It's weird that it took so long, but an official Pictionary game has finally landed in the Google Play Store. Developed by Mattel and Etermax — the same folks behind the all too appropriately named Trivia Crack — Pictionary takes the classic party game and breathes new life in the transition to mobile.
After signing in via Facebook or your Google account, you have the choice between two game modes. Quick Draw is a 2 vs. 2 game of Pictionary played in real time and is very similar to the original game's style of play. Each team has a drawer and a guesser with 90 seconds on the clock to guess the assigned word. Both teams draw the same word in a head-to-head race with the other team.
You see both what your teammate and your opponents are drawing in real time and the first team to get the right answer wins. It's not perfect in its current state — you may have troubles connecting to the server, and once you do if someone quits or even accidentally taps the recent app button on their phone, the game abruptly ends. I suppose that might be a feature to cut down on people switching over to a messaging app to cheat. Cheaters ruin everything.
Fortunately, that's not your only way to play. Just like the turn-based trivia fun in Trivia Crack, Etermax has created a turn-based mode for Pictionary which lets you can play back-and-forth with friends or random opponents taking turns as the drawer and the guesser. When you guess right you earn coins and unlock chests which help you upgrade your sketching tools. All your drawings are also saved in the gallery, so you can go back and admire your previous drawings.
This certainly isn't the first Pictionary-style game to hit the app store, as there's already Draw Something, but this is the first game to be officially licensed by the makers of the original best-selling board game. Given Etermax's success with Trivia Crack, this game has the potential to spread like wildfire on social media.
