Codenames

Codenames is a term used to refer to an alias assigned to people, projects, operations, or locations to conceal their true identity or purpose. In intelligence and military contexts, codenames are chosen to be discreet, memorable, and non-descriptive of the target to avoid revealing sensitive information if intercepted. The idea of a codename has permeated popular culture, where it is often used in fiction to maintain secrecy or to anonymize initiatives.

The board game Codenames, designed by Vlaada Chvátil and published by Czech Games Edition in 2015, is a word-based party game that popularized the term in tabletop circles. The game consists of a 5x5 grid of 25 word cards and two teams, red and blue, each with a Spymaster and Field Operatives. The Spymaster provides a one-word clue accompanied by a number, indicating how many of the revealed words on the board are related to the clue. The Field Operatives then guess the corresponding word cards, one by one, attempting to identify their team’s words.

Victory is achieved when a team successfully identifies all of its assigned words. The game carries risk: choosing the assassin card ends the game immediately with a loss for the guessing team; selecting a card that belongs to the opposing team gives that team a step closer to victory; neutral words simply end a turn without helping either team. The starting team typically has nine words to find, while the other has eight, distributed among the 25 cards.

Codenames has spawned several variant and spin-off editions, including Codenames Pictures, a visual version, and cooperative variants such as Codenames Duet for two players.