Skribbl.io is a free online multiplayer web browser drawing/judging game developed by ticedev. The goal of the game is to guess the word of a drawing someone is making as they make it. You are given the number of letters in the word and a few letters are revealed as the time limit is reached. Its target audience is teens through young adults in their 20s (also older tho!) who are more into online games already but looking for a relaxing party game to play with their friends or strangers.
Prompt: “How is judging used in the game, and how does that affect group dynamics and relationships?”
Judging is used in Skribbl.io in a few key modalities:
- Like/dislike an artists image as a way to say “you did or did not represent this well” with strangers, or “i think this button is funny to spam as a meme” with close friends.
- Using the text chat to talk about someones drawing before or after you’ve guessed the word correctly.
- (If playing with close friends in a voice chat or in person) speaking about someone’s drawing and either expressing happiness that you got the answer quickly or anger if you can’t quite figure it out.
From these three judging modes, we notice that the game is played with close friends or strangers, leading to two different types of social dynamics.
When playing with strangers, the game is very tame (for the most part). Since you are solely communicating through the same text chat you’re meant to guess in, there is a limit to how much you can communicate while still remaining competitive against the strangers. As well, once you guess the word correctly, you are only able to chat with the artist and others who have guessed correctly. The only feedback you get on your drawing, is through the likes/dislikes (mode 1) and the occasional “Wtf” message in the chat (mode 2) if someone didn’t guess your image correctly. Beyond that, the only dynamic that arises outside of the game rules is the occasional writing of slurs or drawing of genitalia.
When playing with close friends however, Skribbl.io can turn into a whole different game altogether. This is because of the added mode of communication: talking (mode 3). By being able to talk while you write answers, you’re able to remain competitive by furiously typing in answers while judging (trash talking) your friends’ drawings. In addition to and because of this multimodal communication, you sometimes develop inside jokes where sometimes you aren’t even really drawing the word until the last 10 seconds of the timer, just to mess with your friends. Instead of a word guessing game, it can turn into an art showcase, a comedy sketch, or whatever your mind can imagine with a digital paint brush.
One thing I wish could be fixed is when the artist in a random lobby of strangers decides to write the word, it just ruins the game. I think this could possible be fixed by adding an letter classifier that recognizes the letters artists draw and kicks or warns you if you start drawing letters from the word. This game is actually quite similar to charades except for the team aspect: there is one person who is the “artist” who must act out and describe a word without the use of language. I think Skribbl.io is different because it allows strangers to connect because of its web presence. Unless someone created a version of charades in the form of Omegle, this would not be possible. Skribbl.io also has a very specific artistic/sketchy aesthetic vibe as soon as you load up the page. This encourages the players to only focus on the essentials of the drawings–the parts that really matter for guessers–instead of random details or colors that may throw people off. It also makes the game feel less competitive and more fun because of how colorful it is and the font dancing around. The creators did a good job creating a game that is fun with strangers and with your friends, which means that you can play it whenever you want with whoever you want, as long as you have an internet connection. This game is also different from other games in the Judging genre because of its artistic aspect. Lots of games like Cards Against Humanity and Apples to Apples use premade cards that you can choose between, whereas Skribbl.io allows you to be very creative in what you draw instead of giving you predefined choices. It would be like if in Cards Against Humanity, you could write your own answers in instead of picking from the cards in your hand.
Skribbl.io excels in creating dynamic social interactions through its gameplay mechanics. The mechanics of drawing and guessing lead to dynamic player interactions, while the voting system adds an element of evaluation. These dynamics contribute to the overall aesthetic experience of the game, which is characterized by creativity, humor, and social engagement. Right now the game’s aesthetic makes it feel light and fun, which is fine. However, I think an alternate mode of the game could be developed that would be more competitive or more artistic. You could try to implement classic competitive mechanics like ELO for ranking systems to see how players progress or game dynamics change. I also think the game could benefit from having word categories that you can pick from like: geography, animals, food, 18+, etc. so that you don’t keep getting simple words that you’ve seen over and over before. It would also be fun to, instead of drawing words, drawing a whole scene. This could be done by getting “close enough” as a guesser where theres an NLP AI behinds the scenes that recognizes guesses and what the original scene was to analyze correctness. You could also have multiple words per drawing where the artist has to incorporate all the words into the scene.
- Evidence (15 pts): Include visual evidence (screenshots, pictures, visuals, videos) and/or written evidence (pull quotes, moments of success or failure) that are used to support the central argument.
This was a drawing that was really hard for everyone, even with the hints.
Here I draw a simple water pitcher which most people end up guessing, even though it’s not a great drawing! This is a great example of low barrier to entry to this game.
Here we see multiple users disliking a drawing that did not correspond to the prompt at all.
This is the drawing that two people disliked.
In conclusion, Skribbl.io is a great way to have a fun time with random strangers and enhance your art skills or goof around with your friends and laugh about inside jokes.
