I’m a fan of multiplayer games. Drawful 2 is one of them. I like being able to sit in a room or in a voice chat and play a game together. Growing up, my cousins and I were always playing board games that could accommodate the lot of us, and surprisingly enough Monopoly was a favorite.

Playing Drawful with my friends felt a lot like playing Monopoly with my cousins. We’re all crammed into a room with no AC and rapidly heating up the space. Laughter and impromptu charades are mere seconds away at any given time.

When I bought Drawful 2 last night I immediately went to the group chat for willing volunteers. It’s time to socialize, kiddos. Half an hour later, four of us were laughing about our crappy drawings just a hair past midnight.

Good times and late-night drawing sessions aside, Drawful 2 is a big improvement from the first one. After a few games, the prompts got stale and the whole thing was a chore to play until we expanded our horizons to include everyone who happened to pass by our college’s video game lounge, which didn’t appeal to many.

Play Style

The first Drawful allowed for up to eight players, and promised a good time to anyone with a smartphone or a tablet to draw on. The premise is that you get a prompt, a blank space to illustrate it in, and an audience to convince. Needless to say, playing this with artist friends (such as our own Kennedy) is great.

If you’re like the rest of us and don’t have a career lined up based on your ability to draw or produce something visually coherent, it ends up being a challenge to come up with a caption that makes sense with the rest of the audience, sans the artist whose piece is displayed. After that, your job is to guess the  correct caption. You get points for everyone you fool into picking yours, and the artist gets double for representing the prompt well.

via Polygon

Initial Thoughts & Impressions

At first I expected to have a couple rounds go by and then have the whole thing get boring, but fortunately that was not so. The prompts kept coming, and kept forcing me to get more creative with my fake prompts. I like that it was challenging to draw some of the prompts given, and it made the whole draw-and-display process fun.

What I really like is the fact that Drawful 2 boasts more prompts than the first. It gives the game some replay value and gives players a variety of things to draw. Seriously, this is a huge improvement.

via True Achievements

Improvements & Playability Upgrades

If you’ve ever thought about streaming a Jackbox game like Quiplash or Drawful 2, you’re in luck. Jackbox has graciously added in a couple features that’ll make the game go a long way.

For starters, the interface for drawing and submitting captions lets you draw in two colors. Think of all the added depth! Aside from that, if you thought that the prompts were getting a little stale, then you have the option to make your own. Make one for your friends, for your family, and even your grandparents if you please. This adds a social aspect to the game that’s much-needed, in my opinion. You can share prompt episodes with others if you so choose.

For streamers specifically, Drawful 2 comes with a host of censorship options for prompts and drawings alike. If your players are more inclined to submit lewd images, you can filter them out for your audience. And that player stays filtered out for the rest of the game. To ensure that Twitch.tv players aren’t hiding behind an alias, there’s a feature to log in through Twitch as well.

via Arnie Niekamp on Twitter

Final Thoughts

Overal, Drawful 2 is solid. Like, really solid. It’s a vast improvement over the original and a good addition to anyone’s multiplayer arsenal. It’s got replay value, custom prompts, and it just feels nice. Would highly recommend. And if you’re feeling friendly, we’ll be hosting sessions where you can play along with The Lifecast crew as well. Consider this an open invitation.

Cover image via VideoGamesAwesome.com