Drawing and guessing games are a ton of fun, and there are several platforms online that make setting up a game a breeze. Jump in a public room to get started fast or create your own public or private room and up your game with a custom word bank. Here are a few of my favorites that are free to play and easy to set up.

Skribbl.io

Skribbl.io is a free multiplayer drawing and guessing game that can accommodate up to 12 players. One game consists of 2+ rounds in which every round someone has to draw their chosen word and others have to guess it to gain points. The person with the most points at the end of game will then be crowned as the winner!
Players: Up to 12

You can customize skibbl.io by selecting how many rounds you want the game to have, adjusting the drawing time anywhere between 30 seconds to 3 minutes, and by entering custom words.

Gartic.io

Similar to Skribbl.io, in Gartic.io players take turns drawing and guessing based on prompts. Choose a prompt theme or create your own custom word bank. It also includes a chat room so players can chat while playing.

Players: 5-50

Quick Draw with Google

Can a neural network learn to recognize doodling? Help teach it by adding your drawings to the world’s largest doodling data set, shared publicly to help with machine learning research.

This is a fast and fun way to warm up with doodling and interact with AI at the same time. Players have 20 seconds to draw a prompt well enough for the AI to guess. At the end you can compare your doodles with that of others from around the world and see what the AI recognizes for each prompt.

Players: 1

Let’s Draw It

Let’s Draw.it has several fun drawing games, from a classic guess and draw game, a drawing contest, a tracing game called Draw Copy, and How to Draw (follow along to drawing videos made by other players).

My favorite is Draw Copy, a tracing game where players vote between two pictures to trace and then trace the winner. This is a relaxing drawing game that allows you to compare results and vote for your favorite. It has the added bonus of a download button so you can easily save your drawing as a png, svg, or svg animation.

More Drawing Games

• Drawasaurus.org
  • Players: 4-16

Classroom / Learning Ideas

• Art History – challenge players to recreate famous artworks and art styles
• Drawing Mode – add your own rules by challenging players to use a specific drawing method. Ex. Blind Contour, Continuous Line, Pointillism, Etc.

Have an idea or recommendation? Tell us in the comments!