Review: Doodle Mayhem (Clarendon Games) – English

New Year’s Eve is the perfect time to play some party games with friends. The crazier the better and a little touch of creativity can’t hurt. In Doodle Mayhem, players simultaneously show off their drawing talents. Be quick, but clear to draw a path to victory.

Doodle Mayhem is a drawing game for a minimum of 4 players in which all players draw simultaneously. The goal: collect the most points by being the fastest player to draw and make sure your ’teammates’ guess what on earth you have been scribbling on paper within 30 seconds. Each player gets a handful of topic cards, a few sheets to scribble on and a pencil. In the centre of the table, players place a stack of point cards (depending on the number of players), the hourglasses, a sheet to keep track of the scores and an eraser. The game box contains pencils, a block of sheets and an eraser (very fancy!), but when these items are used up, you can obviously play with your own materials.

Before players start playing, they choose a “category” corresponding to one of the possible words on each topic cards. Each round, players simultaneously draw a new card from their stack of topic cards and proceed to draw the word of the corresponding category as quickly as possible. When you finish drawing, take the top card from the point pile. The faster you finish drawing, the more points you can earn. Be quick, but clear, because the aim of the game is to draw your word as quickly as possible but the other players must be able to guess what it is. By the way, you are not allowed to draw any symbols, words or numbers as otherwise guessing what the hell you have train to draw would be too easy of a task. So you have to rely completely on your drawing skills under duress. Hilarity and ugly sketches are guaranteed.

Once each player has finished drawing, each has to start guessing the other players’ drawings. Teams are formed based on the point cards and must guess the team’s drawings within 30 seconds. All players on the team are then awarded points based on the point cards players took during the drawing phase. However, if the doodle is not guessed, they are awarded just as many minus points instead. The two phases make Doodle Mayhem a funny variation on party games where players have to draw and guess. The teamwork and points distribution is a funny element as players have to draw quickly, but not too quickly that other players cannot guess what they have drawn.