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Experts say that playing board games is good for cognition and thinking. They keep you sharp! So, these spies must have played tonnes of board games to be good at their jobs, right? Surely all this playing will help us one day become sharp enough to wear suits and drink martinis. So, the question is… Is there a board game that tests one’s abilities to be a forward thinker and decrypt illusive and complex messages? Yes. There is! It’s Codenames: Pictures by Czech Games Edition. Being a spy can’t be an easy job. They get a bad rep from all the movies! Arrogant, lone wolf, obnoxious, know-it-all… For some James Bond types that may be correct, though I can’t imagine how they would stay spies for very long. Being a spy requires a higher level of thinking, and an ability to be on someone’s level of understanding. Being able to just get what a group are saying. Receiving messages that are elaborately thought out and cover every base as necessary. You’d need to be able to read between the lines and think outside of the box! The spymaster needs to help the operative find the corresponding coloured locations by stating a single word and number, as in the original. They need to locate as many as possible in each turn. After each turn, the spymaster will reveal one of the opposing colour's locations on the board. All players who have one of the clue giving options draws a space marker. This shows them, and only them, which clue they are giving. Choose 9 color cubes from the different available options and then arrange them in a 3×3 grid on the designated card to represent the picture.

Codenames: Pictures is a fantastic addition to Vlaada Chvátil’s growing Codenames franchise and offers something totally different while remaining faithful to the winning formula. When you’re the spymaster of a team, you need to be consistent. If we went elaborate for one clue and blunt for the next, the operatives went mad! Consistency is key. Sure, when you go for the obvious ones you’ll get easy, correct responses, but then going technical straight after will cause issues. This is a step by step guide for how to play pictures the popular represent a photo party board game. Additional notions and special rules can be found below the list. These will be referenced for your convenience. After all players have made their guesses, players reveal what they had by placing their secret grid location chip on the correct space. If you are correct, you get a point, and if not, then nothing. When you're the spymaster of a team, you need to be consistent. If we went elaborate for one clue and blunt for the next, the operatives went mad! Consistency is key. Sure, when you go for the obvious ones you'll get easy, correct responses, but then going technical straight after will cause issues.

There are five different ways to give a clue, which are described below. These are all active at once. Each player has one of the five and will be making a clue for that given round. Each round components are passed so everyone in theory has each component once. If you have more than 5 players, you add blank spots or if less than five, eliminate different components each round. The spymaster role requires a lot of thought. The game can easily be won or lost on a single word. Understanding how your other team members may interpret a particular image is extremely important. You must also ensure you choose your word carefully, as many words can have more than one meaning. For example, they could say ‘see’ or ‘sea’. These two words would most likely relate to completely different cards, but the operatives will not know which version of the word is being used. In the two-player variant of Codenames Pictures, one player takes on the role of the spymaster with the other player becoming the operative. You need to work together efficiently to beat the board, as the board is never wrong. Gameplay-wise, Codenames: Pictures works in exactly the same way as its predecessor, with the big difference being that instead of the Spymasters giving clues relating to a 5x5 grid of words, they are now giving clues relating to a 5x4 grid of pictures!

You have 2x shoelaces to work with, one is twice as long as the other. You can arrange these however you like to represent the picture. The pictures themselves are perfect! They bring together multiple elements; some are creepy, some funny, and some are extremely weird. There may be a little downtime during this game while teammates or opponents are thinking. However, this can give you a chance to think about your own plan of action - so it's not all bad! In a standard game, you’ll be playing across two teams. Head to head. One spymaster and any number of operatives in each team. Being an operative, you need to think outside the box and look at every image in great detail. Read between the lines. The spymaster needs to see links between pictures that they know their co-spies will also see. Balancing that between your team is a delicate act, as the images are random and comprise many elements! Codenames Pictures is a team-based game, much like the original Codenames, but instead requires a different type of knowledge. Unlike the original, Codenames Pictures is less about word association and more about encompassing as many pictures by a single word. Everyone gives different clues with different components at different times and the individual picture grid never changes (within each game). This is a refreshing take on the visual communication game and not something we have ever seen before. Learning how to play Pictures is easy but mastering the technique inside takes plenty of practice. For 3 – 5 players.You choose 2 – 5 of the available icon cards and lay them in a road from left to right to represent the picture. Do nothing else. After all five rounds have been completed, everyone counts up their total correct answers. Whoever has the most wins. The game itself is by no means easy, but learning how to play Pictures is.

