Telestrations Upside Drawn: Can You Draw With the Board Rather Than the Pen?

The Op’s newest drawing game presents you with a unique way to draw, as the person holding the marker doesn’t actually know what it is he’s trying to draw!

One player acts as the guide, moving the board as the artist holds the marker, and tries to draw an image that will get the players on his team to guess the secret word.

Gameplay

Players split into teams of 2-3 players, with each team taking a dry-erase board and marker. Each round a different player will be the guide, holding the drawing board for her team while another player will be the artist. If there is an additional player on the team, he will guess along with the artist.

Next, a card is drawn, which is only shown to the guides on each team. There are five categories on the card, and each category shows a word. You roll a die to determine which word will be drawn and all the guides look at it. Then you start to draw.

Each drawer holds the marker steady and straight on his board and his guide moves the board beneath the marker in an attempt to draw the word. The guide is only allowed to say two things: up and down. She may use these two commands to direct the artist when to lift the marker off the board and when to lower it again. As the artist draws, he attempts to guess the word along with any guesser on his team. The first team to guess the word earns the number of points shown on the card. Players then swap out roles and a new card is drawn for the next round. The first team to twenty points wins.

Players are not allowed to look at another team’s drawing. The guide cannot cause letters or numbers to be drawn. However, symbols and arrows can be drawn and you are allowed to listen to what the other team is saying.

Additionally, along the side of each board there are five symbols. Players can ask the guide questions, and the guide can move the marker over to these symbols in order to answer them. The five symbols mean you’re close, you’re far away, the word sounds like whatever guess a player just made, think broader, and think narrower.

Reviews

Despite the name, Telestrations: Upside Drawn has nothing really to do with the original Telestrations game. However, it’s still a unique twist on drawing games.

Drawing while moving the board is a lot harder than you might expect. This leads to plenty of hilarity, some humorous drawings, and some pretty funny guesses. It’s a fun challenge to master drawing by moving the board, and some of the words you’re given to tackle are really quite hard. The inclusion of the symbols on the drawing boards is a great addition to help steer the guessers during these more tricky words.

The 'phrases' category is particularly challenging. The rulebook does suggest that as phrases can vary from location to location, players should determine whether you need to guess the exact words or the general meaning of these phrases before you start playing, but some players may wish to skip this category entirely.

There is a really pleasant simplicity to the gameplay, with rules that are easy to learn and teach. The components are well made and with one thousand words, there’s lots of variety.

Telestrations: Upside Drawn is a solid party game that is fast to get on the table and has a really flexible player count. You can even exceed the given player count easily, by giving one team paper and pen to use. Even as only a guesser for a round, it’s still fun to watch the drawing process and you’re still engaged in trying to figure the word out. If your group enjoys drawing games, Telestrations: Upside Drawn certainly brings something different to the table, and is a fun, light party game.

Pros: A unique way of drawing, flexible player count

Cons: The Telestrations name may disappoint some players, the phrases category can be quite hard