I dunno, we've only played 2 games with no numbers so far, and that one could've gone either way really.

We'll need to play a few more to find out if it still needs tweaking, but I feel like this is probably about as close to balanced as we're gonna get. Red generally has an advantage even in the normal games anyway.

And I think blue knowing that they will almost always have to win in 2 rounds also helps with knowing how many to guess.

yea I'm cool to do more like we are - just suggesting it in case we need to balance and seems like too big of advantage

Red often has a pretty clear 3/3/3 path while Blue has more uncertainty since it could be 5/3 4/4 or who knows what else

Carl's idea is interesting too since 10 would make Red's plan much less clear

Maybe, but I think it's a lot more pronounced here.

It's usually really easy to put together a 3/3/3 or 4/3/2 set of clues with pictures.

It's just so much easier to connect pictures than words with the whole world of internet stock photos at your disposal.

Maybe try a 50-word list?

Also, Roulette is apparently the name of a reasonably famous piano piece, so finding a picture with both of those wasn't really that easy.

Given the words remaining, I figured that casino was a suitable enough substitute for roulette.

Maybe we should just finish this series of three as is and go from there.

50 word list might be better, but I'm not a fan of the long list games.

Am I up now?

Yes, you and I are spying.

I can make a board, I was just waiting to see if we were making changes.

Surely some of that has to come down to luck of the board though, right? What % of the time do you think red wins in vanilla codenames, like 70%? 80? We haven't had a scenario yet where blockers were a huge issue either, but that's bound to happen soon enough. Say, if roulette was ours and casino was bad, that's actually gonna be a way bigger problem when you need to use pictures.

We may find it's still way too unbalanced this way, but I'm not sure 2 games is a big enough sample size to know that for sure yet.

Long list is an interesting idea, but I could easily see it being quite a nightmare. We would def have to bring back numbers too...just the thought of a long list numberless picture game is making me break into a cold sweat.

Maybe swapping the neutrals with blues could be a plan if we do decide to change things up?

Yeah, let's at least finish this round first, but maybe swap colours this time? I think we've been red 4/5 times so far.

I’m fine to be blue; can go for first blue to win

yea cool to finish round and see if Blue can pull one out whoever gets it - if Red just wins every time we can give Blue some kind of additional buff

Next game gogogo?

I'll make a board, hopefully nobody minds a self-rand here.

I think we should be blue this time to even it out.

America
Apple
Arm
Chick
Day
Dress
Fence
Force
Germany
Hook
Iron
Lab
Lap
Needle
Orange
Post
School
Scorpion
Seal
Shoe
Tag
Telescope
Tokyo
Web
Whale

Lots of stuff seems to fit at first glance

And I wonder if this is like a training facility. Never heard of it

America
Seal
Fence

Are definite guesses but it gets tricky after that

I like those in some order - also liking Post a lot and Day doesn't seem bad...but I always like Day =)

America - yes. why is this on every list lately?
Apple - no
Arm - armed forces... possible, but don't love it
Chick - no
Day - again possible, but not the main theme of the pic
Dress - no
Fence - yes
Force - air force, etc. probably one step ahead of arm
Germany - no
Hook - no
Iron - fence is probably made of it. ships as well
Lab - no
Lap - no
Needle - no
Orange - no
Post - fence posts, light posts, outposts. probably my 4th fave
School - might be the reasoning for this pic? but idk for sure
Scorpion - no
Seal - yes
Shoe - there are shoes in the pic, but meh
Tag - no
Telescope - no
Tokyo - no
Web - no
Whale - seems to be pointing strongly away from this, so it might also be the reason for this exact pic (instead of school)

america
seal
fence
post

school/day/iron.... could guess or not guess any of these. i think i prefer iron of the 3, but don't care much


force
arm
shoe

Fine with those top 4...as blue I think it's a better strat to guess until we miss...as red I'm....kinda still wanting to do the same thing?

Would probably go day for 5th word, wouldn't mind moving America down since the others are SO strong but still wanna guess it early

yeah i'm fine with any order of the top 3

maybe day is less likely to be bad than iron, so i'm fine with that 5th as well

school could be way off, so we can stop before that. the actual naval academy is in maryland, but this place being training still makes the most sense to me


anyway

seal
fence
america
post

day
iron (or pass)
school?

let's fire top 5 then reeval if still our turn

seal
fence
america
post
day

iron
school