I’ve previously played the original Codenames, along with the mobile edition of the game, so when I saw Codenames: Pictures, I was very aware of the concept and knew exactly what I should expect. For those that have not played Codenames, it’s a sort of deduction game, where you can either play as a two player game or in two teams.
Codenames: Pictures has a quick setup, where a grid of cards are placed down. In this edition of the game, these cards are all specifically pictures (and have pictures on either side, which means there are plenty of pictures to make things interesting). We played in teams, and then split our table into two teams each with a leader. The leaders get to see a card that shows the secret meaning behind the layout of the grid. You see, specific cards can be one team’s agents, another team’s agents, bystanders or the assassin.
It is the leader’s job to get their team to identify the agents from their group, without revealing the other teams agents or, more importantly, risking their team identify the assassin. This is done through the leader saying one word, then the number of cards that it pertains to. The rest of the team needs to discuss the cards they can see and decide what ones to guess on. They must make one guess, but even if the leader says a larger number, they can just decide to pass.
If a bystander is revealed, nothing really happens but the turn is over, the same is done if a team reveals the other team’s agents. Tiles are placed over these cards to show what the ones that have been revealed have become. BUT, if the assassin is found, that team instantly loses and the other team wins. The goal of the game is to reveal all of your agents ahead of the other team.
I found Codenames: Pictures to be such a better version of Codenames, as the pictures had a lot of different ways to link them together or describe them, making them a more accessible version of the game to play. I quite liked the style of the pictures as well, which were just so much fun!
You can purchase Codenames: Pictures on Amazon.
