The Do's And Don'ts Of Drawing

To avoid arguments among players, follow these rules for what you can and cannot do during the game. The most important rule is that you cannot use any letters or numbers.

Most players will find the other rules either obvious, or they only apply to special cases. Pictomania is about having fun. Whenever there is an argument, try to agree as a group on how strict you want to be with the Do's and Don'ts.

Erasing

During a round, you can erase parts of your drawing, or all of it, if you want to change something. But you are not allowed to "animate" your drawing. The other players are supposed to guess the clue from a stationary drawing, without any activity.

Context Of The Clue

You may draw the context of your clue. If, for example, your clue is tennis ball, you are allowed to draw a racket and a tennis player.

Arrows

You may highlight certain parts of your drawing with arrows. In the example above, you may draw a racket and a ball and then an arrow pointing to the ball. You may also use arrows to indicate a sequence or a direction.

You could, for example, draw an arrow pointing from a baby to an old man if your clue is Ageing. (However, you may not number a sequence like this, as numbers are never allowed).

Crossing Out

You may cross parts of your drawing out, like a fir, in order to highlight an oak next to it.

Symbols

You may draw mathematical symbols and other icons as long as they are important for your clue and do not reveal anything about the position of the clue on the card.

For example, you may draw a cross on a hospital or a speech bubble (without text). You may draw symbols like € or $ that are derived from letters, but no letters or abbreviations containing letters, like cm for centimeters.

Compound Words

You may draw the parts of a compound word separately, like drawing a door and next to it a bell for the clue doorbell.

Drawing Nothing

You may choose to draw nothing at all if you just cannot think of anything. In this case, you do not take a bonus point token, but you can make guesses at other players' clues. Apart from that, the same rules apply as if you had drawn the wrong clue.

If you do any of the following things, your drawing will be scored as if nobody had made a guess at it.

Return all guess cards to the respective players. You award no scoring tokens, and your bonus point token does not earn you any points, but it could still lose you points. Regardless, you can still earn points by guessing other players' clues correctly.

Letters, Numbers, Characters

You may not use any numbers or letters/characters of any alphabet (Roman, Greek, Japanese, Morse, etc).. You may, however, use scribbles to symbolise text (e. g., if your clue is "book", and the text on the pages is part of your drawing).

Comments

No comments on your clue ("I can't draw animals"). or on your drawing ("This was supposed to look more rounded"). are allowed, neither are hints ("You all have this in your home")..

Sounds And Gestures

You may not make any sounds (humming, grunting etc). or gestures that may indicate or help others guess your clue.

Placeholders

You are not supposed to draw the word(s) on the clue card, but the idea behind it. You may not use underscores or similar placeholders for letters or parts of a word. Players should be able to guess your clue regardless of the language they speak.

Referencing The Clue Card

Your drawing may not contain any references to the position of the clue on the card nor to the position of the card on the rack. Nor are you allowed to draw the symbols on the card racks.

Referencing The Players' Surroundings

Your drawing may not reference objects or people in the room, like drawing an arrow that points at another player or at a glass on the table. The other players are supposed to guess the clue independently of the surroundings of the game group.

A Different Clue

You may not draw a clue from another clue card.

Continue Reading