Game 38: Codenames

I feel like I say of almost every game I post, "This is one of my favorite games!"  But there is so much variety in games that I tend to have a lot of "favorites!"  I love the two versions of the Codenames games that we have - words and pictures. The word version of Codenames was the version we played at family game time on the Fourth of July.  It's a game for two teams; one player on each team is the spymaster who is trying to come up with clues for the rest of their team to identify (i.e. make contact with) all of their "agents" first.
 Twenty-five cards, each containing a word, are set up in a 5x5 grid.  Among these cards are all agents for each side (red and blue) as well as innocent bystanders (white), and a single assassin (black).  On their turn, each spymaster may give a one word clue in order to direct their team to cards that relate to that clue.  The clue can be very challenging to come up with, as it needs to lead the players to the related words (codenames) as possible without causing the players to pick a card that represents an innocent bystander, a card (agent) belonging to the other team, or the assassin.
 I only took the three pictures above at our event on the 4th, so I'm hoping our friends don't mind if I post an old picture in order to show more of the game.  The card standing vertically in the holder is only visible to the spymasters.  This card shows the locations of the red and blue and white and black cards.  In some way I guess it's a dossier connecting the field agents in the field to their codenames.  (It looks here like we had just finished a game in which blue won and in which rules are being double-checked for some reason.)
The longer you play the better you get at communicating as a team.  Also the longer you play the more creative you get in connecting words while at the same time eliminating others - all with just one word.  It's quite a challenge - quite a fun challenge!!

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