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Codenames: every award it has won

Spiel des Jahres 2016 and Deutscher Spiele Preis 2016

Box art for Codenames
Spiel des JahresDeutscher Spiele Preis

2015Vlaada Chvátil

7.5

Rating BoardGameGeek

105,162 ratings

Players
2–8
Duration
15 min
Complexity
1.3/5Very light
Age
10+
  • Card Game
  • Deduction
  • Party Game
  • Spies / Secret Agents
  • Word Game

2 awards

All of its awards

BoardGameGeek

About the game

Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their codenames — single-word labels like "disease", "Germany", and "carrot". Yes, carrot. It's a legitimate codename. Each spymaster wants their team to identify their agents first...without uncovering the assassin by mistake.

In Codenames, two teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Lay out 25 cards, each bearing a single word. The spymasters look at a card showing the identity of each card, then take turns clueing their teammates. A clue consists of a single word and a number, with the number suggesting how many cards in play have some association to the given clue word. The teammates then identify one agent they think is on their team; if they're correct, they can keep guessing up to one more than the stated number of times; if the agent belongs to the opposing team or is an innocent bystander, the team's turn ends; and if they fingered the assassin, they lose the game.

Spymasters continue giving clues until one team has identified all of their agents or the assassin has removed one team from play.

Mechanics

  • Communication Limits
  • Deduction
  • Memory
  • Race
  • Team-Based Game