Icon
There are plenty of word games where players are writing words that are clues for a target word. So Clover! (Repos Production) is a classic example: players have to write a word that connects the two words on adjacent cards; the other players then have to pick the correct cards and place them in the correct position, complicated by extra cards being thrown into the mix. Likewise there are numerous games where players are drawing clues to words. Caution Signs (Wacky Wizard) is a case in point; we even described it as 'So Clover! with drawings'. When you pull out a game that calls for drawing you're bound to find some people complaining that they can't draw. That's where Icon comes in.
Icon is designed by Yohan Goh and published by Magicbox and Pythagoras. It tackles head on the whines of 'I can't draw' by giving each of the 2–6 players a template of shapes that you can trace round with a pencil; much like the stencils that you usually find in the pencil cases commonly carried around by primary school children. Players each draw a word and they use the shapes on their template to construct a clue to that word; the game is still demanding creativity from all the players but it isn't so much a test of their artistic skills.
Once everyone has stencilled out a clue to their word, those words are put into a cloth bag along with two more words drawn at random. When the words are pulled out, players need to identify which words go with which drawings and which words are the red herrings. You score for correct matches and repeat over four rounds. And to keep it interesting, the stencil templates are all different (ie: they have different shapes on them), and players switch templates for each round.
Like So Clover! and Caution Signs, Icon makes a great 15-minute filler with a party game vibe. You'll probably find you're exchanging complaints that 'I can't draw' for moans about the constraints imposed by the templates but you can never please everyone. We recommend you keep things moving by setting a timer to jog on otherwise slowcoach players.
