Here's a novel twist on the more everyday Pictionary games. It's a game where players are drawing and trying to guess the word that the drawing represents but in It's a Balloon!? it's the guessers who are doing the drawing - following the verbal instructions they are given by another player.
This family-friendly 3-8 player game is played using dry-wipe boards and the supplied dry-wipe pens. These come repopulated with nine images but these are primarily only used as reference points so that, for example, the player trying to communicate a word instructs others to 'draw a straight line from the tip of the pencil to the handle of the umbrella'. The player giving the drawing instructions draws cards for the word they are trying to get the other players to guess and can choose between words that are 'easy' (1 point per correct guess) or 'hard' (2 points per correct guess). The guessers always score a point for a correct answer but players who guess correctly ahead of others take a marker than can give them bonus points.
It's a Balloon!? then is another Charades-style game from PD-Verlag, who brought us Pictures, which has become a popular staple at Board's Eye View. Designed by Mads Floe, It's a Balloon!? is super easy to teach and learn, so you can be up and running straight out of the box. The fun of this party game is in the confusion that almost inevitably flows from players giving and following instructions with less than perfect precision in the tight 90 seconds allowed by the sand timer.
There are strict rules about what instructions can be given (you can tell players to draw a straight or curved line but you can't, for example, ask them to draw a cylinder) but there is flexibility over interpreting correct guesses. The rules suggest, for example, that 'spectre' would be an acceptable answer for the word 'ghost', tho' they insist answers need to be appropriately specific: if the word on the card is 'toothbrush' then a player simply writing 'brush' shouldn't have that counted as a correct answer.