Telestrations the Telephone Game Sketched Out!

Telestrations Ages: 13+ Requires: 4 to 8 players

What We Think Fun factor: Durability: Ease of assembly: Novelty factor: The Good: Easy-to-learn game with cleverly designed, reusable game pieces. The Challenging: Scoring system caters to competitive players; others may wish to avoid it altogether. In a Nutshell: A creative and funny visual equivalent of classic game of "Telephone."

Telestrations turns the classic schoolyard game of "Telephone" into a hilarious sketching game.

With each guess, players get further from the original, intended interpretation. View larger.

Each sketch book contains eight erasable pages, and each page is labeled with either an "S" (for sketch) or a "G" (for guess). The spiral binding allows you to flip pages before passing the sketch book to the next player, and the label lets that player know whether to sketch or guess. Aside from the occasional unrepressed snicker, gameplay is silent until the final results are revealed.

The erasable markers have a fine point to allow true artists to flourish. Clean-up cloths are provided, as is a timer and a deck of 144 cards, each of which contains six "secret" words.

Gameplay: Friendly or Competitive Mode?
Much like "Telephone," Telestrations leaves a lot of participants scratching their heads. One player's sketch of a pretzel might end up looking more like a ribbon, and that ribbon might evolve into a banana peel. Only rarely does the final guess match the original word, so playing Telestrations is almost always a delightful comedy of errors.

While the game is easy to learn, scoring can get a bit complicated. The instruction manual describes two different modes of gameplay: friendly and competitive. The friendly mode awards points based on the most creative and hilarious drawings, a subjective determination that can lead to either a fun debate or an irritating disagreement, depending on who is playing. In either case, a simple democratic vote may be necessary to speed things up.

The competitive mode awards points to players whose sketch helps another player win a point. This determination is straightforward enough, but going back over the drawings and assessing points may be tedious for those who would rather simply laugh at the results. Anyway you decide to play it, Telestrations will bring out the artists in your friends and family, along with lots of loud laughter.

What's in the Box
Telestrations game instructions, 8 erasable sketch books, 8 erasable markers, 4 eraser cloths, 144 cards in card box, 90-second sand timer, and die.

Designed for 4-8 players, Telestrations features intuitive, reusable game pieces for a great experience. View larger.