Doodle Puzzle
- Board's Eye View
- Apr 30
- 2 min read
Designed by Shi Chen and published by Play With Us Design (玩聚設計), Doodle Puzzle is a fun, drawing and guessing party game, ideally for eight players. It's essentially a variant of Pictionary (Hasbro). Having selected a subject from the 12 displayed on any of the 22 double-sided subject cards, players each produce drawings over six segments, and each contributes one of their segments to the final version. A saboteur gets to alter one of the segments, and then the guesser has to guess the subject. Get it right, the guesser and all the players who drew get 2 points; get it wrong and it's the saboteur who scores. All the components are dry-wipe.
The dry-wipe pens all contain yellow ink, and the subject cards are likewise printed in yellow. The USP for Doodle Puzzle is that the guesser holds a large red filter over their face while the other players are drawing so they can see and draw inferences from the other players' pen movements but they can't see the actual result on players' boards. The guesser has to look away while the saboteur makes their alteration and they of course put down their filter to look at the final composite picture.
It's an interesting idea and it certainly has a party game feel but in our initial plays at Board's Eye View we found too much variation among the players doing the drawing. Some subjects - Eiffel Tower and Christmas Tree, for example - lend themselves to a fairly obvious picture design that all the players are likely to adopt. Many of the subjects tho' can inspire a variety of designs, and if six players all have different things in mind then their segments are unlikely to contribute to a coherent composite. And even where the designs were similar, it took players a couple of rounds before they ensured they were all using similar scales; resulting in much 'noise' (distracting elements) that made guessing very difficult. We'd recommend therefore a couple of practice rounds to get everyone on the same wavelength before playing in earnest. You might also consider allowing the guesser some latitude, or perhaps up to three guesses.
If you're filling all six spaces on the composite board, it's hard to see how you could play this game with fewer than six players drawing, tho' given that guessing is quite difficult you can certainly forego the saboteur role and play with just seven players (six players drawing and one guesser each round). If you are playing with a saboteur, the rules include the option of the guesser scoring an extra point for identifying which segments have been altered by the saboteur. However you play, the score cards are designed for games lasting five rounds but, provided players are enjoying the game, you might want to extend it to seven or eight rounds so that everyone gets a chance to try each role. That's what we've done in most of our plays at Board's Eye View.
