CODENAMES: Board Game , Based on Harry Potter Films , Officially Licensed Merchandise

First off never played the original. This was a totally new experience with codenames. Played it with my wife and I and also two 12 yr olds and a 10 yr old. The directions we thought were a little too vague and had to YouTube to start. We started with just pictures, mainly because we didn't know how to work with the names with the hints. Once we got the idea we were causing through. We ended up losing with two left to find. Overall we liked it. The curve wasn't too bad. We helped eachother. We didn't do teams but more coop style for everyone and let the kids take turns picking. I totally recommend the game to not just fans but in general. One kid wasn't familiar with Harry Potter (weird I know) but she picked it up with the rest of us that were just as fast.

This game is so fun! It can be learned and played by all ages and the difficulty of the clues and the complexity in which it's played depends on the players! When i play with my three and six year olds, it's one level of difficulty, but when i play with my twelve year old and my adult friends, it gets much more competitive and complicated!! It also challenges my kids to think outside the box, think critically, and consider all options. This is super fun and the replay ability is phenomenal. The more you and your team mate know about harry potter, the more elaborate the one word clues can be! It's a challenge to get all five cards to link with one word! Hours of fun!

This game is great! The rules are same as Codenames Duet, but with Order of the Phoenix members, Deatheaters, and Ministriy of Magic officials in place of Secret Agents, Assassins, and Innocent Bystanders. It's a little different from regular Codenames, but it's exactly the same as Codenames Duet (or the two-person cooperative rules for Codenames) and not very complicated. Really fun and great for Harry Potter fans! Update: We've had the most success with this game by mixing it up with regular Codenames Duet. (We use 15 Harry Potter cards and 10 regular Codenames cards.) Using only HP cards can be difficult and time-consuming, so mixing it up makes it more fun and results in a lot of hilarious hints!

This is lots of fun and is meant to be played as a 2 person game although you can add more if you work in teams. It isn’t the original structure of code names, but more similar to code names duet. However, if you have code names you could swap the cards for lots of team based fun!

Our family really enjoys Code Names. We even play an online version when we're not together.

My kids, who are teenagers, love Codenames. We got the original and played it so much over the summer. But we heard that the HP version was coming and we are huge fans. So, when it came out we bought this as our Christmas game. Because we know so much about the HP world, it makes the game more enjoyable than the original. Even younger HP fans can play this version because the world is limited and easy to procure the information. Must have for your game collection.

Not sure if they ever played the game, they broke it out once, and said they tried to figure out the rules... not sure if they got passed that point.

**Important Note: I adore both Harry Potter and Codenames. I was wanting this for a party game when I throw parties as my group of friends loves Codenames.** Pro's: Overall, I think it is well made, the pictures are cute and it has potential. I like that there are pictures on one side and words on the other, so, you can play with younger/older crowds or more knowledgeable/more muggle crowds. Cons: It is more complicated than the original version. Instead of there being two teams/colors on the board based off of one key, both teams look off of the opposite side of the key card and work to find everything. This means that some of the clues are muggles/civilians for one side of the table and death eaters for the other. This is just extra complicated and I don't think plays as well as the normal version. Personally, I'm going to combine the versions and play so that it's the normal rules with Harry Potter clues. Overall: 3/5 as it is good quality, just didn't provide the entertainment I was expecting.