgettable innocent bystander, like that guy who was too cool to play and will spend the rest of the night wondering what all the fun is about, or it might be the TERRIFYING assassin. The race is on for each team to uncover all of their coloured agents before the other team. The leaders will give clues to their teammates to help them find them. Sounds simple right?
Wrong! The leaders are given punitively tight rules on what clue they can give: a single word, and a single number that indicates how many of the code words in the grid their clue is meant to point to. For example, check out the grid above. Blue needs 2 more words to win. Their clue, Pyramid: 2. Can you spot the words? Not too hard at this point, but with an empty grid of 25 words to shift through, it’s never this easy. And that’s all you get. No talking. No other communication. The team is left then to puzzle out the clue’s meaning, indicate their guesses and let the leader indicate how the team did with the coloured agent tiles. And this is where the insanity begins.
It is easy to give a clue to a single word. But taking it slow isn’t going to win you the race! The game challenges you! You can find a single clue to connect 2 words. Maybe 3! Are you good enough to connect a crazy 4 words!? It’s possible, I’ve done it, but I’ve yet to manage a 5. The more general your clue becomes, the more likely your team will hit a different word. Hitting a neutral character is bad; it immediately ends your go. Hitting a word of the opposing team is painful, you’ve given them a freebie and it ends your go. Just watching your team blunder around the board suggesting possible connections to your clue is both hilarious and agonisingly stressful at the same time!
And then you have the assassin. Hit the assassin and, no matter how well your team were doing, you immediately lose the game! The assassin is a stroke of genius. No matter how far ahead you are you can never truly relax. Each guess you make might be the assassin. Sure, the clue giver should be sure to stay well clear of any possible connection with the assassin, but they are human, mistakes get made and peoples’ minds work differently. Hearing your team mention the assassin word when you’re the leader is enough to give you palpitations!
But oh boy does the game reward you when you play well! When you throw out a multi-word clue and your teammates just click with it and find every word you were hoping for, that’s genius. Better yet when you’re in 2nd place, the game is ending and you give “dog, unlimited” as your clue so your team can guess as many words as they like (because all the previous clues they got wrong are still valid) and you come back and win. These are the results that get everyone cheering!
On the other end of the scale are the ridiculous clues and misunderstandings that are just hilarious. A friend once gave the clue “Holly, 4”. Not because there was a connection to holly but because he couldn’t remember the name of ivy correctly. But one of his teammates happened to hum “the holly and the ivy” carol, and they proceeded to get all of his words. Or when my girlfriend gave an opening clue of “Harry” and I proceeded to ignore “Phoenix” and “Wand” and go straight for “Helicopter” because I’m British and my thoughts turned straight to Prince Harry, or something. Obviously, “Helicopter” was the assassin word.
The game is a test of communication and requires you to really get into the mind of your team, or your leader. Of course, when you can’t, you’ll flop, but you’ll do so laughing, and you’ll be cross-examining your clue giver well after the game is finished. So few games have you analysing the game with such passion and fun in the aftermath. And when the micky taking gets too much you can just challenge that person to be the leader this time, flip all the word cards over and play again. Good to go in less than a minute.
There are so few party games that hold such appeal to both gamers and non-gamers alike. It fits as the perfect game night filler and for half a dozen non-gamers drinking at a party. While it is billed as a party game, I would be hesitant with playing with too many people, as while the teams are theoretically unlimited, there is an element of diminishing returns for quieter players. It is magnificently self balancing, intrinsically funny and endlessly variable with its hundreds of words and grid patterns. It even includes a sand timer for if everyone agrees a player is taking too long. The tension and excitement doesn’t lift until the end and there is always the chance for the clue giver to throw a Hail Mary and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Absolutely recommended!
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