CODENAMES
Designer: Vlaada Chvátil | Publisher: Czech Games Edition
Who has never dreamed of becoming a spy? Go on dangerous missions, decipher secret codes, escape unnoticed having gathered classified intel. While plenty of games – board games, RPGs or video games – can immerse players in perilous environments and give them world-saving missions, creating just the right type of spy-style puzzle is tricky.
You want something that tests both your knowledge and intuition, part skill and part luck, while balanced perfectly so everyone can try to solve it, but also feel challenged all the way through. Most importantly, you need to feel really cool doing it. Codenames effortlessly ticks all these boxes.
Split into teams, players attempt to find the specific words on the five-by-five-word grid. Only the spymaster for the team knows what which words are the right ones, and they can communicate this to the rest of the group through a coded message consisting of a number and a word.
Coming up with the coded message is hard: you want to describe as many words as possible but also avoid getting opponents’ words and, most dangerous of all, the assassin word that immediately ends the game. Deciphering is not easy either. Maybe the clue is too broad covering too many words, or it is so obscure that nothing on the grid seems to fit. Or maybe a word means something different to you than it did to spymaster and – oh! – you accidentally helped the opposing team! The game changes so much based on the size of the teams, how well or little players know each other and whether spymaster is prepared to play safe or risky. Players always have all the tools for the problem, but the solution is never straightforward, because things can have different meanings to different people. It may be a trite
notion but in this case, it makes an unforgettable game where solving a puzzle is fist-pumping satisfying.
ALEXANDRA SONECHKINA VLAADA CHVÁTIL ON WHY WE LOVE CODENAMES Why do you think people love
Codenames so much?
I can’t say for sure, but I think it is because of the association principle itself. When you play Codenames, you are spreading your thoughts across your entire knowledge space, and actually sharing that space with the others. The thinking is not limited to some narrow topic, and no particular knowledge is required – you just can use any idea that comes to you, as long as you believe your teammates will understand that idea. It seems this is something people really enjoy. The rest of the game is there to help set up this thinking, reward it, and add tension (competition, assassin threat) in a rather simple way. Your imagination should run in any direction. You are not thinking about spy stuff when inventing a good clue; you’re thinking about fruit, war, laundry, philosophy, the Three Little Pigs... whatever.
What’s your top tip for Codenames?
My only tip is – play it the way you and your group enjoy it most. If playing with thinky people, you may take your time to find clever clues, or to analyze all of the info from the previous rounds – and enjoy discovering some of those advanced strategies on your own. If playing with non-gamers, show them the fun of the game and don’t be too strict on limitations. If your group is in party mode, be fast and not afraid of crazy clues and associations.