Coding Pyramid
In this Main Match, bid on words to create a Codenames board that you feel you can clue the best.
| Designer(s): Sam | Match Type: MM (for 3 players) |
| Featured in: Genius One | |
Coding Pyramid 🔺
In Coding Pyramid, the final three players will try to create the “codenames” board with words that are easiest to guess, by bidding on words and coming up with their own clues.
The current roster of eliminated players who will try to guess the codenames boards are as follows (I will let you know if this changes).
- Josh
- MC
- Morthai
- Sleepy
- Tiac
Word Acquisition đź’°
Word acquisition for your boards will take place over three rounds. Every round, twenty-five unique, random words are presented from an ninety-word pool. The pool consists of the following “codenames” words…
Air
Band
Bat
Beach
Block
Bond
Bottle
Buck
Button
Cap
Center
Chocolate
Cliff
Contract
Cook
Copper
Cross
Deck
Dinosaur
Dwarf
Eagle
Eye
Fair
Fall
Flute
Game
Giant
Grace
Ground
Hawk
Hood
Horn
Horse
Iron
Jack
Kangaroo
Lab
Life
Light
Line
Lion
Mammoth
March
Match
Missile
Mouse
Mug
Needle
Opera
Pass
Penguin
Piano
Pie
Pin
Pirate
Pit
Pitch
Plastic
Post
Press
Princess
Pupil
Ray
Robot
Rome
Round
Row
Ruler
Satellite
School
Seal
Slip
Snow
Sound
Spell
Spine
Spy
Straw
Strike
Suit
Tail
Tap
Telescope
Thief
Time
Tower
Tube
Undertaker
Wake
Yard
The twenty-five words presented will become available for players to bid on. Each player begins the match with 100 chips, and will submit how many chips they’d like to bid on their selected words.
Players must bid on…
– Eight words in Round 1
– Eight words in Round 2
– Eight words in Round 3
If a player bids the most chips on a word, they will receive the word and the word will be taken off the market. Even if you don’t win a word, you'll still lose all chips bid.
If a word receives no bids, or players are tied for a bid on a word, then that word will also be available in the following round and no players will receive it.
During Round 3, players may spend chips to dictate board presentation order (the order boards will be presented to players when they guess).
If no one spends chips, then the order will be be random for each eliminated player.
After Round 3, players will also add whatever English word they’d like to their board as a wildcard (it can’t be an exact copy of a word they already have). Finally, if a player doesn’t have twenty-five words, some random leftover words on the market will be distributed to them.
You will learn who bought what word every round, but not what the amount they spent. IF you bid 0, you can still win a word.
Extra Bids Rule âť—
If you’re outbid on a word by another player, then in the next round you must bid for extra words equal to the amount of words you were blocked on. For example, if I only won bids for six words in round one, I would bid on ten words in round two. If I won zero words in rounds one and two, I would bid on twenty-four words in the final round.
Clue Creation đź§
After acquiring all your twenty-five words, you will write six “clues” that will lead people to guess twenty-one of those words, making a “pyramid” of codenames clues with increasing difficulty.
You will write
One clue that refers to one word.
One clue that refers to two words.
One clue that refers to three words.
One clue that refers to four words.
One clue that refers to five words.
One clue that refers to six words.
You will also list what words each clue is supposed to indicate.
These clues must all be playable English words according to the scrabble dictionary (must be at
least two letters long) and cannot contain the word itself. Unlike the official codenames game, there are no other word restrictions. I will use this site to verify the validity of your clues. https://scrabble.merriam.com/
Winning 🏆
All your words will be placed on random positions in a 5x5 board, which will be presented to an eliminated player. The eliminated player will not know whose board they are trying to solve.
The eliminated player will first be given your one-word clue. Then, if they successfully guess the words you intended to clue, they will be given your two-word clue… then your three-word clue… then your four-word clue, etc. Eliminated players are allowed to use google to search for your word.
If an eliminated player guesses the wrong word for a clue, then their board-solving will end immediately. You score one point for each word the eliminated player successfully guesses before guessing a wrong word.
We’ll eventually present your board to all eliminated player guests in this manner. The player who scores the most points for having the most of their board solved wins the main match and three garnets.
If there’s a tie, I will have all the eliminated players rate the overall creativity of your clues from one to ten. Then, the player with the highest creativity score wins.
If there's still a tie, the player with the most chips will win... if there's a tie after that, then most garnets... and finally, further ties will be broken based on previous placement in the final four and final five matches.
Garnet Spending 
Players may exchange each of their garnets for one extra chip.
If there’s a tie in voting preferences, the player with the more garnet’s preference will be given the priority. Otherwise, garnets will give no advantage in the finals.
If a player has all their clues correctly guessed by at least one eliminated player, the prize pool increases by $10.
Tags
Auction (The game involves an auction in which players participate.)
Bidding (The game involves auction-style bidding.)
Guest (The game involves guests that can influence the outcome of the match.)
Points-based (The game involves players earning points.)
Semi-live MM (The game is a Main Match that is overall non-live but may have real-time elements, such as queries that the hosts respond to immediately.)
Words (The game tests the players' linguistic abilities.)