A turn consists of a player rolling five dice Yhatzee-style, then applying the effects to the table, but because nobody is sure of the others’ role, figuring out who to deal damage to and who to heal takes on the form of a logic puzzle. Everyone is also dealt a random character card that gives them a unique power.

Players are dealt secret roles, with the sheriff revealing themself at the start of the game. The dice game version fixes this in a big way, and is now the best version of Bang! you can play. The original Bang! was long considered a party game go-to, but one of the major complaints was its length-it was too long for what it was. If you tire of seeing the same codewords after a handful of plays, Codenames has seen several expansions and reimaginings since its 2015 release, which can add a great deal of replay value. Codenames depends heavily on the spymaster to think quickly, and poorly thought-out clues can lead to some hilarious arguments. For example, if three of the words are “fence,” “tree” and “door,” the spymaster might say “wood, three” to indicate that three of the words might have to do with wood. In any given game, there are 25 available codewords arranged into a five-by five grid, and the spymaster must, without actually speaking the words, use a code phrase to describe what words belong their team. In this approximation of a spy thriller, players are split into two teams, with one player on each team assuming the role of “spymaster.” It’s the spymaster’s job to make their team name the codewords that will earn them points.

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