Critical Play on Sketchful.IO
Game Design Competitive Analysis
SKETCHFUL.IO is an online drawing and guessing game, like Pictionary Board Game. You can play with random players online, or make a virtual room and play with your friends.
Basically the way it works is that 1 player would be sketching based on given prompts, and others will be guessing what the sketch is. Whoever guesses it right first gets more points than the others. The more people guess it right, more points the sketcher gets. After multiple rounds of sketching, whoever has most total points wins the game.
Here are some questions I have in mind before playing the game:
- How is the size of group influencing the fun?
- How good can people draw with mouse?
- How competitive is this game and how does that influence the fun?
- How difficult are the prompts?
- How are the prompts given?
- What kind of fun do they promise the player?
- How is this fun and theme reinforced through graphic design decisions?
Analysis
- Doodle-ish buggy looking visual design
Bad job: My first impression of the visuals for this game is that it looks like it’s coded up over weekend by amateur developers as a side project. By no means does it look sophisticated or elegant. It looks like a kid doodling platform, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if it contains multiple bugs. There are also a ton of advertisement before starting to play and in the corners of the webpage. Seeing advertisement is always annoying.
Good job: The comic lo-fidelity visual design adjusts my expectation that this is a quick play and there’s nothing serious. The design layout makes the rules very self-explanatory.
2. Dynamic Guessing Mechanics
Good job: Each sketch has a set amount of time for guessing, and overtime there will be letter hints gradually showing up. This is very helpful if you have no idea what the item is.
On the other side, you can look at the chat to see what other people are guessing. Though the ones shown in the chat are wrong guesses, it helps brainstorm.
Bad job: People can cheat! Like the screenshot below. The player was drawing Eminem, but people can’t guess it right. So he was drawing out the letters. The reason sketcher is helping others is that the more people guess it right, the more points sketcher can get. If you are playing with random people, it’s hard to prevent cheating because it is actually a win-win situation for both sketcher and guessers. The player wants more people to guess right, and the guesser obviously want the answers. In the game I played with strangers, no one call out cheating. I think if you play with friends, then you can maintain the honor system more.
3. Ever changing players!
Good job: If you dislike all the organizing work needed to get all the friends ready to play a game, then this the a great game for you because you can directly jump into playing. As you are playing over time you can see people coming and leaving the room.
Bad job: Each game has 3 rounds. If you enter a room where the game is already on the second or third round, you will always be among the last ones in ranking because it is really hard to catch up. In screenshot below, you can see that because I joined the game later than L3NNY, my score was way lower. If the game is trying to be competitive, then it needs to think through on how to give hope to the new comers who joined the game late.
Unsure: When you are playing with strangers, it is hard to gage the actual dynamics of the room by just looking at the chat box. There were scenarios when 1 player insulted another, or wanted to kick someone out of the room. I wonder how that makes the insulted one feel.
4. Made it easy for unconfident sketchers!!
Good job: When it’s your turn to sketch, the system will give you 3 options and you can choose 1. Say you don’t know how to draw Cuba, how about nose hair(see screenshot below)? By giving people options, it allows people to draw more confidently.
There are also a set up of useful tools on the right to allow you draw in different colors, or paint surfaces, or revert a stroke. These are simple but useful tools to make the sketch easier to guess!
