Daily App Review: Draw Something Free (Android And iOS)

Almost like clockwork, every few months there comes along an app that surprises everyone (including those who love it) by becoming a sensation. Angry Birds did it, as did Cut The Rope, and now it is the turn of Draw Something.

Draw Something is inspired by classic non-tech games like Pictionary and dumb charades. The game is literally all about drawing and identifying drawings. And you do not have to be an artist to be able to play it. This is how it works--you download the app (the Android and iOS versions are very similar) and then hit the Create Game Game mode. And it is here that you discover what is making the game tick--its multiplayer, or rather two-player, nature.

You cannot play Draw Something against your phone or tablet--you have to pick out a real person to compete against. To do this, you can either use your Facebook account to get friends who are playing the same game, sign up for a log in (it's free), send an e-mail, or if you would rather not give out any details about yourself, simply ask the game to choose a random opponent. Once your opponent is ready, all you have to do is guess the word the other person has represented in the form of a drawing. You are then given a choice of words which you have to express in the form of a drawing. The words come in three categories--easy, medium and hard. And you can choose to get new words if you wish. The harder the word you choose the more gold coins you stand to gain if you can express it well enough in sketch form.

There is a group of letters under the drawing that contains the word that you have to guess. You can use a bomb to remove some of the letters to make guessing easier. Drawing is done by running your finger over the touchscreen and you can mess around with a few colours. In most cases, the drawing quality is going to be rather ordinary and you can figure out the image drawn, unless your opponent is trying to make it really tough for you. You can blow away some of the unnecessary letters by buying bombs using your gold coins, and can buy more colours too. In fact, the paid version of the game comes with extra letters, and more gold coins. And with no ads (worth considering, when you think of the kind of havoc they are supposed to be wreaking on battery life).

And that really is all there is to it--you draw something, your opponent guesses the word it represents, then they draw something, and it is your turn to guess. You get push notifications whenever there is a drawing for you to guess and you keep moving up levels depending on the amount of gold you get. Shades of Pictionary? Yep, albeit with some elements of charades and Hangman. It is best played with your Facebook friends as you can then poke fun at the relative absence of each other's drawing skills without giving too much offence--incidentally, you can draw whatever you wish, to the extent of even using words to write down a clue!

All of which makes it good, clean fun. For a while. After about 10 minutes, we did feel a sense of ennui creeping in. Drawing is also not really too easy, and we recommend using this app on a tablet if you have one--it works best on larger displays. We also would have liked more interactivity between opponents (live chat, anyone?) and maybe more sketching options. Still, there is no doubt that Draw Something is becoming a bit of a cult hit on both Android and iOS, which proves that not everyone is looking for a game with cutting edge graphics. At the end of day, many of us just want something that is simple. And someone to play with.
Draw Something provides both. Try it. You might get addicted. Thousands already have.