Review: Pictionary Family Edition

I have such fond memories of Pictionary; it is the game that my first year at University was based on. That makes me sound really square doesn’t it?  I wasn’t. We did all the normal student stuff and had a good time but I was also lucky enough to have been put into a guest house with 6 other people who were great. So many a night after tea we would get Pictionary out and have a couple of hours fun. I probably particularly liked it as my friend M and I nearly always won.  Without any cheating (of course!) we could always seem to tell what the other was thinking and drawing.

Pictionary Family Edition is much as I recall from when I was younger but just simpler than the full version game we played. In case you have never played before I’ll explain.  You need at least 4 players so you can have 2 teams of 2. Then in each round within the team you have one person drawing and one person guessing. The drawer takes a card which has an item on it – this could be coin, eyebrow, apple etc and they have to very quickly draw it or something that will represent it and then the guesser has to do just that, shout out what they think the item might be. But be careful - shout out too loud when the answer is only close and not exactly correct and you might give it away to the opponent guesser as they may just rephrase your answer and snatch the glory! The first team to guess right wins that round and they get to move on a space on the board. First team to the end of the board is the winner.

As this game is pitched at kids aged 8 plus there are 2 levels of play so that all can feel involved and enjoy the challenge. A nice addition to this version is that at the start of a round a theme is announced so that the children are set off thinking in the right direction and hopefully do not go off on any random tangents. There are also two sets of cards, adult ones with harder clues and ones for the you ger players.

We really enjoyed playing this game, the issue for my family comes in that not all of our children are old enough to play and as you need 4 people it is not always easy to get everyone together. We had to wait for Nanny to visit to make up the teams and then when you have 3 adults and just one child it becomes a bit lopsided and my dh and I ended up giving JJ quite a number of chances to get it right. I did see an option for 3 to play and then one person remains as the ‘picturist’ or drawer as I call them and the other two guess. This game would be perfect if it was pitched at a level where my 5 year old twins could join in, but seeing as they cannot yet read fully that makes it difficult. It won’t be long though…

Pictionary Junior is a super game and one we would happily recommend for hours of good traditional family fun. It is a great price at Argos at the moment, just £15.98 - definately a good Christmas buy!

Disclosure:  We were provided with this game for the purposes of this review. I have not been instructed what to write and I remain honest.