So Clover (Repos Production) has become one of our 'go to' filler-length games but Floodgate Games have come up with a challenger in the form of Landmarks, designed by Rodrigo Rego and Danilo Valente. Likewise it's a fully cooperative game where players are looking for the connections between words but in Landmarks players respond to the word clues by placing a tile on a hex space on a map.
As in Codenames (CGE), there's a clue giver with the other players working together to argue over the clue words and agree among themselves the most appropriate hexes to place the new words as they are given. The clue giver has a card showing the location of the various terrain types and they are trying to steer their team of players to the exit hex by way of the treasure hexes while avoiding hexes containing a trap or, worse, a curse. Traps reduce the number of clues you have to play with and a curse loses you the game unless, before the exit, you find the hex containing an amulet. Along the way, landing in a water hex will let you refresh your supply of clues.
What makes Landmarks particular fun to play is that there's a continuous challenge for both the players and the clue giver throughout. Each will be teasing their way around the others' mindset to better steer their next clues and guesses. The rules suggest the game takes '2-10 players'. It works as a two-player game but of course that shears the argument, debate and collective reasoning from the game which are such a key component with higher player counts. The only upper constraint on the number of players is the practical one of all being able to see the map and word clues, and the rules include the option too of playing as a team game between two competing teams of explorers; similar to the competing teams in Codenames.
Landmarks comes with an ample supply of blank tiles for use with the dry-wipe pen, as well as map cards for the clue-giver delineated by difficulty. The cloth map is double-sided: one side is essentially featureless while the other has the visual equivalent of flavour text showing a variety of terrain. The terrain printed on the cloth map has no bearing on what may or may not be shown on the clue-giver's card so it may be best to play with the blander looking side to avoid some players being distracted by the irrelevant printed terrain.
So Clover has some competition!