The Drawing Game is a new, fast-paced group boardgame. Your goal is to frantically draw your way to the bottom the Wordsmith’s wordlist faster than the other team to win each round, best of multiple rounds wins the game.
Split into two teams (more possible, but two is best) and one ‘Wordsmith’ and position each team in a different room in the house (living room and kitchen, say). The teams can be almost any size, so long as you can see the piece of paper being drawn on. The Wordsmith sits at an equal distance to the two teams (on the stairs, for example) with the Wordlist. At the beginning of the game, one member of each team comes to the Wordsmith, and 3, 2, 1... the Wordsmith whispers the first word on the list to the two team members.
The two team members sprint back to their teams’ as fast as they can, word in mind, pencil in hand, they start manically drawing the word on a piece of paper and whoever is first to guess the word correctly then, themselves, sprints to the Wordsmith to whisper the just-guessed word to them, hear the next word on the list, and sprint back themselves.
It is a speed drawing battle, and sprinting battle between the two teams to see which can get through the Wordsmith’s list of 20 words fastest. When one team wins, the Wordsmith shouts the winning team name. The game then continues for as many rounds as you wish to play - warning, it’s highly addictive so be careful.
The Wordsmith’s job is far from mundane and simple word whispering. They are a key element in the overall absurdity of the game. They are the only player that knows (kind of) what’s going on at any one time. The teams will be so engrossed in what they’re drawing and guessing at speed that it is the job of the Wordsmith to keep the teams in the know on who is in the lead, by how many, how many more words there are to the end of the round. They are also the main judge of cheating, they must keep a keen ear on proceedings for any whispering of words to teammates. If two teams come running out of their respective rooms at the same time, it is the Wordsmith who decides who really was in front. Some useful phrases to have in the back of your mind, imagine we have Team Fantastics and Team Golden Oldies:
“Fantastics and the Golden Oldies are neck and neck!”
“Oooh, I’m sorry to say Golden Oldies you’re three behind the Fantastics at this moment.”
“Golden Oldies have made a comeback and have just overtaken Fantastics!”
“Oh dear, what’s going on with Fantastics, you’ve been stuck on this one for a while now.”
“And there’s only three to go to the end of the game, come on Team Fantastic, you can claw this back!”
“Last word now, seconds to go in this round.”
—description from the designer