What the Sketch? Review - Pencils Down Class
Transcript
Hello and welcome back to the Dice Tower. I'm Wendy Yee.
And I'm Chris Yee.
And we're going to play What the Sketch?
What the Sketch? Uh what is the little slogan on here? I love it. Sketch it, spot it, show it. Twist it, twist it, buy it, break it, Technologic. I like Daft Punk. Anyway.
Oh, I was thinking uh Bop It.
Yes, that too.
Flick it, twist it, bop it.
MHM.
WOW.
MHM. MHM.
SO, THIS IS A DRAWING GAME.
IT'S A DRAWING GAME. SO, YEAH, this is by Alley Dicks and Alley Cat Games. I'm going to show you briefly with my lovely assistant over here how to play and uh then we'll come back and share our thoughts. What the Sketch is a drawing game where there's going to be one player that is a teacher and then all the other players are going to be students. And the teacher's job is to draw a card, pick one of these descriptors on this card, uh one of these words that they're going to try to get everyone to draw. Now, I think I'm pretty awesome, so I'm going to pick this level three over here. So, this is going to be worth three points if I can get everybody else to draw it and guess what it is. Uh then I will set a 60-second timer and everyone else is going to just hear my description of what I'm drawing and so I'm going to draw and describe at the same time. So, I would say go ahead and draw a horizontal uh sorry, a vertically tall rectangle.
And then starting from the top, you're going to draw a squiggle line horizontally uh from the left to the right side of the rectangle. And then right below that, you're going to draw another squiggly line from the left to the right side of the rectangle. And so, as I'm making these descriptions during the 60-second time, then another player or any of the students can just throw out words and guess what they think we are drawing.
Chocolate bar.
Okay, draw another squiggly line underneath that. And then fill the rest of the rectangle up with horizontal squiggly lines from the left to the right side. All the way down.
Soundboard.
Okay, then you're going to go ahead and you're going to draw a tall rectangle to the right of it. A very tall skinny rectangle. And then you're going to put a triangle on top pointing up. All right, and we just guessed that our 60 seconds is done. So, if uh one of the students had guessed correctly, I would have gotten three points and they would have gotten three points. But, it being the end of the round, no one had guessed correctly, so then all the students would compare all of their pictures together and they would see if they could come up with one cooperative guess that they want to make together. And if they can guess correctly with that one guess, then they each get one point and the teacher gets nothing. Then you're going to go ahead and pass whoever's the teacher around and you're going to play uh so everyone has a chance to be the teacher and then you count up points and see who wins.
Pencil?
It was paper.
Oh, crud.
All right, so starting off this is very similar to uh other games we've seen, right?
It's Yeah, so I I think a couple of people when you've shown this to people they say like, "Oh, this is like uh that's not a balloon. That is a balloon. That's a balloon." There's a party game called That's Not a Hat and there's a party game called That's a Balloon and I forget which one is negative and which one's positive.
It's a balloon.
It's a balloon. Um But, this is very similar really to like corporate team-building exercises
Oh, yeah. I remember taking like some leadership class in college and they were like, you know, sit back to back and have someone tell you how to draw something.
Yeah. There's there's lots of variations of this type of thing. Like the instructional gamifying and instructional learning activity.
Learning how to communicate properly, yes.
Mhm.
Yeah, and being precise. Um I definitely think that this gears better for people that have some sort of like doodling ability. Um and so I could see some people just being absolutely lost with this game. If like, I don't know where to start. I Some people just can't draw a pencil, you know? And I I think that that's fair to know. If you are not a drawer, um and you don't know how to describe drawings, this could be a little bit difficult. But also, I think some of the charm of the game is how bad the drawings are.
Yeah, I
I think that that's I think that really is what makes people enjoy it.
I agree, and I think uh there's certain party games where like, yeah, the when you do bad, and then everyone does like, oh, we reveal our drawings. Oh, that's uh-oh. And it's usually funnier for the person who is describing it when they're when they look at the actual drawings that everybody else did. They're like, "Ooh, I didn't explain that very well,
Yeah, I didn't do that well. Yeah.
Yeah. I think um I think though that if you're trying to win it, if you're like trying to actually get points, yeah, it's hard. It's hard in this game.
It's hard. I also feel like the way that they ranked the the words, um some of them I think, well, that's really easy because I can very quickly think of a way to sketch that simply. Whereas there's other words that I'm like, oh, no, that's more complicated, and that's a level one word. Like, I had bubbles as a level three, and I was like, that's so easy. You just do circles, and you put a little like C shape on the side of it.
Mhm.
