Board Game Review: Codenames

 “Never judge a book by its cover” we all say, but I would like to twist and turn that into my own version. I say “never judge a board game by its box” because is the perfect phrase to describe Codenames. It has got to be the best party board game in history, for any number of people can play this game and does not need an hour to set up, in fact it finishes in 15-20 minutes so you don’t need to reserve time to play it! I promise to give some special secret tips at the end, for now, let me tell you more about this game. So, lets dive right into it!

This game is a fusion of a word game and a detective one. Don’t worry, its not like Scrabble, Codenames won’t give you nightmares on spellings to score, instead all you need in this game is good cooperation with your team mates. Yep, you heard me right, you don’t need to have talent to play this game. In this game, there are 2 teams and 2 spymasters, each spymaster will represent each team. The spymaster of the respective team has to help his/her own team to guess words without speaking it out, instead, they give out clues from which their team relates to and guesses the word. Pick your team’s card, and you score a point. Pick the opponent team’s card, and they get the card. And pick the assassin card, and you lose the game. There is only one assassin card and you must avoid it.

Only the spymasters know which card is their team’s or the opponent’s. it is very easy and interesting to learn it but pretty hard to play and master.

And here are (Drum roll!) the promised hints! Number 1: try to make sure that you pick your team with your friends that you know best, it’s very easy to play with a known friend facing you, trust me, I know. Number 2: think out you team wisely so that you don’t pick someone who is disliked by the rest of the team, or the game may end in frowns. Number 3: make sure that you give out clues wisely (if you are the spymaster) or you team may as well guess the wrong word. And the final one: read the manual, thoroughly so that you will can play a better role as spymaster!

You can head over to amazon or flipcart anytime to find many versions of this game, waiting for you to buy!

See ya later!