Designer: Vlaada Chvatil
In Codenames, you and a teammate will pretend to be spies, and then proceed to blame each other for ridiculous leaps of nonsense logic.
Codenames is a very casual game that plays about 10 minutes per game. Cards with words are laid out on the table in a 5X5 grid. Half represent your agents, and the other half represent the other team’s agents. On each player’s turn, the player will give a simple clue (such as “Milkshake: 3”) that tells the player a related word to tiles he wants his teammate to flip, and how many tiles that keywords points to. At that time, the other player makes guesses. If he reveals the proper hero, huzzah! The first team to reveal all of their agents is the winner.
Interesting Mechanic: Duet. The base game is designed for four players (two teams of two). However, Duet is a 2-person cooperative challenge. In this game, a random puzzle is assigned to players with double-sided cards, whereas each player only sees half of the puzzle.
Codenames has been a wild success for it’s designer Vlaada Chvatil, who let’s face it has one of the most remarkably varied work product in gaming (he also did the hilariously overcomplex Mage Knight Board Game). It has spawned multiple alternate versions, including a Disney one, a Marvel one, and one where the clues are just pictures. Codenames is one of the most immediately successful gateway games released in years, and was an instant evergreen success when it launched.
(Photo Source: The Board Game Family)
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