Intro
The game skribbl.io, developed by ticedev, is a online multiplayer drawing game where players take turns drawing a word while the other players race against each other to guess the word. The game can either be played in private rooms with custom rules and friends or in public rooms with set rules and random people.
Rounds
In each round of skribbl.io, one player is chosen to be the drawer and the other players are guessers. The drawer is able to choose 1 out of 3 given words to draw, and their task is to draw the word for the other players to guess within the time limit. The drawer earns points based on the number of people who guess their word correctly, so their goal is to convey the word as clearly as possible.
The other players’ goal is to guess the word that the drawer is drawing as quickly as possible, as the number of points you earn from correctly guessing the word decreases with each player’s successful guess. As the round goes on, hints are also given to the guessers by revealing letters in the word at the top of the screen.
After time runs out or all the players successfully guess the word, the drawer rotates and a new round starts. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins!
Target Audience
The visual design of skribbl.io is very simple and it is designed in a way that reminds me of a kid’s sketchbook, which makes the game feel welcoming to all ages so long as the player has an understanding of the words used in the game. I have seen some hard words come up in the game though (e.g. Eminem, Leonardo da Vinci), so a concrete estimate of the target audience might be ages 12 and up.
Unique Mechanics
As mentioned before, in private rooms, the host is able to set custom rules to be used in the game. Some of the interesting changes that can be made to the default settings are the max number of players in the lobby (2-20), drawtime, number of rounds, number of hints given to guessers, and the ability to play with custom words. These modifications create a challenge kind of fun as it allows players to make the game more challenging, such as through setting the drawtime to a mere 15 seconds. Being able to add custom words also creates a fellowship type of fun, especially when playing the game with friends as you can add inside jokes to the game and bond over drawings of them.
Another mechanic that makes the game fun is the limited drawing options. The game only gives you a pencil and a paint bucket tool, a fixed set of colors, and 5 pencil thicknesses to draw with. Combined with the time limit, this makes it incredibly hard to make accurate drawings of the words if you take them too literally, which is how a dynamic of being creative and abstract with your drawings is created. For example, in one round that we played, my friend chose to draw the word Leonardo da Vinci, which would have been undoubtedly hard to draw if he decided to literally draw Leonardo da Vinci. Instead, he decided to draw one of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawings, the Vitruvian man, which was much easier to draw and he was still able to effectively convey the word to us guessers. This dynamic of creativity and the limited drawing mechanics create an expression type of fun, as players are able to freely express themselves without really worrying about being judged for their drawing skills.
Comparison to Other Games
The main difference between skribbl.io and other games in its genre, like charades and pictionary, is that rounds don’t end after one person correctly guesses the word. The rounds instead continue until all players correctly guess the word or time runs out, which gives all players a chance to guess the word correctly and earn points. I think this is a much better system than the other games since it isn’t as discouraging and helps players keep up even if they’re not the fastest at guessing, though I recognize this system would be tough to implement for games that are not played online as it would be hard to keep the word hidden after one person guesses it right.
