I am impressed. When I first played Coda I liked it but thought that it might have a bit too high a luck factor and was saved only by its quick playing time. Well, the luck factor is still present, it remains a quick game but additional plays have shown that there's more depth than I first imagined. I enjoy it even more than I did initially.
Coda is a deduction game and a relatively simple one. There are 24 plastic panels; 12 black and 12 white, each numbered 0-11. You will start with 3 or 4 of these as your "code" and will place them in strict numeric order, visible only to yourself. The object is to guess the other players' codes while keeping yours a secret. Your turn is simple: guess one of your opponents' unrevealed panels. If you are correct, that panel is revealed and you add one of the remaining panels to your code, keeping it hidden. (Technically, you first choose an unclaimed panel and look at it prior to guessing.) However, if you're incorrect, you must still add a panel to your code but it's revealed instead of hidden. (Note also that if you are correct in your first guess you may make additional guesses. As soon as you guess wrong though, your turn ends and the panel you add to your code is revealed.) If your entire code is revealed you are eliminated from the game. The last player standing wins.
Sound simple? Well, it is but there's a surprising number of tricks and subtleties to the game that did not occur to me at first. For example, it's not always advisable to guess panels that you are sure of, you may end up giving vital information to others. Much of the game is posturing for the endgame when one player guesses all the remaining panels and wins. Another less than obvious decision is in choosing whether to pick a black or white panel to add to your code. It may be tempting to pick the colour about which you already know the most but sometimes this can backfire. For example, imagine that you have 3 unrevealed black panels, Tom has 1 unrevealed black panel, there's one left in the pool and all others have been revealed. You don't know the number on Tom's black panel but if you choose the remaining one you'll know for sure. So, it might seem like a good idea to choose that one right? Well, probably not. The problem is that even if you're able to keep your new panel unrevealed, Tom now knows each of your black numbers. Further, if you decide to guess Tom's number then everyone will know all of your black numbers. There are many little discoveries like this that I made while playing Coda, a rather happy surprise.
One feature that's missing in many deduction games is true player interaction and strategy. Often you're playing your own game and simply racing with your opponents to arrive at a finish line. In Coda it's vital that you pay attention to what your opponents are doing and asking (sometimes what they're not asking). The fact that Bob has asked Fred if one of his panels is the white 7 may reveal more about Bob's code than Fred's and so you must formulate your questions carefully. (I've played deduction games with players who tried to gather information by considering other players' questions. In many cases I think this is a bad idea. You can usually mess such players up by asking nonsensical questions. However, I don't think such "counter-tactics" are as valid in Coda as other games.) Again, it's a case of there being more to the game than I first thought.
This praise should not blind one to the fact that there's a very healthy dose of luck in Coda. Sometimes a lucky guess (or an unfortunate draw) can reveal your entire code and knock you out of the game. Other times it may happen that the other players "gang up" on you, guessing your numbers thus eliminating you from contention. In a longer game this would be inexcusable; who wants to spend an hour working through long chains of reasoning only to lose to dumb luck? At 15 minutes though it becomes a minor irritant only.
Coda also comes with an optional variant were you include two additional panels (one black, one white) each featuring a dash. These are wildcards and may be placed anywhere within your code. They do make the deductions more difficult although I have concerns that they give too great an advantage to the player who draws them. I'll have to play a few more times to convince myself one way or the other. I also think that the game has great potential for other variants; one that springs to mind concerns the ordering of identical numbers. Normally, if you have both the black and white 7 (for example), you place the black panel to the right of the white one. Instead, you could give the player the option of ordering them however she likes.
Coda is officially listed as being for 2 to 4 players but I honestly don't see how it could work with only two, I suspect it would become a mere guessing game. I only played with 3 or 4 players though and it worked equally well with either number. In any case, Coda is an excellent game and better than first impressions would lead one to believe. The panels are high quality plastic and the rules are quite clear. With its quick playing time and easy rules it's very accessible for both the casual player and deduction game aficionado.
- Greg Aleknevicus
