Draw Something: The 'It' mobile game this week

If you haven't heard of Draw Something yet, we hope the box you're living in is extremely comfortable. This mobile game is the latest craze to have hit mobile phones, since Angry Birds and according to SFGate, it has more than 35 million people playing currently. This game is Zynga's wet dream, so much so that Zynga even bought the developer, OMGPOP for $210 million. The game is social, but has managed to round up some of the more anti social gamers I know. It started out as a Facebook game and made its way to mobile.

Design

The design of the game is very simple and aptly social gamey. The fonts are large, colours are bright and the package is one of all round fun. If you're playing the game on a phone, you'll find the drawing space to be a little annoyingly small and when you see a picture from someone else, the tile space sometimes covers up the lower section of the image. That being said, this app is awesome and at this point, I'm going to move on to gameplay to talk about why.

Your main menu

Gameplay

Draw Something essentially is a mobile version of Pictionary. The difference is, the gameplay is symbiotic. You basically create a game with someone you know by their username or by connecting to Facebook. You can also choose a person at random. The game begins when one of you has to draw. You will be provided with a choice of words to draw. The first one will be easy and if the other player guesses it right, then each of you gets a coin. The second word is medium and is worth two coins. And finally, the third word is difficult and is worth three coins. You choose which word you want to draw and you're taken to the drawing pad. You're provided with a pencil and four colours (black, red, yellow and blue) and you have to use those to draw words like "floss", "polkadot" and "bonfire". The number of tries to guess a word is unlimited, but if you want to give up, there is a 'Pass' button.

The Draw pad

After you finish, the other player has to guess the word. They have tile space and tiles to guess what the picture is. They also have a bomb that will remove tile options provided they are not in the word to be guessed. Once they guess right or they pass, it's their turn to draw. You keep building 'turns' with the same person and each time you've hit a higher turn than before, the app will tell you that your partnership has reached a new record.

To guess the word

Which brings me to the interesting part of this game. This game is symbiotic. Take the case of Farmville. It was Zynga's hit social game, which essentially made you compete against your own achievements. The incentive to compete was that you would get more resources to play with. Then take the case of Words With Friends. It's essentially mobile Scrabble played between two people. Both people are trying to get the Triple Word scores and block the other person. With Draw Something, it would have been so easy to make the game, so that it's competitive between two people and that is what one of the earlier versions of the game was. Rather, the game makes you partner up with the other player and play against yourself. If you guess what they draw, you both win coins. And vice versa. You're playing against yourself because you want to make your drawing better. For one, it helps your 'opponent' guess the word easier and you both get your coins. And more importantly, it's a show off factor to have been able to draw using your finger on a screen so well.

Symbiotic relationship: you both get the winnings

The game is insanely addictive and I find myself creating more and more games with random people just so I can keep playing. However, the gameplay is extremely conducive to cheating. That's if your writing is legible enough when you're dragging your finger across a screen. Think about it. The gameplay has you winning when you're opponent wins. There's no one to stop you from simply writing out the word, so you both rack up the coins. That's when you also have to ask yourself why you're playing.