Great party game, everyone who has played it has loved it!

so don't expect it to be a boisterous party game

Currently it's ranked on Board Game Geek as the number one party game, and I would agree

If you're looking for a party game that strikes the balance between too mindless and too complicated, Codenames is for you

Very fun (and sometimes stressful) party game that can be learned in minutes and played by anybody

Its up to that team's Spy Master to try to link as many of his words together as he can with a one word clue

If they guess the assassin, game over!Being Spy Master is actually a lot harder than it seems but is so fun

you're on the team and not the Spy Master, be sure to listen to everyone's opinions

Only con is the wait time coming up with clues as a spy master

The game is all about making connections, categorizing, and thinking like your 'spy master'.

Great game, love the challenge of thinking of a word to get your partner or team to guess

Super fun and challenging game for adults and bigger kids.

The hardest challenge is keeping a straight face while your team takes your clue and takes it places you didn't even dream of

Fun game that you can bring to any group and even those that "don't like board games" will enjoy the challenge of this game

Simple to learn and play and as you get better you make the game more challenging

We love playing this game as a family - it's great for any age and so fun!

Great family game, can still play with only two players.

I bought this because of the great reviews, but our family was completely stunned that others enjoy it

Our family loves to play games and this is a great new addition to our game cabinet

Great family game, or for a group friends, or an ice-breaker.

They love playing it and said that it's a fast game that you can play many times in a row and a great way to get to know people better

The cap of the hourglass doesn't even click, it's way too loose and left a mess.

This game is a great way to get to hate your friends and have a great time doing it.

Non threatening way to have lots of fun!

Need to have a good vocabulary and great way to expand your vocabulary!

But all in all we had a good time playing, and will play again.

We have always had a good time when playing with friends.

Some of my friends had a harder time than others coming up with clues, and that can drag the game out

I've played this game with friends, colleagues and complete strangers, and had great fun each time.

Younger kids will have a hard time making connections beyond the most obvious clues.

You start by splitting your gaming group into two teams

seems like an overly simple concept at first but deceptively fun if you have a good group of people to play with!

However, after having played it with friends from 4 people to 8 people, I totally agree that this is a very good group game

Any smaller groups would be difficult to get a good game going.

This has our favorite group game, and we own quite a few and play them all often

Reading through all the rules can be a bit tedious but so fun to play

A fun, easy to learn game that a lot of people can play

Great multi-generational fun, different every time you play, and easy to learn

Most of what can ruin the fun here are in the personalities of the people giving the clues

We had a lot of fun laughing and joking at some of the funny answers

As others have noted, the secret agent theme is fun, but it's really a great team word guessing game

The clue giver is then allowed to give one word & one number for their turn & their team must guess the correct words.

All you need to know is that you and your team try to guess what the code-master's (for your team) one word explanation and number could mean on the word grid

Great and fun word game for all types of gamers to enjoy.

gives a one word clue and a number that indicates how many cards on the table relate to that clue, to try to get their partner(s) to guess some of their team's words• For instance if the blue team's cards include the words "Chair" and "Dragon" the clue might be "Thrones: 2"• Then the other team gets a turn to give a clue and guess.• Play continues like this until either all of a team's words have been identified OR someone accidentally finds the assassin (which automatically ends the game).There are nuances to the rules, but that is the standard gameplay mechanic

Only the spymasters know what is what, and It is up to them to give clever clues which link their teams words

You need to be careful because if you give a clue and your team guesses the opponents teams word the opponents get a point and you lose your turn, or worse yet, if your team guesses the assassin word, you LOSE

our first play was an absolute dud because we thought that one team could keep having its turn and giving clues until it missed... a common mistake, apparently, according to feedback on boardgamegeek.

Basically you just try to give your team member(s) the best clues to guess your team's words.

I think this could easily be adapted to play with younger kids (reading age) by limiting the field of cards to less than the suggested 25 and limiting clues to one card at a time.

The first team to cover all their words wins, though guessing the assassin automatically makes you lose

’s words or the dreaded Assassin card (at which point the game is over).

but you work as a

but you work as a

You end up learning a lot about how you've organized words and concept associations in your brain, as well as how the people you're playing with have.

This is why I don't like sand

so I will leave this as a 4, great game but not really suited to my play style.

Timer was completely busted in the box, sand everywhere!

Aside from the unexpected bags and sand everywhere, I think this is a great game and well worth the money.

It arrived promptly, however, the hourglass timer was broken and the sand had leaked everywhere inside the box

If you think about how easy this game is, look at the sample tiles and think of a single word of which your teammate would be able to select the correct card

For kids that age the only adjustment is that once you lay out the cards do a quick check and make sure that the kids can read each word and know what each one is - if any confusion, just switch out the card

The cards lips, lemon, mango, and ear are 4 cards on the 25 card grid

To do this, you simply lay out 25 white cards in a 5 by 5 grid.2

The game itself is elegantly simple - essentially you are trying to get your partner to turn over the right 8 cards out of 25 by providing one-word clues.

The timer was broken and there was sand

The game's timer was broken, so there was sand everywhere

Timer was completely busted in the box, sand everywhere!

The timer was broken, and the sand was everywhere

I'll just use my phone timer, but pretty bummed this timer is useless and the sand got all over a family member Christmas morning.