Skribbl.io is an online game, website based, that is free to use. It was created by ticedev. In Skribbl.io, you have the option to create a private playing group for your known friends, or opt into a public game with online players from who-knows-where. For this critical play, I chose to play with online strangers.
Judging is the main mechanic of Skribbl.io. Players judge the drawing of the current artist to determine their assigned word. Players must interpret the drawing without the artist using words. This is also on a timer, so the artist must act fast. The other players are also competing against each other to guess the word first. Group dynamic could be considered competitive, judgemental, and cutthroat, as every individual wants to be the best artist and the best guesser, best being defined as both accurate and speedy. Overall, the judging mechanic in Skribbl.io creates an every-man-for-himself dynamic where players are all competing against each other to be the ‘best,’ which in turn creates a sort of anti-fellowship combination with challenge resulting in artists trying their best to complete the prompt and guess the lines of thought of the guessers in the midst of harsh commentary by the guessers themselves.
While playing, I had a very interesting and somewhat off-putting experience of stress and ridicule. I believe that the judging mechanic and the very limited drawing time made for poor relationships between myself and other online players. I think that this is a flaw of the game, and might make younger or more inexperienced players less inclined to continue playing.
Specifically, in the following comment screenshot, there are a number of rude comments calling my drawing ‘shitty.’ There are a number of factors that go into the emotional experience of wanting to hate on another’s drawing and/or feeling hurt by others’ comments.
Firstly, the timer. The timer of 60 seconds made me feel particularly rushed in drawing. I think having a timer is essential in gameplay for having rounds not continue on for eternity, as well as provide challenge, but I also believe that 60 is only enough time to draw one picture/concept and not enough time to pander to the audience if they did not understand your first drawing.
With the live drawing, I felt pressured to complete my first idea, taking up most of the time, and then looking at the comments to see what people were guessing. If I had time after completing my drawing, I tried to draw another picture/concept that might be more understandable. However, the 60 seconds did not allow time for a second drawing most of the time, and left me panicking to satisfy the unhappy guessers. This last-second panic often urged me to write out the word in letters, something that players are not supposed to do.
Although I believe the intention of the game was to create fellowship between artists and guessers as they must work together to understand one another, I think that the timer is too short to incorporate the contributions of the guesser into the drawing and only leads to frustration and anti-fellowship. Secondly, I think the mechanic of being added to random games, often in the middle of playing, ruins the connection between players because there is always a shifting group of players without any repetition or serendipity. Without these key aspects of founding social relations, I think that there is very little, if any, opportunity to foster connection between online players that are strangers. Furthermore, I believe the pre-existing relationship between players greatly affects the dynamics of the game, particularly in the realm of fellowship. I remember from previous plays with close friends over the pandemic that our games were very enjoyable and far less frustrating or cruel. I suspect that private plays are more successful at generating fellowship because there is less stress in trying to appease people you already know. I also wonder if players chose to be kinder at the beginning, and/or if they were always added to the very beginning of a game, if there would be stronger connections forged between players. Another point to this is that in my experience, none of the players played the game until it naturally ended. I would constantly see an incoming and outgoing flow of players from every game I played, and I myself did not stay in a game until the end, usually due to unfavorable players. Unless there is a change in the game, such as only being added to new/beginning games, there will be no fellowship without social consistency and repetition.
A last point is one about the level of challenge in the game. When playing, a factor in my stress and frustration was at the very variable level of complexity in prompts. Some players would get very easy and iconic words such as ‘snowman’, while others had the challenge of drawing ‘footrest.’ An increasing challenge mechanic would be very effective here in both increasing the fun of mastery, by allowing the player to become more accustomed to the rules and processes slowly, and in increasing fellowship as guessers would feel positively towards an artist that effectively communicated their word through a drawing.
I imagine an increasing challenge mechanic (1st round being simple objects, 2nd being more complex, etc) plus consistency in players throughout a game, would improve the fellowship of online players that are strangers.
