Random long-held passionate game desire:

Man, I want a decent game that revolves around drawing things. I think it was looking at the latest posts on Mary's blog earlier today that reminded me of how strongly that is the case, and how it has haunted me for years. There are certain ways that playing games and drawing are at odds with eachother, but I feel like there's overlap that lingers just outside my grasp.

I don't want something quite like pictionary, where someone draws and everyone else watches. I think I want something where everybody draws something and then presents them towards some end. I want more drawing time than 1 / (numPlayers) of the time.

And not something where your drawing abitility necessarily gets you the win, as should go without saying. I want to reward creativity, though that's no small challenge, no?

- - Motivation - -

To backtrack my motivations, as they become clear even to myself, what I really want is a game that encourages people to be creative, and to revel in eachothers creativity. To let people share their ideas with one another, to enjoy having their ideas appreciated, and to enjoy appreciating others' ideas.

This already exists, its called conversation. But I think there's the potential for a game to spur people on, to encourage interaction and participation, and even creativity (von Oech reminds us that restrictions spur creativity). I don't want a situation where the game is "The rules say you have to invent something right now!" - it needs to seduce. So I think of those vocal-style parlor games (or my growing repatior of no-materials car games), but that's not quite it - though somewhat in the spirit, perhaps.

Drawings appeal to me much more. There is that explicit phase of thought, creation, elaboration and adjustment, where an idea can be developed in private, before being revealed onto the others at hand. And besides, we talk plenty, and draw far too little. Finally, I like the idea of a record of the game, the fact that the drawings can persist.

- - Competitive? - -

But I don't know of any game that gets it quite right yet. I think the hardest decision is how formal to make this. I feel like some sort of reward system is in order - some concept of success to be achieved. But I don't want something overly competitive either; I expect the game is going to be pretty subjective, and I don't want to necesarily reward the besty artist unduly, and hurt feelings need to be avoided at all costs - a recipe for minimal winner-declaration.

I think that Apples to Apples is a good analog here, where points are gained, but nobody really tracks them or feels a strong sense of victory upon acquiring the most.

- - Success Measures - -

Ah, but the hard part. What do you draw? What makes one drawing better than another? So right now I'm working under the high-level model of "everybody draws, then presents their drawings, some notion of success is assigned". I don't think that having a set judge of the drawings (theApples to Apples model) is quite right, its too flippant for the amount of work a drawing is (vs. throwing out a red card). I also don't quite like the idea of everybody just voting, it seems too subjective still somehow. And yet, I don't quite like the just "Yay! We're all winners! Lookit our radsome drawings!" model either. I think a little bit of structure is needed to inject some drama into the situation.

A nice semi-subjective approach is still the "can I successfully convey something with this picture" measure, as employed in pictionary. You need to motivate the guesser and the drawer, and I vastly prefer the informal pictionary model of "correct guesser gets to draw next" / "a point to the guesser, a point to the drawer, upon success" - as opposed to just putting the drawer and guesser on a team as with pictionary proper.

- - The Taboo Effect - -

I think of the most satisfying pictionary moments I've had, and many of them revolved around a certain amount of outside the boxism, where people go "I see what you did there! Delightful!" The latter part not so much said, as implied by the curious, outright glee that squeaks out in these moments. The party game Taboo is a word-based game that accomplishes this nicely. Sometimes people tiptoe around the forbidden words with various synonyms and do ok. But the game was much more fun when people would just come at the problem from outlandish, personal angles. "We had a great one of these at June lake... - Cobbler! Hey man, nice... - Shot! Being one of these totally sucks ass! - Pilgrim!".

I don't necessarily want to find the direct drawing analog, but I like the way this encouraged creativity and quick thinking by knocking people out of their comfort zone. They couldn't take the road, so they had to improvise. I think a similar factor might be at play in trying to encourage creativity and avoid over-rewarding the best artist.

- - Some game sketches - -

Multiple word, round-robin guessing
(somehow) each player gets 3-5 words from a very large pool of possible words. A timer is set, and everyone draws. Time runs out, everyone reveals, looks at eachothers pictures for a bit, ideally laughs. Time to analyze player A's picture. The player on their left says one word, and if it's one of the drawer's designated words, the guesser and drawer get points. Then, continuing clockwise, each player says a word, trying to guess the drawer's words.

