''Pictionary'' (, ) is a

charades Charades (, ). is a parlor or party word guessing game. Originally, the game was a dramatic form of literary charades: a single person would act out each syllable of a word or phrase in order, followed by the whole phrase together, while the rest ...

-inspired word-guessing game invented by Robert Angel with graphic design by Gary Everson and first published in

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

by Angel Games Inc. Angel Games licensed Pictionary to

Western Publishing Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company, was a Racine, Wisconsin, firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Its Golden Books Family Entertainment division also produced children's books and ...

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...

purchased the rights in 1994 after acquiring the games business of Western Publishing.

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in mor ...

acquired ownership of Pictionary in 2001. The game is played in

team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to inf ...

s with

player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...

s trying to identify specific

word A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...

s from their teammates.

History

The concept of ''Pictionary'' was first created by Robert Angel and his friends in 1981. Angel and his roommates came up with the concept of the game, which proved to be very popular between them. While originally hesitant to pitch the idea, Angel was inspired by ''

Trivial Pursuit ''Trivial Pursuit'' is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's ability to answer trivia and popular culture questions. Players move their pieces around a board, the squares they land on determining the subject of a question ...

'', the gameplay of which was similar to his concept and proved to him that such gameplay could work and be successful. Angel and his business partners Terry Langston and Gary Everson first published Pictionary in 1985 through Angel Games. A week before Pictionary was first launched, Angel Games' printing company called to inform them that they could not sort through the 500,000 cards they had printed out. Angel and his partners had to sort through the cards themselves over the course of six days. They managed to sell 6,000 copies in one year at $35 each. Angel Games licensed the game in 1986 in a joint venture between The Games Gang and

. In 1994,

took over publishing after acquiring the games business of Western Publishing. In 2001, ''Pictionary'' was sold to

. At that time they were in 60 countries and 45 languages, with 11 versions just in the US and a total of 32,000,000 games sold worldwide.

Objective

Each team moves a piece on a game board formed by a sequence of squares. Each square has a letter or shape identifying the type of picture to be drawn on it. The objective is to be the first team to reach the last space on the board. To achieve this a player must guess the word or phrase being drawn by their partner, or if the player lands on an "all play" square, one player from each team attempts to illustrate the same concept simultaneously, with the two teams racing to guess first. The first player to land and guess correctly at the finish wins.

Gameplay

The team chooses one person to begin drawing; this position rotates with each word. The drawer chooses a card out of a deck of special ''Pictionary'' cards and tries to draw pictures which suggest the word printed on the card. The pictures cannot contain any numbers or letters, nor can the drawers use spoken clues about the subjects they are drawing. The teammates try to guess the word the drawing is intended to represent. There are five types of squares on the board, and each ''Pictionary'' card has a list of five words printed on it. Players must then draw the word which corresponds to the square on the board on which the team's marker is: AP category (and a random selection of check-marked words in other categories) are designated as "All Play". For "All Play," the teams compete against each other. Each team designates a player whose purpose will be to draw pictures. The team that guesses the word first gets to advance and take the next turn. If none of the teams guess the word, the turn passes to whichever team should have been next. One may not point or gesture to an object A one-minute

timer A timer is a specialized type of clock used for measuring specific time intervals. Timers can be categorized into two main types. The word "timer" is usually reserved for devices that counts down from a specified time interval, while devices th ...

, usually a sand timer, is used to compel players to rapidly complete their drawing and guessing.

Reception

Games A game is a structured form of play, usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (suc ...

'' included ''Pictionary'' in its top 100 games of 1986, saying, "The frequent All Play rounds, in which all teams try to identify the same word, are especially exciting. Artistic talent is not a requirement; ingeniously simple drawings almost always win. The 2,500 color-coded words provide real tests of imagination."

References

{{Mattel American board games Word board games Guessing games Party board games Roll-and-move board games Products introduced in 1985 Hasbro games Mattel games Western Publishing

History

Objective

Gameplay

Reception

See also

References