Gameplay

The best way to explain Pictionary is like charades but with pictures. The game is set up with a board consisting of a pathway of colored squares from start to finish, and each square has a character that denotes what type of picture is to be drawn on that turn. The objective of the game is to be the first team to reach the finish.

To begin, each team selects a game piece and places the pawn at the start. Roll to see which team goes first and roll the die to see how many spaces you’ll move forward. Once there, the space will have a color and a character to identify if it’s an All-Play or not. If it’s not an All-Play, one member of the team draws a picture for only the others on their team to guess. If they guess correctly before the sand timer runs out, they get to roll again. If not, the next team goes. If it is an All-Play, all teams have a chance to compete, with one drawer from each team, and the team who guesses the word first gets to go next.

The colors denote the following categories:

1. Yellow; P = person, place, animal
2. Blue; O = object
3. Orange; A = action
4. Green; D = Difficult (words that are hard to draw)
5. Red; AP = All Play

The colors will correspond to a card that lists one of each of the above categories. For example, on any one card, there will be one person/place/animal, object, action, difficult word, and an all-play category. If your pawn lands on yellow, you must draw the word in the yellow category.

You may not speak or make any sounds to assist your team in guessing, and no numbers or words may be used. The first team to the finish line wins!

History

Pictionary was invented by Robert Angel: he and his friends first played it in 1981, and Robert was at first hesitant to pitch the idea to a game company, but, inspired by Trivial Pursuit, which is somewhat similar to Pictionary, he decided to go for it. Robert and his business partners, Terry Langston and Gary Everson (Gary actually did the graphic design for the game), first published Pictionary in 1985 through Angel Games.

When Angel Games’ printing company finished printing the games, they told Robert that they could not sort through the 500,000 cards they printed out, and Robert, Terry, and Gary had to do it themselves! That first year, they sold over 6,000 copies at $35 each.

In 1986, Angel Games licensed Pictionary in a joint venture between The Games Gang and Western Publishing. In 1994, Hasbro took over publishing the game after acquiring the games business of Western Publishing. In 2001, Pictionary was sold to Mattel, where it is to this day.

Variations

There are a few different versions of Pictionary that are themed to different franchises, like Harry Potter and Star Wars. There’s also Pictionary Junior, with simpler words to draw, and Pictionary Adults Only, with R-rated words to draw.

Other variations include Pictionary Air, which comes with a pen that you draw with–in the air! Guessing team members hold up their phone to see what the drawer is sketching in the air—think old school “You’re watching Disney Channel!” Another variation is Pictionary vs. AI, where players must race to guess what the drawing is before AI does. Finally, there’s Pictionary Sketch Squad, which has players play as one team, each drawing their own secret hint before putting their drawings together to try and guess the Big Clue that ties them all together.

Reception & Awards

In 2001, when Mattel acquired Pictionary, the game was being sold in 60 countries and 45 languages, with 11 versions just in the United States. A total of 32 million games had been sold worldwide. As of 2020, that number is up to 38 million.

Games included Pictionary in tis top 100 games of 1986, including the following review: “The frequent All-Play rounds, in which all teams try to identify the same word, are especially exciting. Artistic talent is not a requirement; ingeniously simple drawings almost always win. The 2,500 color-coded words provide real tests of imagination.”