Why do I like this better than a single word? First of all, it means that multiple people can guess and participate in the judging. Even if one person guesses a word, others remain to be guessed. Also, I like the idea that the drawer has to create a drawing that sums up more than one word, that has to incorporate more than one concept.

The main pitfall here is, of course, that people will just draw 3 different sub-scenes, one for each word. Ideally it would be something cohesive. Several possible solutions. There could be an initial vote for which scene is most cohesive, the winner getting a bonus, anyone failing to get at least one vote being ineligible for the (big) got-all-your-words bonus. Not great though. The answer might also be in word selection - that is to say that you get some mix of nouns, actions, settings, moods, styles, background events, whatever, lending the proceedings towards a single scene trying to evoke many angles. Or there might just be an honor system of trying to make a cohesive scene of some kind.

I feel like its not quite right, that its still going to lead to score-mongering and precision rather than innovative approaches. This might work as a seed of an idea though, or when combined with some of the other ideas below.

Also, its probably too hard, perhaps people get multiple guesses, or the words are kept simple, or its multiple choice, or you're allowed a caption, or - not sure, would have to playtest probably.

(Splashier scoring)
The first time one of the designated words is said, both players get 1 point. The second success awards 2 points to the guesser and drawer, the 3rd 3, and so on, with a possible non-linear big bonus for guessing the last word / getting all your words guessed. So guessers are rewarded more strongly for getting the less obvious words, and the rewards to the drawer ramp up for great success.

(Cooperative Gameplay)
Man, I love cooperative gameplay. In this case, it might be a nice way to bring drama and inspire performance, but without the negative effect of competitiveness and bitterness. What theme could a super-round of guessing-each-player's-pictures-rounds be couched in?

I love the idea of a simple board where the players (individually, or a single group token) are represented in a dreamlike world, where only their ability to create otherworlds that evoke the correct notions can allow them to escape eldritch horrors that pursue them. The handicaps I discuss below could play into this too. I see a scene where the players have moved across the dreamworld board, are near the end, with darkling creatures in pursuit, and know that they need to have X much success in communicating their drawings to one another if they are, as a team, to escape and win. Maybe that's just Mary's blog talking, though. I can't quite articulate it, but I have an image in mind that is extremely compelling to me right now.

My initial thought of drawing rounds as holes of golf (surprisingly frequent as my initial thought in games), seems downright stupid by comparison.

Handicaps
Some editions of Pictionary have a dice that incurs handicaps, like drawing with your off hand, drawing with your eyes closed or not lifting your pencil. I've always liked this idea, and have flirted with incorporating it as "injuries" in my cooperative swashbuckling pictionary/charades game.

In this case, I like the idea of a deck of cards, each with a penalty on them. I might add to the above list such things as: no curved lines, no stick figures, reduced time, smaller piece of paper, big fat crayon as tool, random portion will be obscured upon completion (I have a couple mechanisms in mind), viewers can only see it for a moment before guessing, guessers can't hear eachothers' guesses. You get the idea.

As cards, they have a lot of power; they could be used in a number of ways: Maybe you draw one at some point as a penalty for everybody on a given round. In the competitive game players might get them and be allowed to keep them face down, to be incurred on another player, handicapping the target for a single round. They might be automatically evoked on a runaway leader, distributed as special rewards, or given to a losing player as a consolation. In the cooperative game, monsters might attack the players, causing a given handicap to be incurred on one or more of the players, rachetting up the tension and forcing people to improvise.

But broadly, why do I like these? I like that they put people outside their comfort zone. They will sometimes (hopefully) result in drawings that are delightful in their clumsy, clever attempt to work around the restriction. They help to keep the game from getting predictable.

I especially like them in the cooperative version, where trying to overcome adversity and still have a productive round of drawing and guessing could be quite dramatic, I think. At its most ridculous I see it like "Oh no! The spitting lizard of self-doubt caught up to you, and has sprayed you in the eyes! Can you still convey your thoughts without your ability to reflect on them? Draw with your eyes closed this round."

They might be really obnoxious, and be more frustrating than they are fun to work with, but its an idea with promise, I think.

- - - -

Most of this came to me just as I was writing what was meant to be a single paragraph. Not sure if any of this is quite what I'm looking for. But I think the power of games to nudge and inspire, and the power of drawings to express and delight, have not yet been symbiotically harnessed to the fullest of their potential. I sense there's a really original, interesting game out there somewhere.