KOCHI: Someone once said that they knew that a game design was genius when their first reaction to it was ‘Why the hell didn’t I think of that’. Today, we’ll be talking about Codenames, a game that fits that category beautifully.
Codenames is a team game. You’ll split up into two teams, red and blue, and one person from each team will become their respective spymasters. You’ll lay out a grid of cards in a 5x5 grid, and each of those cards will have a word on them. (Examples that I can remember from today’s game — space, tower, strike, sink, cave…you get it.)
Your objective is to figure out which of those words are code names for agents of your team, and the first team to find all their agents is the winner. The problem is that only the spymaster knows who the loyal agents are, and they have to convey that information to their teammates with a clue consisting of a single word and a number. The word is the clue, and the number indicates how many code names on the grid correspond to that clue. Let’s say, for example, that ‘ring’, ‘journey’ and ‘wizard’ are three of your agents, so you confidently give your friends the clue “Frodo 3”. And then, after furious discussion — during which you have to maintain a completely straight face, by the way — your heart sinks as your friends, equally confidently, point at ‘mountain’, ‘eagle’ and ‘short’. When your team mistakenly guesses a bystander, well, you’ve effectively wasted a turn and handed the initiative over to the other team. However, if they guess one of the other team’s agents, then your opponent gets to (gleefully) confirm that agent’s identity for free on your turn. And that’s still not the worst-case scenario, because hiding among those 25 cards lies an assassin — and whichever team should happen to guess the assassin instantly loses the game.
That’s it. That’s all there is to it. Codenames, probably more than any of the other tabletop games I’ve spoken about, is entirely reliant on you and your friends to provide an experience that makes you want to play it again and again. The good thing is that it makes it incredibly easy for that to happen. You’ll have amazing leaps of logic followed by the worst missed clues possible, that’s just how it goes. Every game of Codenames I’ve ever played ended with yelling — one team triumphantly, the other team yelling at their spymaster and being yelled at in turn. “What the hell did you mean by that clue?”, “How could you not get that, that was the simplest clue I could give?” and, best of all, “WHY DID YOU PICK THE ASSASSIN?!”
This is tremendous fun, it really is. And you can play it with just about anybody. I’ve played it with people who’ve never played a game designed this century, and seen their eyes light up when it clicks for them. People just get it. It would be easy to dismiss most of my unstinting praise for Codenames as mere hyperbole. If you do, though, you’re really missing out. This game is that good, and it’s a must-play. Heck, it’s a must-own.
(Arjun is a gamer, book lover and an all-round renaissance man)
Arjun Sukumaran
http://goo.gl/uNBWN3