Pictomania

Pictomania

At first glance, Pictomania can be intimidating. For a drawing party game, there are a lot of pieces. There are drawing boards, markers, and erasers. There are two sets of scoring tokens. There are 4 kinds of cards and 2 card racks. There are stickers that have to be applied to the cards racks.

You will want a big game table.

You will also want to take your first game nice and slow. Once you get to know what the pieces do, most of them will fade into the background and you will be able to appreciate just how clever and funny a drawing game can be.

In a nutshell: Pictomania is a drawing game where you try to get the other players to correctly guess what you have drawn WHILE ALSO trying to be the first to accurately guess what each player is drawing. The game does a fantastic job of keeping everyone involved, even when some people are faster at drawing than others.

There are four levels of clue cards that range from easy (common objects and animals) to very difficult (abstract concepts). I found that the very difficult level was actually the one that removed the kind of “artistic advantage” that you always find in these games—those people who are talented illustrators. People with drawing skill will do much better at the easy level; however, those skills don’t translate as well to the most difficult level. It’s one thing to be able to get people to guess “dragon” but it’s something else entirely to get them to guess “always.”

There are six clue cards that are revealed and placed on the card holders. Each clue card has seven clues. By dealing special cards, each player will be required to draw one item on one of the clue cards. No player will draw from the same clue card. This is another of the really clever aspects of the game. All the answers are out there, you aren’t blindly guessing.

This brings up another clever bit about the game: the seven items on each clue card are generally very closely related so even an easy card will have beach ball, tennis ball, soccer ball, and cannon ball as possible clues. It’s not like you can just draw a circle and expect folks to guess “ball.” They have to choose between very similar items.

Once you finish drawing your clue, you look at all the others and place a guess card by each drawing. You must do this for all your opponents. You get one guess for each. The guess cards are placed in a pile so that when everyone is finished, the pile is flipped over and you can see who got their guess down first. Points are awarded to whoever guessed correctly, but more points are awarded to the person who correctly guessed first.   You lose points when someone incorrectly guesses what you drew.

party-creativeThe process of drawing and guessing and scoring is a little more complicated than what I just described, and it is worth playing through once just to see how all the cards work together, but once you see it in action the whole process clicks into sharp focus. In the end the game involves getting your clue, drawing your picture, guessing everyone else, and scoring. Where things get crazy (and I mean that in a Major Fun good way) is that part in the middle where there is drawing and guessing going on at the same time. Especially in a large game there is a mad flurry of drawing and looking and shuffling and slapping cards down on the table.

Scoring is where everyone settles down but also where a lot of the laughs are to be had. At this point the players reveal what they were drawing and we get to see what everyone guessed. The easiest level is fun but the biggest laughs are reserved for the most difficult level. Not only is it funny to see how someone illustrates “bribery” it is equally hilarious to listen to why other people thought it was “extortion” or “money laundering” (both of which are on the same clue card).

Pictomania is not as simple as many other party games you will already know, but it is rich and challenging, and very very fun.

3-6 players. Ages 9+

Pictomania was designed by Vlaada Chvatil and is © 2014 Pegasus Spiel, produced and distributed by Stronghold Games.

Doodle Quest

doodle_gamerDry erase markers are cool. Maybe it’s that I grew up in the waning age of chalkboards and became a teacher just as dry-erase boards were becoming ubiquitous. The vivid colors just seemed so vibrant compared to the tinted chalk I had to work with in secondary school. This is what it must have been like for my grandparents when the world got color just after the turn of the 20th Century…

Doodle Quest is a clever little drawing game that has more to do with spatial awareness than drawing skill. It’s also a clever little maze game that is quite a challenge to complete even when you can see exactly where you need to go.

The game comes with 18 quest cards, 4 transparent sheets of plastic, 4 dry-erase pens, and 4 fish stencils. The quest cards are double sided with one side being for beginners and the other for more advanced players. Each quest tells players how they can solve the puzzle by drawing a few lines. The players then have to draw the lines on their transparent sheet without measuring or touching the quest card. The transparent sheet is then placed over the quest card to see how well each player did.

For example: one quest asks you to add 4 spots to a clown fish. Some parts of the picture are worth 0 points. Some parts are worth 3 points. Some parts are worth 4 points. If your dot falls ENTIRELY within one of the 3 or 4 point areas you get those points. If it even touches one of the zero point areas you get nothing. Needless to say, the areas are interspersed so that a small variation in the wrong direction will earn you a nice fat goose egg.

01 AwardDoodle Quest was a huge hit when we played this with our kids. It is one of those activities that adults will have very little advantage over the kids and there are lots of ways to even the playing field. A great family game that is engaging and challenging for a wide range of ages.

The illustrations are silly and colorful. The materials are durable and make great use of the dry-erase medium. This is one of those games that can only exist because of the dry-erase technology. I applaud the designers for seeing the unique and Major Fun possibilities held within these mildly intoxicating markers.

1-4 players. Ages 6+

Doodle Quest was designed by Laurent Escoffier and David Franck and is © 2014 by Blue Orange Games.

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