Excellent. We can now expect Scott to pump one of these out every two weeks. Thanks dude!

             Sag.

Thank you Scott, again

Great show, as usual, thank you! I especially enjoyed the interactive part - 9 points, baby!!! ;-)

In your experience, how much do the drawings of the players differ from each other?

This game sounds like a fun idea, but it seems that once everybody (particularly whoever does the explaining) is even remotely familiar with the game system they will describe the picture very mechanically, and the people drawing will just add the features very mechanically. Especially since the 90 second time limit is not enough to add any detailwork...

Has the time felt sufficiently long in your games?

Hehe.. you can expect whatever you'd like. The reality during my busy times will be more like once a month.

Scott

Not usually. Rarely was there any spare time.


Scott

I nearly skipped this episode for the expected reasons (party + drawing) and the uninspired box cover, but I'm glad I didn't. I'm not sure I'd enjoy this game, but I'm intrigued enough to try it. I love it when I get to play along with the webcast. Thank-you, Scott.

Is that the BGWS casting couch?

How picky are these criteria? My ballerina wasn't right on top of the meat, but she was just above it (my understanding of spit technology is lacking. The most I've experienced with regard to spits has been watching Return of the Jedi over and over).

I realize it's a party game and there'll be some gray areas, but could the game bog down in situations such as if I drew a circle around my ballerina's head, which was the hair in a bun as you described, but then others just interpreted the circle as a random scribble? I imagine it'd get pretty messy with so little time to draw.

Or, if I'm asking this question at all, maybe the group I'm thinking of isn't right for this type of game? :)

Great review! Thanks!

Here is my almost abstract drawing I did not cheat!

Agreed! The interactive part was great. 3 points baby! (You must have explained it better in Mosse's video)

    No longer available through your feed in iTunes?

             Sag.

Oh, now that's weird. It's showing a handful of episodes from the past. Looking into it.

OK, looks OK now. I had changed the feed over to a headings only, and iTunes didn't like that.

    Available now, but coming down obscenely slowly. 8kbps. Likely beyond your control. I can look forward to watching it on Sunday.

             Sag.

My criteria results:

(1) No
(2) Yes
(3) Yes
(4) No
(5) Yes
(6) No
(7) Yes
(8) Yes
(9) Yes
(10) No

Total of 8 point. No bad.

Nice review!

Well, since we're counting:

NO
YES
YES
NO
YES
NO
NO
NO
YES
YES

DISCLAIMER: Answer from the game designer and I'm not biased at all!

90 seconds tends to be enough time (enough time so that one can think of nothing more new to say) IF the Portrayer speaks quickly and isn't redundant. We wanted to err on the side of having the time limit short for the following reasons:

1) Keep the game moving along.
2) Since a portrayer gets a point as long as at least one of the artist meets a criteria, the incentive is for the portrayer to speak quickly (concisely) and cover as much as possible and hope that at least one artist captures each detail.
3) Since people draw more slowly than people talk (typically), and the short time forces the portrayer to speak quickly, the artists tend to "jump around" as they draw in order to keep up with the description. This adds diversity among drawings and promotes "happy accidents" where artists hear/remember something different from what was said. The drawings reflect this and can be quite funny. This also helps prevent all artists from getting the same score.

DISCLAIMER: Answer from the game designer and I'm not biased at all!

My wife and I are both engineers (and I'm a computer programmer too), so we think in pretty logical "legalese" and tried to write the criteria to be as unambiguous as possible. There's lots of "X is to the left of Y" and "X is bigger than Y" and "There are at least six Xs" and "There are no Ys visible", etc.

That said, there is a specific section in the rules dedicated to folks like us who like to argue and nitpick. :-) As an artist, you are encouraged to watch as your drawing is being judged and speak up when you don't get a point you think you should. You are free to argue your case to the person scoring your picture and if they still don't agree, the matter is opened to all the artists (but NOT the Portrayer) to view the drawing (but NOT the actual image on the card), debate the logical meaning of the criteria, and then vote whether the criteria has been met or not.

This isn't something that happens more than once or twice per round in games I have watched people play. But when it does occur the social interaction that occurs is generally a positive aspect of the game.

This episode seems to be unavailable on iTunes again - along with all but two of the other fifteen episodes it lists.

I have played many a game of Pictonary in my day and I will say that this game beats it hand down. It is more interactive then just one person shouting at another person who is drawing. This game feels like Balderdash in feel and I like that game as well.

Yes, for some reason, the Internet Archive server where the files are kept are down.

I hope this is fixed soon, but if not, then I'll have to figure out something else.

Scott

Looks like a really cool game. Too bad I can't draw anything beyond stick figures, other people would have a damn hard time understanding what I drew when the grading part arrives.

See, I'd forgotten that haunting song until you brought it up again...

Great review Scott! I am a teacher and got a copy of this game based on your review. I played it in my class (5th graders) on Friday, and it went really well. Of course, anything "different" goes over well, but this was one of the best in-class activities we have done all year. The kids were all sharing strategies for how to give good instructions and afterward we talked about how people in different jobs have to be able to give good instructions and also follow them (like engineers and chefs). We even started talking about logic operations like "and" and "or" and the subtle differences between things like "at least", "exactly", "no more than", etc. Just wanted to share my experience for other teachers or parents. This is a great game for getting kids to practice critical speaking and listening skills. And the funny illustrations keep them engaged. You can even easily split up the cards and score sheets and use one game for multiple groups, so well worth it.

Wow, great use of games in education. Very cool.