And it would just felt so easy to do a bubble, right? And I got three points for that. Cool, under 60 seconds. And then other ones are just overly complex. I'm like, I don't know how to draw a key and make you know that it's a key and not anything else that kind of has a toothy shape.
Yeah, I I think part of it too is that um if you are someone You used the word earlier, doodler, cuz I am not good at drawing. I'm not an artist, but I am a I'm a pretty decent doodler. Like I can doodle a thing that looks like a TV, for example, right? So television is one of the words on the on the cards here. Uh and so I can like doodle something kind of quick, and I can like half describe it, but a lot of these words I think are just kind of too difficult. There's a lot of cards in the game. Each one has three different words on it. So in terms of the amount of content, there's a lot. Is it all translatable to like something that people could actually quickly describe in a game like this? I I think that's kind of a a ding against the game, actually.
bit, but I I also think that like you have three choices on a card. So there should be something you can doodle on that.
Yeah.
I just yeah, the ranking is a little bit imprecise.
The ranking's imprecise, and I think just a lot of the words that I I don't even know how you would start describing it, and that to me is is not fun in a game that's like 60 seconds. It's timed and everything like that. It's funny when you're describing stuff and everyone does a bad job. Haha, you can laugh about it. Well, but when someone really just kind of locks up, and they're like, I don't even know where to start with french fries, or start with um
wizard
Yeah, earthquake. It it just
a hat of a wizard?
That's kind of the thing, right? Is that like how do you get wizard? How do you get teacher? Stuff like that. And and don't choose those words, sure, but also it's weird that they're in there if you're trying to chase score. Like, oh, I'm behind. I needed to pick a three-point word, and your word is teacher.
Yeah.
I don't know I wouldn't even know how to start just doodling it if I didn't have a time crunch, nevertheless describing it and getting people to guess it in 60 seconds. I think the word bank is not too strong in this game.
Okay. Um I really enjoyed this, and I think that the the fun of it and the exercise of it, I just enjoy that in general. And so is that something that you have generally enjoyed? I guess it's kind of a question.
I think it's a funny lark, right? And that's the thing is that like I said, as a corporate team building exercise or as like when you're trying to teach a class of students the importance of precision in speaking and description and instructions, it's uh this is a good exercise. I don't necessarily like the way that it's particularly gamified in this box.
Okay. Yeah, cuz I enjoy this and I think that this is a super welcoming party game. It's one of those games that you can sit down with with just pretty much anybody um with the understanding that they know that this is a drawing game. And I think that that is the only entry level requirement. It doesn't require game arenas at all. Um but just yeah, recognize that if you are not good at drawing and you're not good at describing things, then you're not going to get a lot of points, but also I don't think that's the point of the game.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think so like score-wise, good moving to final thoughts.
One One last thing that I do think is important and it is a little bit of a ding to this game is that the dry erase markers that it comes with are too sharp, which I've never said that before. But they scratch up like they indentation on all of the little boards. And so I think that it's it's nice that it's very like portable and all that kind of stuff, but yeah, all of our boards have like significant scratches in them I don't you know, or indentation.
Yeah, and that's from just the few plays that we've done with it. It's not like a game that's been played 20 times, right? So yeah, from from after the first play I was like, "Good night, did a kid like you know, take a take a stick to him?" No. Um yeah, so all in all, like I said, I've laughed at this. I've I've had those funny rounds and everything. And I've had some rounds where like that's a cool guess and it actually works. But I think more rounds than not just kind of fall flat for me. So that's why I'm giving this one a five. I think I I've had fun with it, but not consistently enough. And so I don't And that's not Not say that I don't think other people will enjoy this way more than me, but for me it's a five.
Okay, I'm coming in at a 7.5. I found this to be really enjoyable. Um, our daughter also adored it. She just giggled every single time that, you know, we ended and I think that this is that right level um, of just like anybody. You don't bring this to a fun little birthday party, bring it to something, you know, like a fun little social situation. I think that it's it's good for that. So, 7.5 for me, I had a blast.
All right. Well, there you go. So, 7.5 gives a seal of approval to What the Sketch here. So, if you're in the mood for like a quick little drawing party game and drawing very badly cuz you're going to.
Oh, yeah, you're going to.
Yeah.
All right, thanks for joining us. I'm Wendy Yi.
And I'm Chris Yi.
And what is that sketch?
What the sketch?
Hey everybody, thanks for watching another video from The Dice Tower.
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Did that actually help you? You kind of feel like it loosens up the
It like It's when it sits here, yeah, and it needs to come up. It's like patting a baby, you know, get their get their
That was oddly comforting. I like this a lot. Do the pat again. Very oddly comforting and I learned this on camera.
Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to add this to the meds.