You Said You Could Draw

Drawing games have a storied history, probably going back all the way to early humans drawing on cave walls, but at least as far back as the early 1980s when Robert Angel, a humble waiter, sought to liven up his parties by choosing a random word from the dictionary and drawing a picture trying to get his guests to guess it. The result was Pictionary and it ultimately kickstarted the modern drawing game. 

Fast forward to 2021 and there's a new drawing game in town - You Said You Could Draw by James Nigbur.

A wealth of goodies come in the box.

The biggest hurdle to getting a drawing game going is reluctant players who don't like such games because they claim "they can't draw". What if there were some way to equalize everyone's ability to draw and make shy artists less reticent? Now there is! You Said You Could Draw comes with a blindfold so that all players draw without looking at their drawing - this adds a layer of interesting challenge as well as humor, as the drawings inevitably come out sort of awkward and puzzling. Because of the blind aspect and the sudden simultaneous reveal of the drawing to all players at once, the game has a very different feeling than Pictionary did. In Pictionary and similar games, players watched as the drawing happened. In YSYCD, doing an abrupt reveal results in a shared moment - a riddle that everyone starts solving at the same time.

Here is an example - what would you guess this drawing represents? (The answer will be provided at the bottom of this article).


In order to decipher this, one must first figure out what all the things in the drawing are, then figure out which one is the answer at hand. This is actually an excellent blind drawing from the perspective of making the lines meet up, the artist was able to draw an almost perfect circle and get the idea across beautifully. Take a moment to appreciate this artistry and make your guess - then scroll to the bottom of this page to find the answer. 

So how does YSYCD stack up in the crowded universe of party drawing games? My players enjoyed it quite a bit, the shared experience of guessing and the good-natured laughter at some of the drawings and interpretations of the drawings. It's an evolution of drawing games and worth a look if you enjoy this sort of game. A few notes:
  • There's a scoring mechanism in the game to reward players for skillfully drawing, or correctly guessing, the most difficult words (marked with a star). I have not played enough yet to see if these are consistently and correctly classified on the cards, one player said he was not sure they are. But in any case, I like this as a potential way to catch up if you're behind but then get some extra points - it adds drama and rewards good play.
  • There's also a scoring mechanism that punishes the only player to guess incorrectly - that player must lose two points. I was wary of this at first, it seemed a bit punitive towards someone who may already feel dumb, but my players took it in stride. It definitely encourages one to try harder!
  • There's a quality blindfold included in the box - of course, in pandemic time, people may not want to put something on their face that was on other players' faces. It's easy to use the honor system and just trust everyone to close their eyes, if this is the case.
  • If you and your players have limited time, or just a lot of other games you want to get to, you may wish to agree to set a different scoring goal than 20 points, which could potentially cause the game to overstay its welcome. We played to 10 points and had a great time. Your mileage may vary.
  • I was glad to see the cards are double-sided and color-coded, so all of the red sides can be used, then the black. This increases replayability, especially since the cards are likely to get mixed up.
Overall, my players and I recommend You Said You Could Draw. Sign up here to be notified when the Kickstarter goes live May 18th.


ANSWER TO THE DRAWING:
The object on the right is a thermometer, but that's not the answer, though that is what I guessed. FEVER is the correct answer!



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