I will be the first one to tell you that I am not good at Charades. My hypothesis on how one person could stink so badly at nonverbal communication is simple: I love words (or the sound of my own voice, if my mother is to be believed) too much to willingly give up the gift of words. Now, I should be offended by this realization but it’s more than likely true. Words are fun and I like them. The only thing I do worse than not talking is drawing, and so when I decided to play Sketchorama I was pretty sure from the get go that it wouldn’t be my new game. Still, I have this shiny little pen tablet as opposed to a mouse and thought “Why not, let’s give it a try.”
Now, if you’ve never played Sketchorama (or Pictionary) before it’s fairly simple. It’s basically Charades on paper. Instead of acting out and using hand motions and gestures to get your party goers to guess your secret word you “simply” draw pictures that would lead to the proper answer. For example, if your secret word is “screwball” you may be inclined to doodle a screw followed quickly by a ball. Easy peasy, right? Wrong! In Sketchorama you get the chance to decide what level of difficulty as well as some basic categories you want to play with. So, you can play “Easy” and “Foods” and get things like pizza, ice cream, and corn on the cob or you can play “Hard” and “Foods” and get things like tiramisu and Danish filled crepes. Which sounds interesting but drawing people in clogs and then trying to draw tiny pancakes doesn’t always get the appropriate response.
Still, if you’re creative and good with a mouse (or pen) the drawing isn’t impossible. The guessing is all about your ability to put two and two together, so you’re on your own with that. The best part about playing Sketchorama on Spogg, though, is that eventually you develop friendships and an understanding of your fellow players. You may not play the same people in every game but the community is tightly knit and after a while you start to understand the styles and wavelengths of the people you interact with, making the games easier and a lot more fun. I spent just as much time laughing about poor drawing while hanging out on the site as I did celebrating good ones. There’s an even, gradual learning curve that is offset by exciting, understanding players.
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Communication at it’s most hilarious! | ||||||
Game: http://www.spogg.com/| Developer: Spogg — http://www.spogg.com/pages/about.php