Codenames

Today's review is of the 2015 release, Codenames.  For 2-8 players, it takes 15-30 minutes.

Overview
On a 5x5 grid of words, you and your teammates have one goal: expose all 'your' cards before your opponents do the same for theirs, while avoiding the forbidden word that will lose you the game instantly.

Each team has one clue speaker, with the rest being guessers.  Team colors (red and blue) are assigned.  The grid is laid out by randomly selecting and placing 25 word cards.  Then, a tile is chosen, which tells the clue speakers on both sides:
- which team goes first
- which cards as associated with the red team (and the blue)
- which are neutral (white)
- which is forbidden (black). 

The first team to go has nine words; the second has eight.  There are seven neutral words and one forbidden.

Simplified Gameplay
On its turn, the team's clue speaker looks at the grid, the tile, and chooses one (and only one) word to tell his team, along with a number indicating how many cards he thinks fit that word. 
Example: the blue team goes first, and their nine words, when matching the template with the grid, are "France, Cathedral, Dog, Rain, Grass, Lamp, Car, Politician, Government."  The clue speaker could say "Paris, 2."  The rest of the team would confer and decide which two of the 25 words best fit "Paris."  They guess one at a time.  When the guess a word, the color of that word is revealed by placing the appropriately-colored marker on top of it.  If it's blue, they can guess again.  If blue again, they can guess a third time (you can always exceed the clue speaker's stated number by one).  But if any of their guesses reveal a red or white word, play immediately passes to the other team.  And if they reveal the black word, it's game over! 

game in progress; image from here.  In this example, "date" is the forbidden word, and the red team needs to reveal four more cards to win (pirate, face, bill, cotton)

The obvious goal is to guess your words without guessing another color's.  The challenge is finding that perfect word to enable your teammates to do so.

Review
This is a simple yet challenging and fun game.  It's impressively difficult in many cases.  I love the "one word only" rule; that's the key for me.  For example, in one game I played, I had two words left to make my team win, and my opponent one.  My words were "mine" and "crane;" his was "drill."  I failed to find a word that would clue my teammates into my words without them potentially guessing my opponent's, because many associations with mines and cranes would also apply to drills (like "dig," "excavate," "tunnel", etc.).  And you never know what associations other people will make with your one-word clue.

With near-infinite variety due to many templates and many grid layout possibilities, this is a winner.

Rating: A