Write it, draw it, describe it, watch it go wrong. Play Sketch Telephone free, a drawing party game for 3 to 10 players. Phrases turn into doodles and back again, online with a link or on one phone.
How to play
Everyone starts a book by writing a short phrase, or by tapping one of three silly ideas such as “A goat on a skateboard”. Then the books move one seat along.
The next player draws the phrase they were handed, without seeing anything that came before. The player after that only sees the drawing and describes it in a few words. Drawing and describing take turns until every book has been through every player. With more than eight players, books stop after eight steps so the game stays quick.
Everyone works at the same time, each on a different book, so nobody sits around waiting. You get 40 seconds to write, 70 seconds to draw and 35 seconds to describe. Press Done when you are happy, and the step ends early once everyone has finished. When time runs out, whatever you have is sent along. A page left empty shows up in the album as “(ran out of time)”, and the next player has to make something up.
Online with friends
Create a room, share the link, and each friend plays on their own phone or computer. Your screen only shows the one thing you need to draw or describe. If someone leaves, the books simply skip them from then on, so nobody gets stuck.
On one phone
Pass the phone for every step. A cover screen says “Pass to Priya”, so only the right person sees their page, and everyone else looks away.
The album
Once every book is finished, the album opens and everyone watches together. Each book plays back page by page: the first phrase, the drawing, the description, the next drawing and so on, up to a side-by-side look at how the book started and how it ended. Tap the laugh, heart, star or question mark buttons to react as the pages turn. Online, the pages turn by themselves, and the host can skip ahead.
Scoring
There are no points for drawing well. At the end everyone votes for the funniest book, and each vote gives one point to the player who started it. Online you can’t vote for your own book. On one phone the group agrees on a favourite and taps it.
Tips
- Write something you can picture. “A cow stuck in a lift” travels further than a long sentence.
- Draw the big idea first. The main shape matters more than the details.
- Describe exactly what you see, even if it makes no sense. That’s where the best twists come from.
Made for laughing together
Sketch Telephone is great for family evenings, parties and video calls. Nobody needs to draw well, because the wobbliest pictures make the best stories. Every player has a colour and a shape, so colour-blind players can follow along too.