Codenames

24th November 2019

Sunday at 'The Sovereigns' in Woking continues.

The next game was 'Codenames'.
I have it on good authority that spies, above all other things, really like having  codenames.
So it's a good thing that the game 'Codenames' is all about spies.
Actually, it's a team based card game about words, but I digress...

Whats in a game?
blah

• Word cards: Word cards are double sided and as the name suggests have a single word written on each side. There are 200 cards, so 400 words available.
• Key cards: Key cards are square cards used to identify which word cards belong to each faction (More on this below.). There are 40 cards and they can be used in any of 4 orientations, giving 160 combinations.
• 8 blue agent tiles: For the... blue team
• 8 red agent tiles:  Yes, for the red team.
• Double agent tile: A double sided double agent, blue on one side and red on the other.
• 7 innocent bystander tiles: These are white.
• Assassin tile: Black as the assassin's heart!
• Hourglass: An optional timer, used if player's feel the need to hurry the game or stress the players!

The word cards are standard cards without artwork. All the tiles are made of thick card and are well illustrated.

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Word cards arranged in a 5x5 grid, ready to start.

Key card shows which cards are used for each colour. Starting player is determined by the perimeter colour round the grid.

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How's it play?
Codenames requires a bit of setup.

• All players must be split into 2 teams (Red and blue.) and each team should assign one player to be their 'spymaster'. Give the red & blue agent tile stacks to their respective spymasters.
• The word cards should be shuffled, then 25 cards should be drawn. Place these cards in the playing area in a 5x5 grid.
• Shuffle the key cards. 1 key card should be drawn only by the 2 spymasters. The key card will show the location of the blue and red agents, as well as innocent bystanders and 'the assassin'. Finally, the key card dictates which team goes first.
• Give the double agent tile to the starting team's spymaster, who should flip the tile to their colour and add it to their stack of tiles. Thus the starting team has 9 tiles instead of 8.

Now we're ready to go.

• The objective of Codenames is for the each team to find the words in the 5x5 grid that represent agents of their own colour. However only the spymasters know these locations. The spymasters try to pass on the locations to their team through the use of cryptic clues.
• The clues that a spymaster may give depend on the word cards available to them and is limited to a single word and a number.

For example:

• The blue spymaster may know that the word cards 'cat', 'pigeon' & 'ant' are all blue agents, so the spymaster might say, "Animal, three.". 'Animal' because they are all animals and that words links them all and 'three' because there are 3 of them.
• Once they've been given a clue, the rest of the blue team must try and guess which words in the grid that the clue applies to. To choose a card, one of the players must touch that card.
• If a blue word is selected, the blue spymaster covers that word card with a blue agent tile. Because they selected correctly, the blue team can continue selecting cards, up to 3 times (Which was the number the  spymaster gave.).
• If the blue team selects an innocent bystander card, then it is covered with an innocent bystander tile and the blue team's turn immediately ends.
• If the blue team selects a red agent, then the red spymaster covers the card with a red agent tile and the blue team's turn immediately ends.
• If the blue team selects 'the assassin', that word is covered with the assassin tile and the blue team immediately lose the game!
• A team has to make at least 1 selection, they do not need to make any more and can pass at that point. Thus, the blue team may make up to 3 selections, but after the first selection, they can pass on the rest.
• Furthermore, on a following turn, if the blue team correctly selects all the cards on for the clue for that turn, then they can attempt to select a card that they passed on in a previous turn.
• Once a team has finished with its selection, play progresses to the next team.

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Endgame
The game when one team has placed all of their agent tiles on their words (In which case that team wins.).
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The team that starts first must lay 9 tiles and the team that goes second must lay 8.
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Alternatively, the game ends when a team selects the assassin card (In which case that team loses.).

Game conclusion. Blue wins by placing 8 tiles.

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Overall
When describing Codenames I've not really explained the dilemma and challenge facing the spymaster players.

The example I used had 'cat', 'pigeon' & 'ant' as all being blue. But in reality, it's more likely that not all of them would be the same colour, 'pigeon' might be red. Now the blue spymaster could simply say, "Animal, two.". But then they run the risk that the team might select 'pigeon' instead of the other choices and if they select the wrong word first, it stops their turn straightaway!

So the spymaster has to select clues that don't draw their teammates to the wrong answer. This can be downright tricky.
Now the spymaster could play it safe and select, "Meow, one." for 'cat' and use 1 word clues. The problem with playing it safe though, is that it probably won't win you the game unless you're already ahead.  So doing 2 or 3 word clues can be a good way of getting ahead.

The same principle applies to the other team members. When the spymaster gives you a clue for 3 words, managing to find all of them grants the team a good advantage. But getting wrong can prove a bad thing.

It's a good implementation of a 'risk/reward' mechanic. A successful risk pays off and a unsuccessful risk penalises.

There's only one small drawback to Codenames and that is that it basically needs at least 4 players to play and ideally even numbers of players too.
The game goes up to 8 players, but I can't see a reason why team size should be limited to 4 (Other than it takes a longer to come to a consensus with bigger teams!).

Codenames is easy enough to learn to be a 'crossover' game and has a high replay value. It's probably a bit too long for a filler game, but makes an excellent party game. Particularly when with larger groups and/or family members.