Codenames Review

welcome to John gits games as selected by the voting level supporters of my patreon page today I'll be reviewing code names in this game players will be splitting up into two teams who are going to be competitively giving Clues and trying to deduce what those clues mean to be the first people to find all of their agents out on the field first I'm going to show you how the game plays and then I'll jump into my review here's the starting setup for code names we have a 25x 25 list of these randomized words which are the code names themselves and then we've got a stack of blue agents red agents neutral people who are very confused and the Assassin the last thing we need before we can actually play is a key so we're going to randomly draw one of those from a big deck and you'll notice there are red lights and blue lights on the outsides those are the starting teams so if we take this one then the red team is going to start the orientation of this doesn't matter we can slide it into this little holder and lastly we have this guy right here which shows a red or a blue we see that the starting team is red so we flip it to the red side and now we're ready to play the perspective that we're looking at right now is that of the Spy Masters you're going to split everybody who's playing into two different teams and then each team is going to pick a single spy Master they're going to sit on one side of the table next to each other looking at this key card and everybody else is looking at the back not knowing what this says the goal of the game is to be the first team to reveal all of their colored agents that are in this Matrix and the way you do that is a spy Master gives Clues to their field operatives and they try to get them to guess these different code names here and if you look at this chart that tells you which of these cards are associated with which team that means that Temple is red snowman is neutral these confused people over here pole is red you look down here we'll see that date gas and press those are all blue operatives and finally there is this black one with an X that is associated with genius that is the Assassin over there and I'll explain what he does in a minute I mentioned already that the red team is the starting team and you might notice that they actually have nine different agents to guess versus The Blue Team only having eight that's a little bit of balancing for the fact that they get to go first so now it's the red team's turn to give clue there are a few different stipulations as to what makes a clue legal but in general the clue needs to be a single word or it could be a proper name like George Washington or something like that that word cannot exist on any of these 25 words out here and then you follow that clue up with a single number for example the red spy Master might look out here and make the clue wood three they're looking out and they see Forest Maple and deck and well all those are associated with wood and they notice that those are all their different uh code names and they look out at all the other stuff and they don't think there's too many great correlations now it goes to their team and their team tries to figure out which ones they're talking about and now it's time for all the red field operatives to discuss which ones they think are the correct three different Cod names that are associated with wood they might look out and say well a pool is often times made of wood and uh cross that could be associated with wood but looking at everything on the map I think they would imagine that Maple is the strongest connection with wood so they would say well we're going to choose Maple first in this case the red spy Master sees that that is correct so they would take one of their agent cards place it directly on top of it and that shows that they found one of their nine agents since the number associated with the clue was three that means that the field operatives can keep guessing because they guess correctly in fact they can guess to that number plus one times so they could do four guesses if they really wanted to this was a pretty straightforward clue I think in this case the red field operatives would probably guess Forest next which would also be correct so we' put that down here they would have two more guesses and the number was only three so they might look at deck pull and cross and they might say you know what I think it's cross now that is actually one of the code names for the red field operative so they would get to put this down here on that spot and the Spy Master doesn't have to tell them in fact they're not allowed to tell them that that was incorrect they were actually talking about deck over here all they know is they got one correct and at any point the team can decide to stop so in this case the red team has three Clues they have three agents I think they would choose to stop and it would then be the blue team's turn the spy Master looks at all their Clues and they might say their clue is going to be death two because they see gas and they see disease and they think those are both associated with death pretty well now the blue field operatives are all discussing it they're looking at everything out here and they see something that the blue spy Master might not have they see missile and they think well a missile is probably more likely to be directly correlated with death than disease or gas is so they think that might actually be the best clue so they would say missile is our choice the blue spy Master would then look and confirm that that that is indeed a red agent instead of a blue agent so they would take one of these red agent cards here they put it on top of missile they'd be very sad and that would be the end of the blue team's turn it would now go back to the red team because they guessed incorrectly but it's good to keep in mind that the blue team still knows they have death 2 as a clue going forward that they have not been able to grab on the board yet it would now be the red spy Master's turn again and looking out they might give a clue something like stick two because they see both down here and they see pole and they're trying to get their team to go along with that however they might not notice that there is also spike out here or they might not associate that so in that case if the red team uh the red field operatives saw this and guessed Spike well we would look over to this map here and we see that that is a neutral spot so we would take this very confused looking citizen we put that down on Spike and it would immediately end the red team's turn because you only get to keep guessing when you are guessing correctly however if you guess a neutral spot well that's okay you're not helping your opponent out at all you're just treading water so now it's back to the blue team and they know they have the previous clue of death 2 that wasn't used at all they might look around and want to cash that in so they might say well uh Thorn one because they can't really associate rose with anything else that they really like so The Blue Team might guess Rose so they' take this down put it here and they know they have one more guess because again you take the number that was associated with the clue and you add one to that so they look around here maybe see disease and guess that when they're associating with the first clue of death they would get that correctly