it can take a flexible number of players, and people can easily drop in and out
it is good both for people who want a brain burner (play as captain) and for people who want something casual (don’t play as captain)
if you play without the timer, there will be dead time between turns for people to talk while the captains come up with clues
as GuySrinivasan comments, there are some people who don’t like board games, but anecdotally I’d estimate 90% of the people I’ve introduced to Codenames have enjoyed it, including multiple people who’ve said they don’t normally play/enjoy games.
I suggest Codenames as a good game for meetups:
rounds are short (as is teaching the game)
it can take a flexible number of players, and people can easily drop in and out
it is good both for people who want a brain burner (play as captain) and for people who want something casual (don’t play as captain)
if you play without the timer, there will be dead time between turns for people to talk while the captains come up with clues
as GuySrinivasan comments, there are some people who don’t like board games, but anecdotally I’d estimate 90% of the people I’ve introduced to Codenames have enjoyed it, including multiple people who’ve said they don’t normally play/enjoy games.