LogFAQs > #940964443

3. Codenames/Duet (2015, 2017)

Category: Team vs Team/Cooperative
Genres: Limited communication, clue-giving, word game, party game
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 1
Game length: 20 minutes
Experience: 200+ plays over 100+ sessions with 2-12+ players (2015-2020) incl Pictures, Deep Undercover
Previous ranks: 2/100 (2016), 2/80 (2018)

Description - A five-by-five grid is populated with words, and a random card is shown to one or two "spymasters." That card indicates words that the spymaster wants the guesser(s) on their team to guess. The game alternates between a spymaster's giving a single-word clue and a number of words that that clue corresponds to, and the guessers' guessing which words are theirs. In a typical game, there are two spymasters on different teams, and the first team to cover all its words wins. In Duet, each player is a spymaster, and both cooperatively try to guess the words on the other side of the card.

Design - Codenames is Czech designer Vlaada Chvatil's best creation. It tickles many of my favorite mechanisms - clue-giving, team/cooperative play, word games. These all encourage outside-the-box thinking, and plus you can try to develop rapport with your teammates. There's ample opportunity for trash-talking on people's turns. Because of the team aspect and the faith you need to have in one another, you'll inevitably experience moments with high stakes of "dammit, why didn't you know what I was thinking," or "I can't believe you caught that connection," or even "man, you got lucky guessing a word I didn't intend," or "AHHHH I MISSED THAT CARD."

Of course, the usual disclaimer applies: with tabletalk a near guarantee in a game, the players you play with will inevitably matter as well. Language barriers can apply, and people with no sense of humor will drag the game down, and some spymasters are too afraid to give more than one-word clues. In such a case, it's actually nice that the game provides the means to go at your own pace, as well. Among games that lend themselves to tabletalk, Codenames tends to be more forgiving than, say, Avalon. The one thing I highly recommend about playing Codenames in a group is to use a timer - it ironically can reduce the pressure on clue-givers, since you understand that it'll be imperfect. As the rulebook says: "You don't need to say 'This clue is a stretch.' Of course it's a stretch - it's Codenames!"

Experience - Codenames is the first game I heard of before its release (Gen Con 2015), got hyped for, and then had paid off. While the game was in short supply at the time, one of my friends got a copy from Gen Con and it almost immediately became my favorite non-Avalon game in the rotation. I've played it with family, friends of friends, non-gamers, strangers - in living rooms, on the floor, picnic tables, pubs, online, on B8. There are fantastic apparatuses to play the full original game online, though it would be nice if they could also do one for Duet - we've been using Google Sheets to handle that.

I will say that Pictures and the "Deep Undercover" version (with lots of words related to sex and drug use) are noticeably worse, but they aren't a bad change of pace.

Future - Until lockdown is over, it's still not really gonna happen that I play many games in person. That said, Codenames has been a great go-to with 6+ in e-hangouts, and Duet with the Google Doc has been solid as well. It's no longer as addictive as it once was - I've easily had sessions six games long - but I don't think its genius will ever be lost.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness