Codenames pits two teams against each other to make secret contact with their own agents. Each team has one spymaster who can see which of the 25 words on the table belong to which team; the spymaster gives one-word clues plus a number, and the rest of the team tries to guess the right words while avoiding the rival team's agents, the innocent bystanders, and the deadly assassin.

How to Play Codenames

Overview

Codenames is a team word-association game for two teams. Each team has one spymaster (clue-giver) and one or more field operatives (guessers). The spymasters secretly know which words on the table belong to which team and give coded one-word clues; their teammates try to guess the right words.

Setup

1. Lay out 25 word cards face up in a 5x5 grid.

2. Split players into two teams (red and blue). Each team picks one spymaster to sit on the same side of the table.

3. The spymasters take a single key card and stand it in a holder so only they can see it. The key card shows a 5x5 pattern of colors matching the grid: red agents, blue agents, innocent bystanders, and one black assassin.

4. The key card also shows which team starts. The starting team has 9 agents to find; the other team has 8. There are normally 7 innocent bystanders and exactly 1 assassin.

Giving a Clue (spymaster)

On your team's turn, the spymaster says exactly one word and one number:

• The word must relate to the meaning of one or more of your team's words on the table.

• The number says how many words on the table relate to that clue word.

• The clue word must be about the meaning of the words; you may not use a word that is visible on the table, and you may not give clues based on letters, position, or rhyme (house rules vary; the rulebook restricts spelling/position clues).

Guessing (field operatives)

After a clue, the operatives discuss and then touch a word to guess it. The spymaster reveals what it was by covering it with the matching agent/bystander/assassin card:

• Your own agent: correct. You may guess again.

• Innocent bystander: your turn ends.

• The other team's agent: your turn ends, and you have helped the enemy.

• The assassin: your team loses immediately.

You must make at least one guess per turn. You may guess up to the clue number, plus one extra guess (the bonus guess lets you catch up on a previous clue). After your last allowed guess, or whenever you decide to stop, play passes to the other team.

Winning

The first team to correctly identify all of its agents wins. A team also wins immediately if the other team guesses the assassin. Because the assassin can end the game at any moment, there are no ties.

Two-Player / Cooperative Play

The original rulebook's final page includes a two-player variant: both players play on the same team against a simulated opponent. One player is the spymaster; each time the enemy would take a turn, the spymaster covers one enemy agent. You win by contacting all your own agents before hitting the assassin or letting all enemy agents be covered, and (on a win) score yourselves by how many enemy cards remain. This uses the standard 9-agent target, not time-out cards. The separate 2017 game Codenames: Duet is a different, fully cooperative two-player game (15 agents, timer tokens) and is not the same as this base-rulebook variant.

Winner-only team result. There is no numeric score; one team wins by revealing all its agents or because the opposing team revealed the assassin.

The startingTeam and endedByAssassin knobs are match params on this variant's ruleset; they are descriptive only and do not change the outcome, which is the win_flag boolean. There is no score to record.