For me, 2020 ended up being the year I embraced online gaming wholeheartedly. Well, I was already playing a few games on Tabletop Simulator, but not a bunch. But once lockdowns and social distancing started, it became a lot harder to get a game in so we had to get creative. Me and fellow BGQ reviewer Brian even played a game of Street Masters using FaceTime and an elaborate setup of cameras.
But that was also a lot of work. Enter the virtual tabletop. Lately, publishers have been really great about finding ways to let gamers play their titles remotely. These ranged from full implementations of a virtual space on Tabletopia or Tabletop Simulator to the more app-style ones on Board Game Arena. And some publishers are even making their own offerings from scratch.
Publisher Czech Games Edition is one such company as they announced today that their hit two-player game Codenames: Duet is now free to play online. This joins regular Codenames on the same website (which needs at least 4 players to play). Codenames: Duet is easily my favorite of the series (you can read my full review here) and the online implementation seems to be really well made.
If you’ve never played it before, learning is super easy. CGE has also released a handy video to get you up and running quickly. So grab a friend and get to playing.