On Tuesday, Netflix Games launched a brand new videogame for Netflix subscribers, Codenames Party, a digital adaptation of the hit head-scratching board game. It even comes with an exclusive new Party Mode, which allows up to 10 players to simultaneously play the role of the clue setter and the clue guesser – and if you know your Codenames, that’s a bit of a head-scratching proposition.
For those unfamiliar with Codenames and wondering how to decipher the screenshot lower downthis page, it’s a family friendly party game centered on a grid of words. Players split into teams, and each team nominates one player to be the spy master. The spy masters see a secret map of the word grid that indicates certain words they need to help their teammates to identify.
Spy masters take it in turns giving their teammates one-word clues that will hopefully get them to select the correct words on the grid, and steer them away from the opposing team’s words, or worse, the deadly ‘Assassin’ word that results in an instant game over.
I’ve described pretty much all of the rules from Codenames in one paragraph, one big reason why it’s still one of the best board games for families and holiday get-togethers a decade after it was first released. It’s a game that can be played by people young, old, and drunk, and everyone has a chance to participate (if not necessarily contribute). Codenames Party offers a digital version of that classic game mode. It runs on a web browser and on “selected smart TVs”, with two to ten players able to join at once using their mobile phones as controllers, just like Jackbox Party Pack games.
Party Mode feels even more like a Jackbox Party Pack game. In this mode players see the same grid of 16 words as usual, but everyone is secretly given a list of eight active words, hidden from the other players. Players concoct a one-word clue to connect as many of those words as possible. The game then sets all of these clues as puzzles for everyone else; you can earn points by identifying active words from other players’ clues, and also by setting really good clues that other players do a good job of solving.
When I opened the press release with the information about this game I was prepared to be snarky – see my coverage of BMW and Mattel’s in-car Uno system for an example of how dismal digital platform crossovers can be – but this seems like a pretty comfortable fit, and a version of the game that might reach a new audience. If you’ve got Netflix, try it out, and let us know what you think in the Wargamer Discord community. If you want to learn about the latest in old-fashioned Codenames, check out my colleague Mollie’s review of Codenames: Critical Role Adventures.
Source: Wargamer
