Telestrations
4-8
12+
30
Telestrations is the award winning, laugh-out-loud party game that has players simultaneously draw what they see, then guess what they saw to reveal hilarious and unpredictable outcomes. In this fun, modern twist on the classic “telephone game,” there are multiple words being passed around between players, with everyone sketchin’ and guessin’ at the same time! But the real fun and laughter is the big reveal, where players get their own books back and get to share how “this” became “that”!
images © USAopoly
User Reviews (4)
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Do you remember playing telephone as a kid? You whisper something to the person next to you, they do the same to the person next to them, and so on and so forth. Between you and the end of the line, something would often happen to the message. Sometimes, in fact, what came out the other end barely resembles what you began with.
Then there is Pictionary. If, like me, your art skills can only be called “skills” by a very charitable saint, you struggle to draw something, while your team calls out things that have nothing to do with what you are trying to draw.
Now, mash the two together, and you have Telestrations.
This game plays 4-8 players. The more, the better. Once we open the box, you will find:
8 Erasable sketch books
8 Dry erase markers
8 Cloths
1 sand timer
1 die
142 double sided cards
Everything is decent, except the markers. They seem to go dry awful quick in my opinion.
So, what do we do? Everyone gets one of the sketch books, markers and cloths. They all write their names on the first page. Deal a card to everyone, and then roll the die. Each card has 6 words on each side. Determine if you are working off of “This Side” or “That Side” and secretly write your word down.
If you have an odd amount of players, you will now pass to the left, that person will secretly look at the word you wrote, and draw their interpretation of the word. Should there be an even number of players, then you will do the first drawing.
Regardless, whoever drew the first picture passes the pad to the person on the left. The timer will be set, and they have until time runs out to write what they think was drawn on the next page in the sketch book. They pass to the left, the timer is set, and the next person has 60 seconds to draw their interpretation of the word. Play continues in this fashion until the pad returns to the person it started with.
Then, the real fun begins, as each player goes through their pad, showing what the word was, what was drawn, and how it changed (or didn’t) change as each person got a hold of it. Hilarity ensues. There is a scoring system, but I never use it. Frankly, the scoring is counter-productive, because I have always found that everyone has a much better time when things went horribly wrong, and everyone starts arguing about why they thought that was what you drew.
This is a game that plays best with people who don’t care who wins or loses and who can laugh at themselves along with everyone else. Some of the cards feature a choose your own word, which works great with inside jokes between family and friends as well. I don’t know how many times I have played this game and ended up gasping for breath. I know there are people who would not have fun playing this game, and I am sure you all do as well. However, for those who put aside their ego and their artistic snobbishness and are just looking to have a great time with their friends and family, I think you will find this was money and time well spent.
Our gaming group has played this ~40 times in the past 2 years as the party game of choice. (It would be more, but Cards Against Humanity appeared.) It’s VERY easy to learn how to play and a full game typically takes 60+ minutes.
Game Overview
This combines the kids game of Telephone with Pictionary. Everyone gets their own sketch book, a marker, a black cloth for cleaning, and a word card. Roll the dice to determine which secret word is yours and write it down on the 1st page of the sketch book. You then draw a picture of your interpretation of this word without using any alphanumeric characters. Once done, you flip the bottom page up and pass your sketch book to the player next to you who then writes down in word(s) what they think your picture is. They pass it on and the next person draws a picture of the word(s), and so forth until it comes back to you. There is a timer you can use to make sure each round (drawing or guessing) doesn’t take too long. Your job is now to score the drawings/guesses. The game recommends either using friendly scoring (1 point to your favorite guess and 1 point to your favorite drawing) or competitive scoring (1 point if guess matches prior guess or secret word and 1 point for each drawing this guess was based on) and both score yourself 1 point if the final guess matches the original secret word.
