Activity codeword

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Activity codeword
Game data
author Ulrike and Paul Catty ,
Hans, Maria and Ernst Führer
publishing company Piatnik
Publishing year 1996, 2013
Art Board game
Teammates 3 to 16
Duration ~ 60 minutes
Age from 12 years

Activity Codeword is a parlor game from the Activity series from the Austrian game publisher Piatnik . As with other games in the series, players compete in teams to guess terms that are explained in words, mimed or painted. In addition, with Activity Codeword, eight-letter secret words that the teams think up and write down must be determined.

Style of play

Theme and equipment

The game consists of a game board, a set of 110 cards with six words each, a letter die (E, Z and D), an hourglass, a game pad and a pen. Crayons and paper are required as additional game material. The game is designed for two to four teams of at least two players each, which means that it can also be played in larger groups.

In order to win the game, players must guess terms that are represented, paraphrased and drawn by individual players. They also have to solve the eight-digit code invented by an opposing team in order to win the game.

Rules of the game

At the beginning of the game, teams of roughly the same size are formed. Each team receives a sheet of paper from the pre-printed game pad and chooses an eight-letter word. The word may contain all letters of the alphabet with the exception of q, x and y, umlauts and "ß" count as two letters. The word is written on the back of the note sheet. The cards are shuffled and laid out in a face-down draw pile. The dice, pen and paper for the drawing tasks are laid out.

The teams play in clockwise order and have to choose an actor from their team at the beginning of their turn. The actor on the first team rolls the die and takes one of the cards face down. He rolls the letter cube and the cube shows which of the three display types is used. On each card there are two terms for each type of representation, the performer selects one of the two possible terms and memorizes it. Then the hourglass is turned over and the player tries to convey the word to his own team:

  • Draw: The concept to be guessed must be drawn. The performer is not allowed to speak or to help with gestures, only nods of the head at correct partial words are allowed. The drawing must not contain any numbers or letters.
  • Circumscribing: The term to be guessed must be circumscribed; the performer must explain the term without revealing the relevant word or parts of the word.
  • Pantomimic: The term to be guessed must be mimeographed as a charade . The performer is not allowed to speak, make any noise, or use any objects to help or point at them. Own body parts may be shown.
  • Open round: If the term on the card is marked with an asterisk or in bold, the player must choose a partner from an opposing team and then both represent the term in pairs. In this case, this round is considered an "open round".

If the team around the performer (or another team in the open round) succeeds in guessing the term correctly within the given time, the team sitting to the right of him may ask whether the first letter of the guessed term appears in their code word. If this is the case, the interviewed team must also state how often the letter appears in the code word. If the letter does not appear, the team can delete it from the alphabet on the note. If, in the course of the game, another word is guessed with an already asked first letter, the team may relate the question to the second letter of the guessed term and later to the next not yet asked letter of the term.

If the term has not been guessed within the given time, the other teams are allowed to guess which term it is one after the other for the display types “drawing” and “pantomime”. You have to give your tip immediately without consulting. A team that guesses a term correctly in this way may ask for a letter. However, this only applies to the "drawing" and "pantomime" display types, but not to "explain".

A team that thinks they know the code word of the team sitting to their right may, when it comes their turn, propose a solution before rolling the dice. If the word is wrong, the team continues to play normally, if it is correct, it has won and the game is over.

expenditure

The Activity Codeword game was developed by Hans, Maria and Ernst Führer on the basis of the Activity game , with the game board being replaced by the dice and the code word to be guessed being added as an additional component. The game was published in 1996 in a first edition in German by the Austrian publisher Piatnik . Piatnik brought out a second edition in 2013, and in 2013 the publisher also published a Russian edition.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Activity Codeword , rules of the game of the 2013 edition; accessed on October 22, 2017
  2. ↑ Versions of Activity Codeword in the BoardGameGeek game database ; accessed on October 22, 2017

Web links