How to Play Homemade Pictionary | DIY Pictionary

Homemade Pictionary Game Tutorial

Pictionary is a great indoor board game to play on those cold, winter nights (or really any game-night!).

But what if you want to know how to play Pictionary without the game, board, or rules? Don’t worry, it’s very simple to make your own Homemade Pictionary game. What’s better is that you can personalize it anyway you want to. Not only is this a fun family game, but it’s also an awesome game to play at parties!

FYI- Pictionary has been around for over 3 decades. It was invented by Robert Angel and Gary Everson and was published by Angel Games, Inc. in 1985. In 1994 Hasbro bought it over and developed it to the game we play today. It’s a board game classic!

If you’ve never played Pictionary before, don’t worry! All you have to do is follow these easy Pictionary rules, and you’ll be ready to rumble. And because we love games so much, we’ve decided to show you how to make your own DIY Pictionary game to play at home, without the rules or board in these 12 simple steps.

Homemade Pictionary Setup

You will need a few friends to play with – Group-games.com suggests 3 or more people per team. Make sure each team has equal amounts of players, though! You will then also need a sketch pad and something to write or draw with. This is a game where we’re going to keep time, so it would be wise to get a stopwatch or a normal watch and keep it close.

How to Play Homemade Pictionary (DIY without the game board)

1. Create your categories and words
   • First, you will need to make a few note cards with the topics on that you’re going to play with. These cards will be drawn and teammates will have to guess what’s written on it.
   • To get you started, here are 290 hand-selcted Pictionary word ideas from easy, medium, and hard word categories
   • The number of cards you make will depend on how many people are playing. Shuffle these cards properly before starting.
   • Or you can use a game word generator to do it for you like the one we created below:
     https://gameonfamily.com/game-word-generator/
2. Divide into at least 2 teams of 2 or more
   You will need a few friends to play with – Group-games.com suggests 3 or more people per team and I like to divide into additional teams when I hit 5 people per team. Make sure each team has equal amounts of players, though!
3. Set the scoring goal
   • Ten points seems to be a good scoring goal as it usually lasts 25-30 minutes. As a rule of thumb, multiply the # of points by 2.5 for the length of the tame.
   • Note: to speed up the game, you can allow multiple cards to be drawn (see “Variations” section below)
4. Get your drawing supplies and timer in place
   • You will then also need a sketch pad or whiteboard, and something to write or draw with. As long as as it’s big enough that everyone can see the drawing board, you’re fine. If you have to order in advance, we like this tabletop whiteboard, or this paper easel.
   • This is a game where we’re going to keep time, so it would be wise to get a stopwatch or a normal watch and keep it close.
5. Pick a team to go first
   • It always adds a little fun to roshambo (Rock-Paper-Scissors) to decide which team goes first, but you can decide however you want (flip a coin, team with the oldest/youngest player, etc).
6. Choose the first person to draw
   • The team who goes first will decide on a player to draw for the entire round.
7. Set the timer to 30 seconds
   • When he or she is ready, the timer will be set to 30 seconds.
8. Start the round
   • Announce the category and then start the timer.
   • The player must then draw the word on the card on the sketch pad. The teammates must then work together in order to guess what the sketcher is drawing.
9. Follow the rules
   • The person who is drawing may not make any sounds or make any hand gestures. He or she may also not draw pictures with any numbers or letters.
10. Score 1 point for a correct guess
    • Once a team guesses the word correctly within 30 seconds, they receive a point. If they don’t guess correctly, they receive 0 points fo the round.
11. Rotate teams until the scoring goal is met
    • As described above, you can decide on a score up to which teams can play, for example 10. The first team to reach 10 will be the winner.
12. Play multiple “best of” games
    • To extend play, you can choose to play more than 1 game. For example, best 2 out of 3 games, best 3 out of 5 games, etc.

Pictionary Game Variations

Multi-words per round
It can be fun to allow the “sketcher” to draw more cards if they answer correctly and continue until their time runs out. When playing this way, we recommend:

• Extend the timer from 30 seconds to 1-2 minutes
• If correct, score a point and draw the next card
• The “drawer” may pass on any word, but if she doesn’t go back to the word during the round and get it correct, it’s -1 point for every passed card that’s remaining.

Special Categories
This is a great game to play with families during the holidays. Set up a Pictionary tournament and play teams off against each other until the ‘final’. For your note cards, choose words that relate to the holiday for a festive touch (ex. Thanksgiving: Pumpkin, Turkey, Cranberries, Pilgrims)!

Choose your own words
To make it even more interesting, let each team be responsible for a topic each, and choose words related to those categories. It will turn the game into an unexpected challenge!

Pictionary Video Tutorial

Watch this video to see how 4 kids play their version of DIY pictionary!