In Isle of Skye, you get a certain amount of money for each player ahead of you in points each round. I wouldn’t say that is part of the strategy of the game at all, you really are gunning for maximizing victory points in that game. Therefore I would argue that the game has a catch-up mechanic.

I haven’t played Yinsh but that sounds fantastic.

Oh! Of course. That makes sense.

AH! Munchkin! You sir, are correct. And that’s probably why that game is only useful to laugh at and not to play!

I’ll tell you the second one when I remember it…

Codenames has two small and subtle ways for the losing team to catch up. The first is based on the fact that teams almost always go for the easiest word connections first. Maybe whatever expert Codename play is looks different than that. But the latter clues are often much more difficult. But the team behind gets an easier time because more words overall have been eliminated. So more potential clues are open to them that may have been closed before. It’s not a large help, but I think it does impact the game somewhat.

The 0 number clue is the extreme catch-up mechanic in Codenames, but I think the +1 guess qualifies. Especially as the remaining cards narrow, losing teams can make up a lot of ground in the last couple turns cleaning up clues that they missed early on. I actually really like the +1 guess – It encourages more ambitions clues early on and rewards taking risks later on. I guess it would qualify in the 3rd category, because both teams do have the +1 guess… it just benefits the losing team more and they are more likely to have extra cards left over from previous clues.

What do you consider the catch-up mechanisms in Codenames to be? The possibility of the leading team guessing the assassin? The narrowing set of remaining cards leading to 0 clues for a team with many remaining? Making a comeback doesn’t seem like the norm in my experience of it so far, and a victory by the opposing team guessing the assassin feels as hollow as the loss is painful.

I would argue that there simply is no such thing as a true catch-up mechanic. They simply become part of the strategy of the game. The only true catch-up mechanic would be one that gives the losing player(s) points/resources/ect. at random and inconsistently. This is necessary so that it wouldn’t become part of the strategy to stay behind the curve. I think a mechanic similar to this would be totally unhealthy and not widely appreciated.