Skribbl.io Tips

Skribbl.io is a multi-player competitive doodling & word guessing game with elements of Dumb Charades & Pictionary. 

Each game consists of about 3 rounds. In every round someone has to draw their chosen word and others have to guess it to gain points. 

When its your turn to draw, you have to choose a word (which can be a noun, verb or adjective) from three options and visualize that word in 80 seconds. Alternatively when somebody else is drawing you have to type your guess into the chat to gain points. The earlier you guess a word the more points you get. The person with the most points at the end of game will then be crowned as the winner.

As a long time doodler, I like how the game is designed.  As the game requires you to visualize a word and draw on the spot, it is a great fun test of creativity. It has helped me to imagine better and also appreciate how other competitors think and draw.

As a web developer, I admire how the minimalistic game is designed and built by seemingly a solo developer who identifies as "mel" and just provides a Twitter handle @ticedev by way of intro. The HTML source reveals that the site uses Bootstrap, jQuery, WebSockets

There is no sign-up or login & explicit tracking of history. As the Public Rooms are free-for-all with no moderation, some ill-behaving players may sometimes write or draw obscenities so this game is not for children (unless Private Room is used) or the easily offended.

Following are my learnings after playing this amazing online game on-and-off for two years (starting from the time the Covid lock-downs started) and generally being in the top 3 among anonymous global players -

1. Try, Fail, Practice - While words like tie or a cloud may be easy to draw and guess, how would you draw Shrek, Jackie Chan & Leonardo Di Caprio in a few minutes so that your co-players can guess what you're drawing? Everything is in the moment. The pace and unpredictability is what makes it thrilling for me. You will get words to draw like these that will throw you off balance. IMO, this is what makes the game challenging. Rather than get intimidated, it is a chance to get creative & think up the closest visualization on the fly.  I was impressed with one player who said he liked to draw the most difficult word among the 3 to test his skills. Draw whatever is the closest thing you can think of rather than just giving up. Even if you fail (without any consequence) in one instance, you'll know what you don't know. If you're serious about drawing, you can try drawing a better version later on your own and at your own pace. This will also prepare you for  future sessions in case the word comes up again.

If you need words that appeared on Skribbl.io for practice, here are two lists.

For practicing drawing skills, I like these resources -

• Quick, Draw! is an online game developed by Google that challenges players to draw a picture of an object or idea and then uses a neural network artificial intelligence to guess what the drawings represent. The AI learns from each drawing, increasing its ability to guess correctly in the future.
• AutoDraw pairs machine learning with drawings from talented artists to help you draw stuff fast.
• Emojis & Pictograms
• Picture Dictionary in Immersive Reader which Microsoft offers through Edge browser & its other personal computing products. 
  

2. Speed draw - When it is your turn to draw, the goal is to make the majority of the players (possibly from different parts of the globe) guess the word quickly. Draw the main parts first or get the basic shape, may be of a small size as you may not have time to fill all details. Use color (with a thin or thick tipped pen or bucket) to highlight a dominant aspect of the object or action represented by word. For instance, if you have to draw Superman, the blue dress & red cape are distinctive parts you can focus on. Use arrows to highlight  specific parts. 

3. Use your guessing skills - When it is your turn to guess a word, pay attention to the character count and occasional hints the game drops by filling one or two of the missing letters and you'll be able to crack it before a co-player finishes drawing or if the drawing is not decipherable. 

4. Learn from others - Gain a new perspective from someone who could be very different from you - in age, ethnicity, proficiency. I'm often amazed at how some players make use of stick figures, color & brushes to draw something meaningful in seconds. 

How do you pictorially represent "second"?

I was impressed with the creativity of a Skribbl player who drew a tri-level podium and highlighted the mid-level platform, all in a minute!

5. Respect your anonymous co-players & "kick" those who misbehave - I've got some good feedback on my doodles from kind people across the globe. Due to the anonymity provided by the platform, there are some bad apples who will use foul words & draw obscene pictures (genitals & such, not relevant to the game). They deserve to be kicked as they spoil the experience for everyone. Use the red thumbs-down and green thumbs-up icons that flash on the screen to provide feedback.

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Some Developer related info -

toubeh - The skribbl game code does not run in global scope. It's invoked in an IIFE, means it does not expose its variables to your user script scope. To access these variables you would have to modify the game.js and inject it instead the original script.