How to play

Sprint Codes takes 4 to 12 people and about 15 minutes. Two teams race to find their own words on a shared board.

Back to the game

The goal

The board has 25 words. 9 belong to the starting team, 8 to the other team, 7 are backlog items nobody wants, and 1 is PROD DOWN. Find all of your team's words before the other team does, and never touch PROD DOWN.

Roles

Spymaster. One per team. Only spymasters see which word belongs to which team. They cannot point, nod or talk about the board. Their only move is the clue.

Operatives. Everyone else on the team. They talk it over, then click the word they trust.

Watching. Join late or just want to see? Stay on Watch and you can follow every move.

One turn

  1. The spymaster of the team whose turn it is types one word and a number, for example CLOUD 2. The number says how many board words the clue points to.
  2. Operatives discuss, then click a word.
  3. If it is a word of their team, it turns their color and they may click again.
  4. If it is a backlog word or the other team's word, the turn ends.
  5. They can click up to the number plus one. Pressing End turn stops early.

A clue of 0 means none of your words match. Operatives then have no guess limit.

What the cards mean

On a spymaster's screen every card shows its team. Each color also has a symbol, so it still works for color-blind players.

Deploy
Red Team word
Cache
Blue Team word
Coffee
Backlog, ends the turn
Root
PROD DOWN, you lose

Clue rules

  • One word only, letters only.
  • It cannot be a word that is still on the board. The game blocks it.
  • No hints through tone, hand signals or extra words in chat.
  • Multiple meanings are fine. PIPELINE can point to a build and to a sales funnel.

How a round ends

  • A team wins when all of its words are revealed, even if the other team revealed the last one.
  • A team that clicks PROD DOWN loses at once.
  • Anyone at the table can start a new board. Spymasters from the last round stay out of the operative seats until the next board, because they have seen the key.

Running a table

  • Register a player name once. It is saved in your browser.
  • Create a table, then use Copy invite link and send it to your team. The 5-letter code works too.
  • Pick a team and tick I am the spymaster if that is you. Each team can have one.
  • If your connection drops, the page reconnects and puts you back at your seat.