put that down there and that would be the end of Blue's turn and it would go back to the red team the final type of agent that we haven't talked about is this assassin over here and there's just one of those and there's a reason for that you see this x right here which I mentioned was genius before that is an instant fail guess if at any point any of the field operatives decide that they want to take a look at the code name that's associated with the Assassin they would immediately lose for that entire team we' take this assassin piece we put it down there and the game would be over even even though no team has fully revealed all their different players if the red team even though they were far in the lead guessed genius well this goes down the game is immediately over and the blue team wins but if no team bumps into that assassin there then the game is just going to go back and forth as the teams are guessing and they're getting things correctly and they're getting things wrong and they're going to keep going until the final agent is found at that point the game is going to be over and the team that found all of their agents wins in this case that would be red there is one other way that you can play code names now that was the competitive style where you're going one team versus another you can also play this game cooperatively so this will work for uh two three players or you can play with seven people if you wanted to and you just didn't want to conflict back and forth and the way that works is one person is going to be the Spy Master just like before and they're going to be giving Clues just like before uh they're always going to be the team that's associated with the color around the outside of the key and the only real difference is that every time that the uh the field operatives guess wrong or they decide to stop on their guessing and it goes to the other team the Spy Master there is only one spy master in this case is going to take a single card from the top of the enemy team and they're going to cover up one of those Associated Clues on the board and they can do this strategically they can cover a clue that's been really messing up another clue that they really want to give and then they're going to go back and give some more clues so this is going to go back and forth until the uh players cooperatively get all of their agents down or of course bump into the Assassin at that point you're going to look at the back of the rule book here and it shows you um your score essentially you count the number of the opposing agents that are out on the board and then that is what you get I've played this a couple times and we've gotten your watches are synchronized a couple times okay but you could do better and even one time we got top secret clearance it doesn't seem like you fail at this very often but you're of course striving to get better and better scores when you're doing the Cooperative mode all right so let's start reviewing code names the first positive point is simply that this game is really really easy to teach and that lends itself to being quite um acceptable by a broad amount of people uh some people who might call themselves Gamers have really enjoyed it but people who would not call themselves Gamers have also enjoyed it because the rule set's so simple you can explain this game in just a couple minutes you just set it out and start playing and in addition to having some good thinky things that are going on in there you also have great social interactions between the two teams where you can be egging people on or just having lots of good discussions between the people on the team figuring out well do you think this or do you think that and maybe even taking votes and it's a very social experience which lends itself to a party style atmosphere and the fact that it does have a light rule set helps all of that together you can set it down on the table explain just the basics in probably like 30 seconds and just start especially if the people who are the Spy Masters have played it before so that's a really big positive to the game because it's just accessible by pretty much everybody the second positive point is that there are two distinct roles in the Box you have the people playing the Spy master and then you have the people playing the field operatives and those two roles are quite different and I found that some people take to one role more than the other for instance I much prefer being the field operative the person who is receiving the clues and trying to figure out what they mean by that versus other people really enjoy the clue crafting aspect where they look at all of their specific agents out there on the field and trying to figure out how they're going to tie all this stuff together into a succinct really good clue and I like playing both I won't always do field operative but I found that certain people will just prefer to do one thing or another or say oh you know I've never been the Spy Master before it's like well you play that and even though this is your fourth time playing this is going to be the first time you're the Spy master and it's going to feel very new in that moment I think it's pretty cool that there are two different um gaming experiences in the same box that everybody is doing at the same time and the third positive point is that the gameplay length is ax approximately 15 minutes maybe 20 minutes if you happen to have a slow-going group and what that means is you can play this game for as long or as short as you want it seems like it rarely gets played only once usually at least two games get played in a row but I've seen four games get played in a row uh and it just allows you to fill in whatever you're looking for you could play this game for an hour and a half and have a satisfying experience where pretty much everybody gets to be the Spy master and you're changing the teams around but you could also play it for 15 minutes while you're waiting for somebody else to come in and then jump into a games so it could be fit into any different kind of uh gaming setting that you're looking for and that versatility is a big bonus okay so I have one neutral point and that has to do with the cooperative play mode in the game and this is neutral because I don't think there is anything wrong with a cooperative play I just think it's a little bit less exciting than the standard competitive play now I've done several Cooperative games of it and I have enjoyed it but it's different you don't have the heckling you don't have the communal discussion going on uh I'm talking specifically about the two-player game where one person is a spy master and one person is the field operative and it's a good experience it's fun it's like a much upgraded version of uh 20 questions or something like that but in this instance it could be a bit quiet you know you might be able to vocalize the things that you're thinking about so that the Spy Master kind of knows where your brain is and you might think that's sort of cheating but it doesn't matter because it's Cooperative but you lose that competitive zeal that you have to like really beat that other team and try and race to get to the end before they do and you know try and mess them up by telling them all sorts of terrible Clues while they're trying to figure things out you lose that fun active social layer but there's still a good game in there in the