Codenames family game for 14 years

Product Information

Blue or red squares on the key cards indicate the location of agents for either the blue or red team, while pale squares are innocent bystanders, and the black square is the assassin. Of course, there are rules regarding what spymasters can and cannot say—and there can’t be any hints or reactions to conversation or guesses. This makes it especially important to choose a board game that’s entertaining enough to keep everyone engaged. This allowed for more productive brainstorming and resulted in better clues and guesses—as well as the occasional silly, laugh-out-loud moments. I’ve found that the play of this game gets sillier and, oddly, slightly faster-paced with larger groups, so adding a few younger siblings ends up making it more fun.

If the players guess dog—or any codename with a fellow agent, even if it wasn’t one of the three the spymaster was referring to—they get to go again.Let’s say the red team also had an agent under an animal-related codename; if the blue team mistakenly guesses that word, it uncovers an agent for the opposing team, which benefits the opposing team. This setup allows for a new game board each time and ensures a fresh combination of words—something my family, and particularly my teenage son, really appreciated.

This is also a game that can be played again and again without getting old, as the board is set up in a new way each time.

Needless to say, the spymaster needs to carefully select clues to avoid his teammates picking the wrong card. While it’s nice to have the option to play as a duo, we found that this version eliminates the competitive component. Thanks to its at-home and lab performance, it is still a top choice in The Best Party Games for Adults despite newer models and options being available on the market. Using the key card as a guide, the spymasters take turns giving associated one-word, one-number clues to help their teammates guess which codeword stands in for their team’s agent.

Find and flip the double agent card so that it displays the team going first and place it in the appropriate stack. Once we lured a few additional would-be spies to the table for a total of four or five players, Codenames really took off. To make sure we are still recommending the best products for your needs, we recently reviewed this story to make sure it is still accurate and that we stand by what we wrote.

Overall, setup took us about a minute or two; my boys easily accomplished this on their own after a quick perusal of the rules. Each team is allotted the same number of guesses as said by the spymaster and can use all of these guesses as long as each guess unearths one of their agents. Well, actually you are actively thinking about it, but it feels like decoding secret spy messages instead of the stress of taking the English language skills portion of the SAT.