The game that I’m comparing our game against is drawing without dignity. It was incredibly fun when I played it last time with my team and another team, and I liked it because it builds a sort of camaraderie and breaks down the interpersonal wall of unfamiliarity because .
Drawing without dignity uses the drawing + guessing mechanic for its core. The artist in each team draws something very undignified, and the others need to guess what the prompt word is. (I got a red-haired stepchild….) It also uses the countdown mechanic. The fun of this game comes from the challenge and a sense of competition between the two teams. The reason that this is very powerful is because the reason that people find it difficult to socialise is that people are on guard, trying too hard not to embarrass themselves in front of other people that they do not know.
Drawing without dignity breaks this down, because you cannot think of having that same sense of dignified self-protection after shouting something like ‘GANGBANG!’ (literally one of the prompts that we got) really loud in front of strangers.
The fun is reinforced through the simple 5 selection theme that makes it so easy for the players to understand what they are supposed to do. I think the manual hourglass (although not necessarily a ‘graphic’ design choice) also adds to the sense of urgency and the sense of competition.
In order to make it more engaging for the other team so that they are not going to sit around doing nothing when the other team is drawing, the game includes two other mechanisms. First, when the dice rolls six, both team draws (it’s called ‘orgy…’). Second, it has the ‘cockblock’ mechanism where the other team players can shout cockblock and guess the prompt word first. This is limited to three uses to prevent spam-use.
Overall, it was a fantastic game, well distinguihed from its biggest competitor/alternative ‘Card Against Humanity!
