Czech Games Edition will release a new game by the prolific designer Vlaada Chvatil (Dungeon Lords, Galaxy Trucker, Mage Knight Board Game).  The deductive word-association game Codenames was available for purchase at last week’s Gen Con.  It will be released to trade in four to six weeks.

In Codenames, two teams compete to identify which “secret agents” belong to their team, using coded words given by their team’s “spymaster,” while trying to avoid the hidden assassin.  Spymasters are only allowed to give clues using a single word that links some of the “codenames” on the 25 cards in play. If a team can correctly identify all of its cards from these clues, it wins the game.  But if they incorrectly guess the assassin, they lose instantly.

The game includes 200 codename cards, 16 agent cards, 9 neutral character cards, 40 spymaster key cards, a card stand, a timer, and game rules.  Codenames is for 2 - 8 players, ages 14 and up, and plays in about 15 minutes.  MSRP is $20.00.