The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

We gathered, as we sometimes do, for board games. Only we have some different sorts of people about. Katie Essner, for one. And she brought a game I had never heard of called Luck of the Draw. Instead of whipping out one of my complicated gaming concoctions, we decided to go for this, and man, I’m glad we did. This game was so much fun, I’m going to have to grab me a copy of it sometime.

Basically, this game sort of combines Pictionary with a Balderdash or an Apples to Apples. You get a thing to draw, and everyone doodles a picture of it. Then you mix up the pictures, labeling them with little colored discs. Then you go to the deck of “qualities,” and flip over a few of those, and everyone votes on which drawings have these qualities. If you win votes, you get points. If you get points, you win. Simple.
The genius of the game, though, is that you do not know the qualities ahead of time, nor do the qualities have anything to do with what you are supposed to draw. You have free reign to do whatever the hell you want, and hope that your silly, insane version of whatever you’re supposed to be doodling hits a category like “Most Messy” or “Used Straightest Lines.” Or, if you’re going to draw pictures of cocks, you hope it hits something like “Most Masculine.”

Seriously, though, it’s this disconnection that lets you have a ton of fun with a good group of friends. Much like in Balderdash, it soon becomes a battle to make everyone react. Sure, you could draw a normal-looking bride, or you could draw a bride wearing a KKK outfit. Sure, you could draw a normal-looking daydream, or you could draw one with a man proudly exclaiming “MY COCK IS A BOAT!” Sure, it may be a bit juvenile, and the game works best when you at least try to draw something related to the category, but with a group who can take a joke, it is just so, so much fun.

Due to that being where the real fun is, though, the game does sort of break down like Balderdash. In my experience, after a few rounds of Balderdash, people just start writing hilarious, stupid things, and stop focusing on the goal of the game. This works the same way. You eventually have to shut it down because of that. But man, we had a really great time playing. Oh, here’s a little sample of our art, in “bad cell phone camera” vision. This is Jonathan’s entry for “Tongue-Tied.” Nice, huh? I doodled a Smoker from Left 4 Dead, but there just weren’t enough gamers at the table. Sad. But, again, that’s one of the things that makes this game so great. You don’t have to be a gamer to enjoy it. It’s just a flat-out good time. That’s awesome.