It’s always more fun to play with the maximum number of 8 players and there’s a new party edition that has room for 12. An even number of players is best as it’s fun to compare the final guess with the original secret word. After we score the points on our sketch book, we take turns showing everyone else the pictures/guesses in order for all to see at once. This usually results in a burst of laughing as we see how far the original word gets altered, plus players can see if they scored any points.
For each new round, change the direction you pass the sketch books. The game ends after 3 rounds, and whoever has the most points wins.
Reality of playing
The friendly scoring is best, though we also like to just recognize your favorite drawings/guesses and sometimes don’t bother to keep track of points. Rarely do we have any real artists, but when we do they tend to get all the points. So instead of worrying about competing, we just give kudos to those we were most impressed with as we go through each sketch book sheet with the group.
We also rarely use the sand timer as most get done before it finishes leaving us taking time to get it reset. This sometimes results in a bunch of the sketch books getting bottle-necked with one person who we try to put pressure to move faster. Don’t fret if you want to end after 1 or 2 rounds for times-sake. We have never had a game with 8 players and 3 rounds take less than 60 minutes.
I recommend having players switch seats between rounds if possible to mix it up. This is not a game to be played in a room with lots of quiet competitive games. While there will be long bouts of quiet, when it’s time to share the books it gets loud quickly!
Components
This is a game that you can play with materials you have at home. But USAopoly did such a great job with the quality of the sketch books that no one wants to play without these. The markers do go dry after a while and it’s good to clean the sketch books before you put them away or it gets very hard to remove for the next time. I bought a kit of colored dry-erase markers which can provide fun with multiple colors. Also it’s good to keep paper towels handy as the very small black cloths that come with the game will get cruddy and make your hands dirty after multiple uses. The word cards provide some order for folks lacking imagination, but there’s no reason you couldn’t just make up your own secret word for each round.
Impressions
). I’ve played with all levels of drawers – this is likely the main reason for us no longer using points as it can be intimidating for some though great to see that talent on display. Even if English isn’t a player’s first language, it’s sometimes fun to have them write down as many words describing the noun or verb they couldn’t remember.
Like so many other party games, the enjoyment factor really comes down to the humor and mood of the other players. You may need to make it clear at the beginning about your house rules, especially if you have any rules lawyers who may change the mood quickly from what may have been intended. Having each person judge their own book is good, too, as they can decide how to reward (or not reward) the wide variety of drawings, words, and levels of appropriateness (it’s rare when a word doesn’t get devolved and usually depends on overall maturity level or if a parental unit or kid is playing
Lastly, this is not a game you want to force on everyone. When it’s just the jester or artist of the group trying to find players in order to show off their skills, it can become a bit dry for others especially if overplayed (which game doesn’t?). But this also shows the level of popularity it has.
Final thoughts
This is a great game to have available for almost any social gathering. If the group is needing a break from serious discussions or contentious games, this provides a great transition period. To this day some of the most memorable occasions from game night came from playing Telestrations – it’s a must have and makes a perfect gift for gamers and non-gamers alike.
Although it’s easy to play this game with your own paper and pens, I find that this game does a great job of helping people that have not played before. On every page, it will say “Sketch It” or “Guess It”, which is especially handy with a slightly inebriated group. This game has been a hit at many parties and family gatherings, so I almost always have it in my traveling bag of games.
My only slight beef with the game is that some of the dry-erase markers that came packaged with the game were bone-dry, so we substituted Crayola Markers until I could go out and pick up some more markers.
Awesome game, however… My friend saw this game and decided she didn’t want to shell out the 30 bucks when she could go to the dollar store and get 8 dry-erase boards at a buck a pop and basically play the same game. Not to detract away from the game’s fun itself, I have a blast when playing, but I can’t see paying that much for it.
Now, granted you aren’t getting EVERYTHING getting only the dry erase boards as listed above, but you could easily substitute matching Cards Against Humanity to start instead of the “This Side/That Side” and the egg timer and dice are easily found in other games if you feel you REALLY need them, but you’ll have plenty of laughs with the whiteboards alone.