When comparing Codenames vs Betrayal at House on the Hill, the Slant community recommends Betrayal at House on the Hill for most people. In the question“What are the best board games?” Betrayal at House on the Hill is ranked 6th while Codenames is ranked 42nd. The most important reason people chose Betrayal at House on the Hill is:
Each of the 50 scenarios are unique and have a gripping story that helps pull you into the game. Whether it's demons, monsters, or rituals that need to be completed, each gameplay session will be filled with new stories and new objectives. Thanks to this, each session memorable in its own way as you won't ever be doing the same thing twice.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Nearly endless replayability
You will almost never play the exact same game twice. You could play this game for years and you'll still have to stop and think of clues to give your operatives or ways to interpret what's been said to you. Codenames comes with 200 double-sided codename cards, of which you use 25 per game. Moreover, there are 40 key cards showing the layout of the agents that can each be orientated in 4 different ways.
Pro Can be played by a lot of players
With an official player count of 2-10 players, there really isn't an upper limit to the number of players that can play Codenames together, which makes Codenames a perfect game for big parties or other events with a lot of people.
To play, players divide into two teams with each team having 1 Spy Master who gives clues to the rest of the team. This means that adding more players doesn't change the way the game is played, merely how many people the Spy Masters are giving clues to.
Pro Players can easily drop in and out of the game
Codenames is a very accessible deduction game, where players guess words based on one clue from the Spy Master. A lot of people have been in the situation where a game is already in progress, but someone shows up and wants to join in - with Codenames this isn't a problem. A player can easily join a team and take part in the debates for the correct guess. There is no plot, no intricate mechanic that needs to be explained to people before they can play. You could even switch the players after every turn, and it wouldn't change the gameplay.
Pro Hilarious
The game can lead to some hilarious moments when either guessing the answer or debating to find it. The key is to understand the Spy Master's thought process, but this is a harder task than it might seem at the start.
Since the Spy Master can't speak, the team often miscommunicates, which results in laughter for the other team and some frustration for the guessers, more often than not accompanied with a comment about how bad the Spy Master is. The debating process can be quite funny as well - the operatives might argue about who's right and what the Spy Master might've thought, or be completely confident in their guess and still fail. No matter the outcome, when the game ends the Spy Master can finally vent all of his built-up frustration, which can result in some good laughs too.
Pro Well written storylines lead to very memorable gameplay experiences
Each of the 50 scenarios are unique and have a gripping story that helps pull you into the game. Whether it's demons, monsters, or rituals that need to be completed, each gameplay session will be filled with new stories and new objectives. Thanks to this, each session memorable in its own way as you won't ever be doing the same thing twice.
Pro Exciting tone shift mid-game
In the beginning, players all work together to explore and search the haunted house, but once the betrayers are revealed in the later sections, the game turns you against one another. This complete shift in tone from co-op exploration to frantic survival is often the most exciting part as everyone's goals suddenly change and your friends are trying to kill you.
Pro Near endless replayability
The "Traitor's Tome" rulebook contains a base of 50 "haunt" scenarios to play through, but you can easily create your own or find more online if you'd like to play more unique or varied games. Even when playing the base game, the sheer amount of variety in nightmarish things (monsters, aliens, ghosts, weird portals) the game throws at you is incredible.
Pro Great for getting your friends into gaming
Overall, this is a great game to help get your friends into board games, even if they are bit reluctant. Each game session usually only lasts about 60 minutes, but manages to pack as much fun in as possible. The suspense of exploration combined with the excitement of the big reveal is an addicting mechanic that works well with many groups. Thanks to this short length and incredible way of drawing people in, this makes it a great game to pick up and play with friends on the spur of the moment.
Pro Not a huge time investment
You can play a whole game from start to finish in about an hour.
Pro Builds anticipation and suspense
Perhaps one person, or even multiple people are forced to switch to Betrayers in the middle of the game. You never know who is going to be affected, what the revealed horror will be, or when it will happen. Additionally, the Betrayers and Investigators often have objectives which are kept secret from one another, so you never know what your opponent's win condition is until it happens. All of this keeps everyone guessing what's going to happen next and how things will play out.
Pro Great expansion that adds to gameplay
The Window's Walk expansion not only adds 50 new haunts, but adds new rooms, cards and opens up the roof for exploration. Overall, it's an excellent addition that expands on the base game and gives you plenty of new content to enjoy.
Cons
Con Spy Masters must be kept in check
There are a lot of nuances in the rulebook regarding the responsibilities of the Spy Masters - what kind of clues you can give, how you react, what you say, etc. Of course, there are some variables and flexible rules, but the main gist stays the same. The Spy Master can't show reactions to guesses, be it a nod, a reply, or anything else because this might mislead the operatives or, on the contrary, reveal too much. This can get very difficult in more intense situations, so it's important for the opponents to be on the look out.
Con Not great for small groups
The game really starts to shine from 4 players and more, which can quite often be difficult to assemble. Anything under that doesn't really work. There's a variation for two players that basically makes you work together against an enemy that gets one agent every turn, but this takes away a lot of what makes the game fun in the first place - the competition between teams, the debating, the strategy, etc.
Furthermore, the three-player variation is either the same as the two-player variant, albeit a little better because of the debating, or a competition between Spy Masters on who can give the best clues to the operative, which can give that player quite a lot of strain.
Con Requires some higher language comprehension
This wouldn't be the best game to play with people with a limited vocabulary, such as children or non-native speakers. The whole game is based on guessing various words, so players need to be able to understand the words and create associations in order to play.
Con The mechanics aren't the best
The mechanics for things like movement and fighting occasionally break down or don't make sense in certain Haunts.
For movement, there are two cases where the mechanics break down. In most cases, it's very obvious where you're supposed to go and it ends up being a simplistic point A to point B course. This takes all the fun or guesswork out of plotting the optimal path. On the other hand, sometimes reaching your goal is impossible because of layouts which makes fulfilling an objective difficult or downright impossible. In both cases, movement feels unexciting.
When fighting, some abilities are rather complex, so time is taken out of the game to explain the mechanics to everyone. This ruins immersion for everyone and it can feel like there is more explaining than actual action.
Con Some Haunts are very unbalanced
Due to how the house is gradually discovered in the first phase of the game, it is possible for either the Betrayer or the Investigators to not have access to the tiles they need to win the game at the start of the second phase. Sometimes the Betrayers will be at a disadvantage, and sometimes the Investigators. It's an issue that effects both sides about the same.
Con Players may feel disadvantaged at times
There is a huge variety in the horrors revealed, and some work better than others after a large portion of the house has been discovered. Others work best in small, enclosed quarters. For example, a creature suddenly crawling through the walls works best in the small quarters, whereas it wouldn't be so much of a threat in a larger open area. Due to things like this, the scenario can sometimes often feel unfair for one side or the other - either the Betrayer or the Investigators will have a huge disadvantage.
Con Not appropriate for children
Some of the more complicated scenarios can be quite confusing, and the game is relatively slow paced, so it may not be fun for kids. As it's a horror game, some of the themes (monsters, cannibalism, demonic rituals) are not appropriate for young children.
Con Game relies very heavily on the players buying into the theme
This is a game that does best only if the players really buy into the theme of exploring the haunted house. Since cards are read aloud and acted out a bit (creepy voices highly encouraged), events and haunts in particular benefit from this extra bit of immersion. If this seems like a Pro to you, then great, Betrayal is your kind of game, but if not, then it can get stale quickly and its flaws are made even more apparent.