All Play Pictionary

If you thought it’s all child’s play, you are probably mistaken. As a board game, Pictionary has many adults hooked on to it as well. This pictorial form of dumb charades where a team member draws the word to be guessed by his team mates is one noisy board game with a high fun quotient and often acts as a stress buster for many adults - both who think they can draw and those who think they can’t even to save their lives!

An avid Pictionary player right through her childhood, Bhairavi Sagar, (33), a market research professional has stayed loyal to the game. So much so that she has started a group — Mumbai Pictionary meet up group — calling all Pictionary players to have a fun time and bouts of laughter over a game. “A lot of people don’t think that it’s a very intellectual game but the fact is that it’s not a ‘no brainer.’ It requires thinking on your feet,” says Sagar. The quicksand in the hourglass slipping down as you juggle to identify the word being drawn out only in a minute’s time, mounts the pressure and sets the game’s tempo.

Started a few months back, the group has roped in seven avid Pictionary players already.

Though being a hit with quite a few people, Pictionary has still not attained the mass popularity as other board games like Monopoly or Scrabble. The reason for this, according to Sharada Narayan, a member of Sagar’s newly formed Pictionary group is, the fact that it is “too competitive and does not cater to individual sense of contribution as in Scrabble or Monopoly. It is an out and out team game and hence everything is about collective contribution.”

Narayan, a teacher in Muscat, often played the game with friends and family there however, after coming back to Mumbai with not all of her family back here, she was looking for a platform that would allow her to play Pictionary, a game she calls ‘pure unadulterated fun.’   

Also the general belief that Pictionary is a game for those who can draw well is largely a myth, as Sagar says matter-of-factly, “It is a myth to think that only those who are good at drawing can play Pictionary. This game requires you to be able to doodle — which most of us do most of the time out of sheer habit.”

The fun part of the game is where the team mates are on a guessing spree under the confined time limit as interpretations that come out of the drawing can be hilarious. “A stick figure becomes a light pole whereas a pregnant woman’s tummy becomes a football,” says Sagar. “It is funny that some children can draw a bird better than many adults,” she adds.

However, it’s not just the guessing of words that turns out to be a laughing riot but drawing the words can be an equally daunting task as Narayan asks, “How do you draw a word like Virgin Islands?”

Apart from the fun bit, the game is also a test in effective communication. Khyati Mehta, (29), who is into financial service says that her corporate team has played the game on their off site visits. “We have played Pictionary as a team building exercise. During the play, being unbiased to your opponent team and adapting to work with your team mates are a few things that we took back from the game. The idea is to convey the word to your team mates, whether it is an object, place, action, emotion etc. through a drawing.”

She also says, the discipline of time is very important or else, “It could go on forever.”
Though in its nascent stage right now, the group plans to participate in an inter city Pictionary competition once it has a substantial membership.

Generally played in teams of two, there are about 8-10 players, the basic idiom being, the more the merrier and the game could stretch anywhere between an hour to three hours. “You cannot play Pictionary in any mental hurry. It is definitely a stress buster as there is a lot of laughter and healthy competition,” says Sagar.

When the die rolls onto an All Play category where all the teams draw and guess simultaneously, it is one hysterical moment that the players love to revel in. Playing the game in itself is a joyous ride, winning it is only an add on.

For Narayan, it’s the sheer exhilaration of being on the edge and getting to guess your team mate’s line of thinking and that too, “before the sand runs out on you... your mind has to really work at random and quick.”

And this is what sets Pictionary apart from other board games.

Contact: bhairavisagar@gmail.com