Codenames Telepathy

In a week, I will have known Yinh for 17 years. We don’t complete each other’s sentences. We still have plenty of stories to tell each other, although CoVid lockdown is burning that fuse a bit faster. (I always think of the Chris Rock joke about a wife telling her spouse to “get kidnapped and come back with new stories”). We have thus far deferred marital mind-meld.

But you would not know this by watching us play the 21st-century version of the Newlywed game…Codenames.

The Joy Of Codenames

If you play any party games you know Codenames so I won’t re-hash it. If you don’t play party games then you should know that blacking out right after dinner at family functions is anti-social. You should play Codenames instead.

Being in sync with a Codenames teammate is successfully web-crawling their brain. You hop from the axon of one idea to the dendrites of another as you stretch to find how they linked words on the Codenames’ grid to the clue that launched the brain scan in the first place.

We tend to work best when she gives the clues because in our relationship I tend to be the one filled with more random nonsense. This is a bug in times when being distracted is a penalty, since I can bike-shed with the best of them. But in Codenames, being a central repository for mutual references that unlocks with a single word is a decided advantage.

Here’s an example from Friday night. Yinh gave the clue “Empire, 2”. This clue was supposed to unlock:

“strike”
Easy enough. Empire was a reference to “Empire Strikes Back”.
“chair”
Ok, so why did she think “empire” would lead me to “chair”?

I had a theory as to why she connected these words, so to test it I asked her what her logic was. She stumbled. She had forgotten why these words went together, which made me think my theory was even more correct.

I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t an “empire” -> “throne” -> “chair” pathway.

Here’s the actual pathway:

“empire” –> what empire comes to mind? –> Roman or Ottoman –> Ottoman = “chair”

Here’s the best part. Her logic was both not original thinking or explicit. It was a subconscious reference to Eddie Izzard’s Dressed to Kill stand-up special that we’ve seen together. When I reminded her of Izzard’s joke that linked the Ottoman Empire to furniture she immediately realized what she had done.

I always get a kick out of her screwing up a reference but still understanding what she means. Just this week, she asked me what the latest on the Skrillex vs NY Times drama was going to which I responded, “You mean Slatestarcodex?”. She laughed at how she butchered it and I was happy to know she listens to me when I talk about the random crap I find interesting.

Check out Codenames. Read your partner’s mind to crush your in-laws at your next family game night.

editor