Game: Scribble.io
Creator: Tacticsoft
Platform: Web (can also be played on mobile-web)
Target audience: Anyone who enjoys casual and social online games, with a focus on imagination. Teens and young adults, but anyone can play it really.
Number of players: Up to 12
Actions players can take: Draw pictures of randomly assigned word then guess what other players are drawing. Communicate with chat or voice chat.
Rounds: Players take turns drawing while others guess. Players get points when they guess correctly and if their drawing gets lots of guesses.
Unique features: The online format allows for a simple and easy way for friends to get together and play a game that encourages creativity and imagination. Because drawing online is very hard (mostly like because people use a mouse), the drawings are often very bad and funny.
Scribble.io is a fun, but some of the mecahnics limit how vulnerable/personal the game can be. Scribblio is an engaging online drawing/guessing game that combines creativity and social interaction with a very simple online UI. Playing the game with friends is a great way to unwind, let loose, and enjoy some lighthearted fun. The game’s formal elements, such as the ability to choose from a variety of colors and brush sizes, as well as the inclusion of a timer to add a sense of urgency, contribute to thrill of drawing/guessing in time.
One of the highs my friends and I had while playing the game was when a drawing was insanely inappropiate or referanced an inside joke about someone in our group. This created lots of laughter and made my stomach hurt at times. Another high point was when everyone had guessed a drawing correctly, but one person just can’t figure it out, so they desperately guess. We could see the crazy non-sensical guesses they wrote and it was fun to watch them panic haha.The chat function allowed for this to happen and allowed players to communicate with each other in real-time, which adds a sense of immersion to the game.
To be honest, there weren’t many lows to the game. There were some fraustrations we had as a group while playing though, mainly with the fact that some of our players (including myself) are just very bad spellers. The only way to get the correct answer is to type out exact word, no typos, plurals, or anything. This mechanics of “exact answers only” punished bad spellers who actually guessed correctly, but didn’t realize it, so they would keep guessing and guessing only to finally realize they already got it. This only happened once, but does goes to show that although the online format is much simipler than the IRL of Pictionary, typing is a limiting mechanic. The typing mechanic also make the game non-accessible to those that can’t type (for example, players with only one hand or don’t have access to a keyboard).
As for how vulnerable each player had to get, Players didn’t really have to reveal much. The pictures/prompts were often very bizzare and impersonal. I see this as a downside of the game, but there is a solution. You may choose to make a “custom word list” with your own word bank. You could add in words like a players name, but the pit fall of having to type in the exact word could make this feature not as effective.
Overall, Scribble.io is an excellent online game that is easy to learn and accessible to players of all skill levels. Its focus on social interaction and creativity make it an engaging and entertaining way to spend time with friends or meet new people online. The game requires a low level of vulnerability, which could be both a positive and negative, and suffers from the limitation of typing answers. However, the game was undeniably fun to play with friends.
