Review of Family Edition Pictionary Board Game by Mattel.So much FUN!

Photo showing us having a family game of Pictionary Family Edition  at Christmas.

Mattel kindly sent me and my family a couple of board games to review over Christmas. (I am so sorry Mattel for the delay in writing up the reviews of the games.)  I have just written up the review for Scrabble Trickster (which we love!) and you can read that here.


Photo of Pictionary Family Edition by Mattel

The other game that was sent to us was the new Family Edition of Pictionary which was released to celebrate 25 years of Pictionary. This edition is different from Classic Pictionary as it comes with two sets of cards. One set is for kids to draw from and the other set is for adults to draw from.  I loved the fact that you get separate sets of cards for the little ones and the big kids adults as it means the whole family can truly play the game together. I feel the new edition of the Pictionary is successful in it’s aim to get kids and adults to play together side by side. Everyone enjoyed the game when we played it over the Christmas break and now Easter is coming up we will be playing it again. As I mentioned in my review of Scrabble Trickster, board games always remind me of happy childhood memories of family holidays in our tourer caravan as we would always go away for School Holidays – be it Christmas, Easter or the 6 weeks holiday.  We have always had Pictionary at home and I have grown up playing it.  My daughter is 20 months old and I hope that she too will now grow up playing it thanks to the Family Edition that was sent to me.

Photo of Pictionary Family Edition by Mattel



I feel that Pictionary is not only fun but also educational. I say this as when a child comes across a word they don’t understand on one of the cards they will ask you what it means and this gives you an opportunity to teach them the meaning but in a fun environment. Also, a teeny bit of skill is needed in drawing the clues in Pictionary…something me and my family lack! But this only adds to the fun and laughter of playing the game. This is why you play these kind of family board games…for entertainment and Pictionary definitely gives you that. It is always so much fun to shout out what you think someone is trying to draw on the notepad and then when they tell you what it was …you can gasp in disbelief and think…How on earth was that supposed to be….say, for example…a Horse!?!

In the first photo in this review you will see a photo of us playing the game over Christmas. You can tell it is Christmas by the lovely, tasty TIN of Cadbury’s Roses Chocolates in the corner of the the shot! Had it been a box of Roses you may not have guessed it was Christmas but with a tin you KNOW it is!  For me Christmas is all about the over indulgence in chocolate and excessive playing of board games. As a family we will sit for hours playing board games and eating too much chocolate…that is good old family life and what I want my daughter to come to treasure as she grows up.


Photo of Pictionary Family Edition by Mattel



I love the fact that board games can bring a family together and Pictionary is a prime example of a Classic Family Game. If you have never played Pictionary before the aim of the game is that you divide into teams and then one person in the team tries to draw what is written on the card and the rest of the team guess as they draw. There is a timer but we don’t tend to use it too much as we are not very good at drawing and guessing quickly…we more tend to scream out random guesses until we either get it right or give up! We also don’t always play the game properly by splitting up into teams…sometimes we just get the cards out and attempt drawing the words and everyone guessing at the same time.  There is a board that the teams progress around with counters as correct guesses are accumulated.  The game is aimed at people aged 8 years plus and it says you can have 4 – 8 players. We have always managed to play with just 2 of us…we just forego using the board and just guess each other’s sketches. It is just as much fun in my opinion.

The cards have 5 different categories of words on them and they are as follows:-

 Object, Person/Place/Animal,Action,Difficult and Miscellaneous.

Each card is double sided and there are 5 different words (one from each category) on each side.  This equals hours of sketching fun!

Here is an example of some words from a child’s card:-

It’s Hot (This is the theme of the card)

  1. The Sun – Object
  2. Match – Person/Place/Animal
  3. Oven – Action
  4. Steam-Difficult
  5. Fire-Miscellaneous

Here is an example of some words from an adult’s card:-

There is no theme written on the adult cards.

  1. Iron – Object
  2. Home Office – Person / Place/ Animal
  3. Protect – Action
  4. Jigsaw Puzzle – Difficult
  5. Halloween – Miscellaneous



Photo of cards in Pictionary Family Edition by Mattel



It seems looking at those examples above that some of the categories can be a bit confusing because unless I’m being silly I can’t see how Match equals a person/place/animal or how Oven equals an action? But I don’t really think the categories matter…as long as you understand what the word means to attempt to sketch it then you’ll be fine.



Here are the Dos and Don’ts of the game:-

You Can….

  • draw anything related to the word, no matter how tenuous the link
  • break words down into a number of syllables
  • draw “dock” for doc” or “flu” for “flue”

You Cannot…

  • use “ears” for “sounds like”or dashes to show the number of letters in the word (I’m afraid we sometimes cheat and don’t follow this rule!)
  • use letters or numbers (oh dear…sometimes we don’t follow this one either!)
  • speak to your teammates (Now we definitely don’t do this…we SHOUT at each other! Trying to find out more clues other than the sketches!)
  • use sign language (WE FAIL….we tend to do all of the cannot rules but still have enormous amounts of fun and still only guess correctly half the time…even when cheating. after all…Some rules are made to be broken, aren’t they? )



Photo of components of Pictionary Family Edition by Mattel



In conclusion, if you are looking for a fun way to keep the whole family entertained this Easter or during any school holidays then I recommend you buy this game. There are many online stockists of Pictionary Family Edition and it is also widely available on the high street. One stockist I have found is Toys R Us and they sell it for £19.95 with £4.95 postage. They may not necessarily be the cheapest though…if you do a quick Google search you can compare the prices.

Photo of Pictionary Family Edition by Mattel

2 thoughts on “Review of Family Edition Pictionary Board Game by Mattel.So much FUN!

  1. Big Bear & Little Sushi

    Hi, firstly thanks for the review, i found it very helpful. I just have one more question for u, i dont have kids, but i really wanna buy pictionary to play with friends, (im 20+ btw), do you reckon i should buy this edition or the classic version. Because this one is actually on sale in my country, but i’m afraid i won’t be using any of the kids’ cards and the adults cards are not enough…hope to hear from you soon. thanks 🙂

    Reply
  2. My Mummy Reviews

    Hi…Thanks so much for your comment. I would personally go ahead and buy the family edition that is on sale. I think there are still plenty of adult cards for you to play with and even though you may think you will not play with the kids cards…you may surprise yourself. They are a little easier to draw but no easier to make people guess correctly. The words are just easier for children to understand ‘how’ to possibly draw them.

    Have a lovely weekend.
    Kind regards…My Mummy Reviews

    Reply

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