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Codenames Duet
The cold war is old hat. The red spymaster and the blue spymas- ter finally got to like each other. Time for a different game? By no means – Codenames is now also cooperative. Instead of a duel, players make their asso- ciations as a duet. United against evil that hasn’t gone away in the world, but has even increased. Instead of one assas- sin, there are now three. Or six. But some of them aren’t even assassins, depending on your perspective. It’s all a bit more complicated.
Strictly speaking, Codenames could be played cooperatively before. With two players. And against all odds, it worked well. When the imaginary opposing team had its turn, one of its cards was used to cover one word. This procedural step could even be tactically used to deliber- ately deactivate unsuitable terms. The objective was to guess all words correctly in as few rounds as possible and thus bring as few enemy cards as possible into play.
Codenames Duet also is for two play- ers – or for teams. The objective is simi-
lar: guess all terms correctly using as few clues as possible. Now there is consider- ably more guessing material, though – 15 terms – and each player is a chief and an investigator at the same time. So to speak, a chief investigator. But as usual with dual leadership, each of them has his own way of looking at things, and these ways differ. The code card, set up between the players, shows nine words that need to be guessed on each side, plus 13 neutral cards and three assassins. There are overlaps between the two card sides, but the differences dominate.
If “curtain” is marked in green on your side, your partner has to raise it, even if the term is deadly black on his side. But if it’s you who guesses “curtain,” it falls. It costs players who are experienced in Codenames quite an effort to ignore the color code (which is visible to them) when they are guessing. But once they’ve got it, it’s no longer problematic.
Clues are given in the same way as in the original game. But now, regardless of the number called, you may keep taking guesses as long as they are correct. The
game ends after nine clues, at the most. If the game proceeds too smoothly, Code- names Duet fizzles out in the finale. If, for example, there are only three terms open after six clues, the rest can easily be handled with one-word clues – there is no reason for riskier guesses. Such a sit- uation was unknown in Codenames. Even a considerable lead could possibly still be taken away in a death-defying tour de force.
In order to nevertheless keep the reins tight in the long view, Codenames Duet provides “missions.” Before the game starts, the spymasters agree on a handi- cap, e.g., restricting themselves to eight
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