Pictionary without a scorekeeper: Teamzy balances the teams and keeps the wins
Teamzy draws teams balanced by level, you pick the winning team at the end, and the app keeps the match in the history. Over your game nights, you see who really wins most often among friends.
Pictionary rules in 30 seconds
Pictionary is Mattel's drawing game, played in two teams around a board. On each turn, a drawer from the team (the rulebook calls them the Picturist) has one minute, the time of a sand timer, to get teammates to guess the word on a card, without talking, miming, letters or numbers. Word guessed in time: the team rolls the die, moves its piece and keeps the turn. On an All Play square, both teams draw the same word at the same time, and the first to guess it takes the die. To win, a team must reach the Finish square, then guess the last word. There are no points: the first team to guess the last word from the Finish square wins, and there is never a tie.
How a game of Pictionary ends
There is nothing to count: nobody scores points, you move your piece along the board. The game has two stages. First you advance, one guessed word at a time: each word guessed in time earns a roll of the die. Then, once on the Finish square (no exact roll needed), the last word is an All Play: both teams draw it at the same time, and the team on the Finish square wins on the spot if it guesses first, with the die in hand. If the other team guesses before it, that team takes the die but does not win, and play goes on. In Teamzy there is nothing to enter either way: you pick the winning team.
How the game ends, as Teamzy explains it
| What counts | Points |
|---|---|
| Reach the finish and guess the last word | win |
| Word guessed in time | roll the die |
| Tie | never |
A night with four friends, two balanced teams, one win
Lucas, Emma, Hugo and Léa make four. Each has a level at Pictionary in Teamzy, from 1 to 5 stars. The app draws two teams balanced by level, so that the two teams' totals are as close as possible: the Eagles (Lucas, Hugo) against the Tigers (Emma, Léa). Each team has its own piece on the board, and for each word one player of the team draws while the others guess.
- 1The teams take turns. The drawer turns the sand timer and has one minute to get the word on the card across to their team, without talking, miming, letters or numbers. Lucas manages it in time for the Eagles: they roll the die, move their piece and keep the turn, with a different drawer for the next word. Then Hugo does not manage it: the sand timer runs out and the die goes to the Tigers, who begin their turn by taking a card, without rolling.
- 2The Tigers guess their word, roll the die and land on an All Play square: Emma and Lucas draw the same word at the same time, each for their own team. Hugo guesses first: the Eagles roll the die and move, even though it was the Tigers who landed on the square.
- 3A little later, the die has come back to the Tigers, who reach the Finish square, with no need for an exact roll. The last word is an All Play too: Léa and Hugo draw it at the same time, and Lucas guesses first. The Eagles take the die, but the Tigers have not lost: a team on the Finish square only wins the last word if it holds the die. The Eagles roll, move to an ordinary square and do not get their next word across in time: the die goes back to the Tigers.
- 4The Tigers begin their turn by taking a card, without rolling. They are still on the Finish square, so the word is an All Play again. Emma draws and Léa guesses first, with the die in her team's hands: the Tigers win.
The Tigers win: the Finish square reached, then the last word guessed first, with the die in hand. The Eagles had guessed the first last word, but it only gave them the die, not the win, since they were not on the Finish square. There are no points, and never a tie.
In Teamzy, on the match screen, mark the Tigers as the winners, then save the match: it joins the history with its winning team. "Save and play again" saves it the same way and sets up the rematch with the same teams. Before tonight, 4 matches had already been played with the same teams: each team had won 2 of them. With this one, the game details show 5 matches and, under "The best", Emma and Léa lead with 3 wins ("3 W · 60%"), then Hugo with 2 wins (40%); Lucas, tied with Hugo, is in "See the full leaderboard". Teamzy draws the teams, remembers every match and keeps the count for you: all you have to do is play.
The questions that come up at the table
You have to reach the Finish square of the board, then guess the last word. You move up word by word: each word drawn and guessed in time earns a roll of the die. At the finish, the last word is played as an All Play: the first team to guess it, with the die in hand, wins the game. In Teamzy, you pick the winning team on the match screen: the match joins the history and the leaderboard.
The classic Pictionary rules on Mattel's website (in English)The game does not end on arrival: a team that reaches the Finish square (no exact roll is needed, you can go past it) still has a word to guess. That last word is an All Play: both teams draw the same word at the same time, and the team on the Finish square wins if it guesses first while holding the die. If the other team guesses before it, that team takes the die, rolls and moves, but the team on the Finish square does not win: it has to win the die back to try again. If nobody guesses before the sand timer runs out, the die goes to the other team.
If the word is not guessed within the minute, the die goes to the other team, and each team stays on its square. The team that gets the die begins its turn by taking a card, without rolling: the die is only rolled after a word guessed in time or, on an All Play, by the team that guesses first. The square the piece is on gives the category of the word to draw, and the drawer changes with every word.
They draw without talking, miming, using letters or numbers, or marking dashes to count the letters of the word. The rest is allowed: drawing anything that recalls the word, however loosely, breaking it into syllables, or drawing a word that sounds the same (a sea to get "see" guessed). Whether a close answer counts ("bike" for "bicycle") is something to settle together before you start.
No. You do not score points: you move your piece, and the game stops as soon as a team guesses the last word from the Finish square. That is why Teamzy has no score sheet for this game: you pick the winning team at the end, and the app counts each person's wins in the leaderboard. There is never a tie.
In Mattel's classic edition and in Pictionary Junior, the ending is the same: the Finish square, then the last word played as an All Play. The brand's other boxes play differently: Pictionary Air counts points and the best team wins, Pictionary Mania follows a path of tiles and is won with three of the five tiles in the Winner's Circle, and Pictionary Frame Game gives the win to the first team to collect five cards, including at least one from each category. Teamzy follows the classic board game, in two teams, like the box: you simply pick the winning team.
The Pictionary Junior rules on Mattel's website (in English)Give each mate a Pictionary level, from 1 to 5 stars, then choose "Balanced by level" before you generate. Teamzy splits the players into two teams whose levels add up as close as possible, so that one team of born artists does not crush the other; if several splits are equally good, it picks one at random, and "Reshuffle" offers another. The balanced draw is part of Premium (one-time purchase): without it, the teams are drawn at random. Teamzy sets up a match from 4 players, always in two teams.
With Teamzy: save each Pictionary match with its teams and its winning team. The game details and the leaderboard show the mates who win most, with their number of wins and their win rate, and each mate's sheet traces their matches.
Your next Pictionary game, with fair teams and a leaderboard
Draw balanced teams, pick the winning team, carry on with "Save and play again", find your matches in the history and see who wins most often among friends. Free to start, Premium as a one-time purchase, no account and no ads.
