CODENAMES

Simple and detailed instructions on how to play the board game Codenames

Codenames is a judgment board game that demonstrates high team spirit. Players are tasked with correctly guessing their team’s secret agent to win

Are you looking for a fun, highly collaborative board game to play with friends and relatives? Let’s learn about Codenames, one of the best and popular board games.

Video tutorial on how to play the game

1. Introducing the board game Codenames

Codenames is one of the famous board games worldwide with unique detective gameplay. Designed by Vlaada Chvátil and announced by Czech Games in 2015.

And in 2016, Codenames beat out a series of other names to win the Spiel des Jahres, a once-a-year award honoring good, excellent and worth-playing board games around the globe.

Codenames is a board game for 4 to 8 players, divided into 2 teams. This board game creates a world of two groups of spies, one blue and one red. Each team will be led by a “chief spy”, who knows the location of secret documents hidden by other spies.

The spies in the team will follow instructions from the chief spy and go to the designated spies, tell them the password and bring back secret documents safely.

2. Read for 5 minutes and immediately know the rules of the board game Codenames

A set of Codenames will include an atlas and map stand, a stack of secret language cards, 8 green secret agent cards, 8 red secret agent cards, 2 double agent cards, 7 civilian cards and 1 assassin card.

Divide players into 2 teams with the same number of members. Each team chooses a captain and both team captains will sit at the top while the members will sit on the opposite side.

Choose 25 secret cards and arrange them in a 5×5 grid randomly. Next, the captains of both teams will choose a map and place it facing themselves to avoid other players seeing it. Divide each team leader into two sets of secret agents corresponding to the team.

The secret service leaves will include:

• Secret service cards
• The leaves are green or red.
• The secret agent cards have the opposite color of the overall object (for example, red glasses on a blue background), this card will indicate double agents and belongs to the first team.
• The light yellow leaves are people, unrelated to the two playing teams.
• Black leaves are Assassin leaves

Through the annotations on the map, the team leader needs to give instructions to the members to find the exact location (red is the annotation for the red team, blue is for the blue team, black is the assassin). and the light yellow boxes are people).

On the 4 edges of the map there is a blue or red box and this box will indicate the team that goes first and gives the first hint. Besides, the team going first will need to find 8 locations instead of 7 (or other cards).

3. How to play the board game Codenames

Start the round

The team leader will give hints about the location to the members. At this time, the players of the team will discuss together and find the location (drawings on the table).

Give clues

The team leader will give a clue consisting of a word followed by the number of cards involved without adding any other information or answering the remaining members’ questions. For example, if you want to mention the leaves NUT and BARK, because both leaves have trees, you can say Tree – 2.

Game rules require 1 correct clue

You can convey clues with puns, explanations with homonyms, spelling. And note, do not mention the position of the picture or the shape of the objects inside. In addition, you are not allowed to sing or express yourself with other players.

Judge

After receiving instructions, team members will conduct discussions. If the clue has been identified, members will touch the card they want. The captain will then view the map and take one of the following actions:

• If a teammate guesses a card that matches the position the team currently owns, the team leader will use his team’s secret agent card to place it in that position and is allowed to guess 1 more word.
• In case the cards chosen by teammates do not match, the playing team will lose their turn.
• The position of the killer card must be avoided, so the captain needs to give clues that have as little to do with the position of this card as possible. Because if you choose the position of the killer card, the team will immediately lose.

Number of guesses

Teammates need to guess at least 1 word. If you guess correctly, you will continue to guess or lose your turn, and if you guess incorrectly, you will immediately lose your turn. Sometimes it is possible to guess more than once. For example, the suggestion given is tree – 2 and the 2 related leaves are ORANGE and NUT. If a teammate guesses ORANGE, and it is the wrong answer, the team loses their turn.

If the team leader gives a suggestion of river – 3. And the teammate selects the AMAZON box. If the clue is correct, the team leader will put up the secret agent card and his teammates will be able to guess next.

After guessing 3 correct positions, the playing team will get to guess one last time. Team members can find the 3rd word of the river or the 2nd word of the tree. The playing team can also skip and pass the turn to the opponent.

Players are allowed to guess up to 1 more time. For example, if the team leader gives the clue Song – 3, the remaining members are allowed to guess up to 4 times if the previous 3 consecutive times are correct.

Game over

The team that finds all of their team’s location passwords is the winner and the game will end. Besides, the opposing team can win their turn if the opposing team finds your team’s last word. And the board game will end early if a team picks a killer card.

Next game

After the game ends, we proceed to choose a new captain for the next round. Then remove the secret leaves. Select 25 cards again, arrange and start the next hand.

4. Note, tips for playing the board game Codenames

You can consider playing with words to circumvent the rules and easily convey information. However, avoid using words that are too difficult because it will cause difficulties for the remaining members.

Although the board game is suitable for groups of 4-8 players, it does not mean that groups of 2 cannot play. If there is only a group of 2 participating, both players will be on the same team with 1 person being the chief spy, the other being a member, both will fight together with virtual players.