Pictionary is a game which can be played online or as a physical board game. There are two player roles in the game and it is recommended that you play with at least four people to maximise your fun. The first thing to do when you start playing is to split your players into teams of two. This is a really fun game that sure to be a hit. You might know it as Pictionary, or Listen and Draw. It's great for vocabulary review and question and answer practice. A game usually lasts between 15 and 20 minutes. The Details About Pictionary. Pictionary will take you beyond the average drawing experience. Select from various tools, each adding its own special mark. Upgrade those tools and enhance your art. Choose from thousands of fun words to draw. Earn chests filled with prizes. Join our social community and discover your friend’s hidden artistic talents! So what are you waiting.
COVID-19 has led to an explosion of virtual happy hours, coffee bars, and other digital events as organizations look for ways to boost morale and keep spirits high during an uncertain time. At APQC, we are privileged to be able to hear strategies and insights about what our members—some of the most successful and resilient organizations in the world—are doing right now to help their newly-remote workforce take a breather and have some fun.
We were inspired by a recent Human Capital Management webinar we hosted with Lisa Ryan (chief appreciation strategist at Grategy), who discussed remote Pictionary among other ideas as a fun way to keep morale high and engage employees during the COVID-19 crisis. As we began planning this activity, we had a hard time finding instructions or directions for how to get the game set up for remote play. We did the work so you don’t have to—Below are the steps we took to get the game up and running and the basic rules we used.
Steps for Setting Up the Game
1. Find a digital whiteboard.
To play remote Pictionary, you’ll need a digital whiteboard that can be accessed by all participants simultaneously in a virtual meeting. Whether you choose Microsoft’s Whiteboard app (which integrates with Teams), the whiteboard feature on Zoom, or another digital whiteboard, you’ll want to make sure that all of your employees download the app or have access to the relevant link before playing. We prompted employees to install the whiteboard shortly before our virtual happy hour and some of us tested it out beforehand. In our case, it was also a great opportunity to test out the whiteboard as a collaborative tool and become familiar with its main features.
2. Designate a moderator.
The moderator serves as scorekeeper and timekeeper.
3. Divide employees into teams.
We divided ourselves by department, but you can choose any teams that make the most sense for your organization.
4. Teams should designate at least one person to draw.
Basic Rules for Gameplay
1. Have your moderator think of a random number. Each team tries to guess the number, and the team with the closest guess goes first.
2. Taking turns, each team draws a picture of a word chosen from a random word generator. We used one from The Game Gal, which allows you to choose from different games and difficulty levels.
3. The team that correctly guesses the answer first gets a point, and that team goes next.
4. The moderator keeps score and tracks time. Each team has 60 seconds to draw their picture.
5. Play as many rounds as you want—The team with the most points at the end is the winner.
Have Fun!
There was some initial chaos (and a lot of laughter) as we settled into the game, but it ended up being an enjoyable and fun way to spend our virtual happy hour. Games like this invite every employee to participate, which is especially important for engaging employees who are more introverted or wouldn’t talk much otherwise. We all bonded and laughed over our pictures, like the “Sumo wrestler” below.
We hope you’ll give this activity a try, and we welcome you to weigh in about what your organization is doing to engage employees right now. We’d love to hear your stories and strategies!
The quality of our artistic work varied, but the pictures were always fun to look at.
Pictionary is a super simple game that only requires pen, paper and the board game Pictionary which provides you with the game board, a timer, two dice and cards with words on them.
The aim of Pictionary is to guess what the drawer, who is drawing words from a list of cards. Once you guess correctly, you can advance across the game board and the first to reach the end wins!
How to Play Pictionary Online
The Pictionary board game is a great way to play in person, but what if you want to play a drawing game online with your friends, family or coworkers? Luckily there’s a way to play a similar drawing game online that’s completely free!
Draw It is a game designed to let you express your artistic side with anyone in the world. The rules are even more simple than Pictionary. Guess the word the drawer is drawing, and score points the quicker you get it right. All the words and scoring is taken care of automatically, and it works just as well on desktop (use your mouse to draw) or your mobile phone (use your finger to draw). The best part? It’s completely free! Try it out the next time you feel like playing a drawing game.
Board setup:
Pictionary Online Play
Each player places a token on the start square. Give each player some paper and pen, and a category card.
There are four categories:
All Play (AP) where any word or expression can be used
Difficult (D) where the words are a bit harder than usual
Actions (A) for verbs
Object (O) for nouns
Note: If a little triangle (△) appears next to the word on a card, it is automatically an AP category.
Bonus tip: Don’t have the board game or have played all the words already? Check out our list of Pictionary words, they’re sorted by EASY, MEDIUM and HARD, so you will never run out of ideas.
Playing Pictionary:
Now everyone should be ready. Choose one player on your team to be the first drawer and roll dice to see which team goes first. The highest roll gets to pick a card from the deck and the AP category is chosen for everybody to guess. Once the card is drawn, the Drawer has 5 seconds before they must begin to sketch.
Once 5 seconds are up, the time is set to 1 minute and the drawer sketches their words.
Note: A sketch can not include letters or numbers.
All players then guess in the first round and have 1 minute to do so. The team that guesses correctly first then gets to roll a die and advance the corresponding amount of squares. They now switch drawers and draw a card. The category they must draw should correspond to the color square they are on. The new drawer has 5 seconds to think / prepare and 1 minute to sketch.
Pictionary Online Word Generator
In this and all consequent rounds, only teammates guess the clue. If the team guesses correctly, they may roll the dice again and advance to a new square. This happens until the team guesses incorrectly, then a new team gets to play. This new team begins by drawing a card and beginning a new round of the sketch and guess process. The first team to the finish square wins the entire game.
Do's and Don'ts
you CAN...
- Draw anything related to the word, no matter how tenuous the (ink
- Break words down into a number of syllables
- Draw 'dock' for 'doc', or 'flu' for 'flue', etc.
Pictionary online, free
you CANNOT…
Pictionary Online
- Use 'ears' for 'sounds like' or dashes to show the number of letters in the word
- Use letters or numbers
- Speak to your teammates
- Use sign language
Want more Pictionary words?
Now that you know the rules to playing Pictionary, you may be looking for more tools to help you get started. You'll definitely want to check out our handy Pictionary Word Generator, which spits out easy, medium and hard Pictionary words. Choose the difficulty that best suits your skill level. It's the perfect tool for any drawing guessing game.
That's all you need to know to get started playing Pictionary. So go bust out the pen and paper and have some old fashioned, creative fun.
If you need more of an excuse to get drawing, be sure to check out our Ultimate List of Things to Draw.