All players now take some time to make their clue. Everyone does this at the same time so everyone does this until there are five constructed clues for everyone to judge.As the operative, identifying the pictures that relate to the word given can be equally, if not more, difficult. They will need to start thinking about how their teammate thinks. The pressure is on to identify every location before the opponents reveal all of theirs. 4+ Players Being a spy can't be an easy job. They get a bad rep from all the movies! Arrogant, lone wolf, obnoxious, know-it-all... For some James Bond types that may be correct, though I can't imagine how they would stay spies for very long. Being a spy requires a higher level of thinking, and an ability to be on someone's level of understanding. Being able to just get what a group are saying. Receiving messages that are elaborately thought out and cover every base as necessary. You'd need to be able to read between the lines and think outside of the box! Codenames Pictures (designed by Vlaada Chvátil) is for two or more players, focusing on big team play. Having four players or more is the optimum number to ensure a game can be fully played. There is also a two-player variant where you play against the board, effectively trying to get the operative to guess all the locations within seven turns. This is where the chase is on! You need to discover your colour locations before the opponents are all revealed. It’s a race against time! Naturally, you should win (should!) but there is a scoring chart to determine how efficient a spy you are. Nailing it before any opposing spies are played causes MI6 to ring you up there and then. 1-3 isn’t to be sniffed at either. Anything less isn’t as bad but not noteworthy!

This is where the chase is on! You need to discover your colour locations before the opponents are all revealed. It's a race against time! Naturally, you should win (should!) but there is a scoring chart to determine how efficient a spy you are. Nailing it before any opposing spies are played causes MI6 to ring you up there and then. 1-3 isn't to be sniffed at either. Anything less isn't as bad but not noteworthy! The Spymaster will have to think of clues relating to the pictures on their locations but be mindful of the innocent bystander locations and their opposing team’s locations. Oh and, of course, avoiding the Assassin at all costs. The pictures can bring some surprisingly weird and wonderful clues as there is a lot to interpret in the pictures. This makes game suitable for younger children as there are no words to read and the youngsters will no doubt find the pictures intriguing. On your turn, you draw a secret token from a draw bag. On it are the coordinates that state which image you need to recreate, using your items. Then you need to get your creative juices flowing. You want the others to guess which of the 16 pictures you’re making! You get points for correct guesses, as do the people guessing. After all clues have been formed, now all players guess who is who. Write down on a sheet of paper which clue corresponds to which picture. You would denote “Clue 1: C3” for example. The spymaster role requires a lot of thought. The game can easily be won or lost on a single word. Understanding how your other team members may interpret a particular image is extremely important. You must also ensure you choose your word carefully, as many words can have more than one meaning. For example, they could say 'see' or 'sea'. These two words would most likely relate to completely different cards, but the operatives will not know which version of the word is being used.You will need to alter play in some way to accommodate for having less than 5 players (less than the number of clue options). You can either remove a clue component completely (no one gets) or have rounds designated for a specific clue to come out (some get). Its all fluid, do whatever you want as long as it makes sense. GAME CONTENTS In a standard game, you'll be playing across two teams. Head to head. One spymaster and any number of operatives in each team. Being an operative, you need to think outside the box and look at every image in great detail. Read between the lines. The spymaster needs to see links between pictures that they know their co-spies will also see. Balancing that between your team is a delicate act, as the images are random and comprise many elements! Codenames: Pictures even suggests some alternative ways to play, such as combining words and pictures into the same game (if you have a copies of both games) and gives rules for an “Assassin Ending” variant where you must guess the Assassin once you have found all of your agents. The spymaster needs to help the operative find the corresponding coloured locations by stating a single word and number, as in the original. They need to locate as many as possible in each turn. After each turn, the spymaster will reveal one of the opposing colour’s locations on the board. In the two-player variant, as long as the team can work together and understand each other’s thought processes, this game can be won! However, one simple slip up, and the assassin may be revealed! Your game will end in defeat! Or, at best, the opposing team finds one of their locations and you put them at the advantage. Final Thoughts on Codenames Pictures