Cooperative mode I just don't think it's going to be for everybody I I've certainly enjoyed it and I look forward to playing it that way some more but it's not the best incarnation of the game and now for the one negative I have for code names and I almost made this a neutral but I decided to make it negative because it really can sour the game experience sometimes even for me and that is analysis paralysis possibilities you really need to make sure that the person who is your spy Master is not prone to analysis paralysis because there is a lot to look at especially when the game very first begins and the first team spy Master they might take several minutes to come up with a good clue and they're racking the brain and then they give a clue that just has two at there's a number at the end of it and you're like what you spent all that time and there's just a lot to take in as a spy Master it's a very solitary experience and especially that first clue can be quite difficult and I've seen games of this go where if the Spy Master is too much into the analysis too much into trying to get a perfect amazing clue it will drag down the energy of the overall game you really need to keep it going you don't want this game to go more than 10 or 15 minutes because it's just not built for that and in those situations I find myself saying you know just give any clue like even a a clue with a one at the end of it we just got to keep the game going and the game does come with a little sandtimer in there if you feel like things are dragging in order to keep it going but I think at the end of the day that might be a subtle flaw to the game like just throwing a sandtimer in there does not fix any potential analysis paralysis issues that are there pretty much it has to be social and group oriented fixing where you just say you know what that one person should probably never be the Spy Master because we all know it's going to take way too long and I'm being totally honest with you that's part of the reason why I don't like being the Spy Master because I am a bit prone to analysis paralysis in board games in general and I find myself in this game which just sitting there and then that anxiety starts to creep in once it's been like a minute or two and I haven't come up with a good uh clue yet then I'm starting to worry about how long it's taking and I'm becoming worse and worse of a spy Master because I'm more more focused on how boring this is is everybody's just staring at me trying to come up with something so that's a good thing to keep in mind uh I still really enjoy playing the game so it doesn't make the game bad but you need to keep that in mind that some people will really clash with the amount of analysis that goes on here and you need to beware and try and do what you can to get around that and now let's talk about the replayability of code names I didn't count the exact number but there are around 200 double-sided word cards in the game and you only use 25 in each game so that's 400ish words you are just never going to have a situation where you're like oh I can correlate these two words together into the same clue like I did three games ago even though after a couple games you're going to start to recognize a couple of these words it's all about the way the words interact with each other and even if you have several words in the same playing area as a previous game odds are good they're not going to be on the same teams as they were before so it means every time you play this game the correlations and connections are fresh and that makes the replayability of codeen names very good I mean you playing pretty much the same game every time and you can mix up by being a field operative one game and a spy Master the next but the decisions that you're making you're you're really not going to find yourself saying oh the same clue worked oh I'm going to do the same style of clue every single time it it seems to be staying fresh after um around nine or 10 games for me so far I could see it feeling fresh and interesting for uh at least twice that and probably many more codeen names officially plays two to eight players and I've done the two-player game and the eight player game but I've also done an 11 player game so that top number of eight is a bit of a soft one there are essentially two different player counts for this game there is the two to three player game and then there is the four plus player game in that two to three player game you are playing cooperatively and it is enjoyable but it's that four plus uh player game that I've talked about a little bit before that is much more social where you're getting in each other's way and you're really discussing a lot more about all the different things that you're wanting to do there so they both play well I enjoy the cooperative and I enjoy the competitive I give the edge to the competitive and honestly that 11 player game was fine it pretty much if you can get the bodies around the table so that they can't see the key then you could just throw more people at it because it's a group decision type of thing and now at a certain point it's going to be way too many people and it might take too long as people discuss things back and forth but I like that you could just pull people in and pull people out as maybe someone wants to go play another game or somebody shows up to your game night it makes it a very flexible competitive experience and both of those play really well but I give the slight Edge to the competitive style in conclusion I really like this game it is a thinky party game and in general I'm not a big fan of party style games but this one has the social uh aspect to it where you're discussing things back and forth where you might be heckling back and forth over the table but you are also really thinking about really cool correlations and how you're going to make these two words fit or you're trying to figure out what they were going for your spy Master might give you a clue and you at the table and you're like I have no idea but you and your partners are going to try to figure that out and that's a really fun experience I think it's amazing how fun this game is from two to a b very large number of players that in every single one of those player counts there is fun inside this box it is so incredibly versatile you know I've really enjoyed those Cooperative games where it's just myself and my wife and we're sitting there and we're kind of talking through what we're doing but we're also just enjoying that com Cooperative experience but having seven or 11 people in the room and you all want to play a game before you maybe split up into a few other ones you can get the same box off the shelf and have a great amount of fun with all those people as with just two people I think it's extraordinary how versatile it is and especially for the price point I think that codeen names is an excellent uh buy I think I see it sticking around in my collection for a very long time I really don't see it exiting my collection ever to be honest with you and I think that is very high praise I strongly recommend you check this one out it's it's really solid if you'd like to become more involved with the channel you can directly support it at patreon.com jit games and if you'd like to see more in-depth reviews like this one as well as playthroughs and Vlogs please subscribe to the channel thanks for watching