Continue if you are looking for games like Decrypto and are curious about what similar games to play next. Players compete in two teams in Decrypto (white and black), with each trying to correctly interpret the coded messages of their opponent before they do the same. On each team’s personal board, there are four cards tucked into the different screens (#’d 1 – 4). The team can see these words, the opponents cannot. Each round one team member per team is the decoder and draws a card with a series of numbers (relating to the 1 – 4). They have to get their team to guess this order by giving clues, but then you are also giving clues to your opponent.
To determine this list we broke down Decrypto to what it is. This is a communication limit party game that has a game within a game. You are on a team and need to convey information in creative ways so you are giving them the right information but being careful to hold back on giving too much information to your opponents. If you are looking for something similar, you have come to the right place. We took all this into consideration and came up with this list of the 5 board games like Decrypto.
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#05 | Concept
Concept makes the list of board games like Decrypto because this is another great team game where you are matching clues with communication tactics. Players are working off the same communal materials but separately it is a race for who can get there first. Instead of just relying on words, this title throws interesting iconography into the mix.
Your goal is to guess words through the association of icons. A team of two players – neighbors at the table – choose a word or phrase that the other players need to guess. Acting together, this team places pieces judiciously on the available icons on the game board. Being the first to get there gets you points and high score wins. For 4 – 12 players, games run approximately 40 minutes.
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#04 | Taboo
Taboo makes the list of board games like Decrypto because this is another party game that has a team member giving clues so teammates can guess a word but in a way that is not going to make you lose. Instead of too much information giving away your secrets, here you are penalized when you use key words from a list included with each clue. The minefield of communication options is the key component of both titles.
Players take turns describing a word or phrase on a drawn card to their partner without using five common additional words or phrases also on the card. The opposing partners watch a timer and use a buzzer to stop the game, buzz the player describing if one of the five off limits words or phrases is used, or the describing player makes any gestures. For 4 – 10 players, games last about 20 minutes.
FOR MORE: Taboo Page | How To Play Taboo | Games Like Taboo | Buy Taboo on Amazon
#03 | Time’s Up
Time’s Up makes the list of board games like Decrypto because it is another fun team-based guess via creative communication title. Instead of just base words, this game brings popular culture into the mix having you get your teammates to guess real and fictional people while clues become more limited.
This is a charades-based party game for teams of two or more players. Before the game begins, each player looks at several cards featuring famous historical or fictional characters and chooses some of them. Each player’s cards are shuffled to form a deck, and this deck of famous names is used for each of the game’s three rounds. In each round, team members take turns trying to get their teammates to guess as many names as possible in 30 seconds.
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#02 | Just One
Just One makes the list of board games like Decrypto because it is a party game that using a word that completes the task too well will get you in trouble. Everyone is tasked with providing a word to go along with a clue. The hook is that duplicate words from players get eliminated. Your task is to provide a good enough clue to get the job done, but not one that is going to flag the infotmation.
Players take turns having to guess a word. Before they do, the card with the word is revealed to the other players and they need to write down a clue to help them get there. It can be anything, but the hook is that duplicate clues get removed. It is more difficult than you think. The goal is to get a score as close to 13 as possible. For 3 – 7 players, games run about 20 minutes each.
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#01 | Codenames
Codenames takes the top spot on the list of board games like Decrypto because it is a great communication title that also has the game within a game thing going out. Just like Decrypto you need to give information to your team in a way that helps them but also hold back information from the other team. Instead of each team working off their own secret words, you are working off a communal grid that one member of each team knows what is hidden there.
The group is split into two teams. You are spies and you need to get your fellow operatives out of the field before your opponent does the same. This is represented by a grid of many words that secretly each have a blue operative, red operative, bystander or evil assassin under them. Each round, one member from each team gets to look at a decoder card showing all the locations and they need to communicate this to their team by giving 1-word answers. The key is that you need to give clues that apply to multiple spots to win. For 2 – 8 players, games run about 15 minutes per round.
