Draw Something is the latest app to hit the games app market. Everyone seems to be talking about it.
I blame my sister. She told me to download it a week or so ago. We always enjoyed Pictionary when we were kids (and still do) and this is just perfect.
The premise of the game is very simple. You get a choice of three words, worth 1, 2 or 3 coins. You choose one and then draw it on your iOS device, and send it to your opponent. Your opponent then sees your drawing (they see you draw it, or rather a recording of you drawing it), and has to guess the word. It’s made more simple because the opponent gets a selection of letters to choose from – so it’s a drawing and anagram game in one – although it’s worth bearing in mind there are some red herring letters added too.
When the turn comes back to you, you have the opportunity to watch your opponent guess your word (so you can see at what point in your drawing they got it), before it’s time to guess their word.
The game counts the number of “turns” you’ve had in each game, the idea being to guess as many drawings correctly as you can in one go – a rally. If you can’t guess the word, you have to pass your turn and your game with that player ends and starts from 1 again. So far this hasn’t happened to me… yet. The coins you gain allow you to “buy” extra colours for your palette and also bombs (which take away the red herring letters to make the word easier to guess).
You can find opponents using facebook, username or email address. It’s loads of fun playing people you know – I will draw the same thing differently depending on my opponent – my sister will guess something with one clue, but my friend wouldn’t understand that at all.
I downloaded the free version onto my iPad and iPhone and have to say after trying it on my iPad I’ve deleted it off my phone – why would I want to do my doodles so small and fiddly when I can use my lovely big iPad screen?! The thing I really like about this is the simplicity. I mean, the game itself is simple to pick up (and you can be as artistic or as basic as you like in your drawings) and the app is simple in design. The whole thing is cartoony – fisher price – in appearance. Everything is bright and colourful and very easy to use.
The annoying aspects of this game include the very American dictionary… well I assume it’s America, I have to say some of the words I don’t know. But I’ve always been about to pick one from the three choices ok. Another annoyance is the games seeming delay in updating. So even when you know your opponent has taken their turn (because they tweeted you apologising for the bad likeness, for example!), it is sometimes necessary to force the app to close completely using the double click of the home button and close method, and restarting it before it refreshes the feed. A refresh button would be a welcome addition to make game play quicker. Oh and there is no rotation so you can only play in landscape mode. Shame.
Apart from a couple of niggles this is a great game. If you haven’t got onto the Draw Something wagon yet then give this simple game a try.