Like a gazillion others, I quickly jumped in the DrawSomething bandwagon and had a good laugh at my total lack of artistic talent. It’s simplicity does have an immediate appeal and is good fun. $200M can’t be wrong, right? Because it’s so simple and because, initially at least, it’s a lot of fun, you can easily see who it spread virally so quickly and got attention with people with money to burn.

I’m still playing it now, but with less gusto as each day passes. I have a few complaints. To be honest, they’re fairly minor and probably fairly particular to me ( my daughter loves it unequivocally ).

DrawSomething - it's very popular y'know

DrawSomething - it's very popular y'know

Anyway, here’s why I think it’s boring:

Anagrams

If, like me, you play Words With Friends a lot,  you get used to staring at lines of letters and working out words. Because of this, DrawSomething isn’t a drawing game. In about 75% of cases, I’ve guessed the word before the drawing has even really started. Which is a shame, as most of the fun comes from watching your opponent struggling to draw Lady Gaga. But the drawing is just a clue to help you solve the anagram. Which isn’t really the point and makes it too easy. My wife and I have only ever started one game and never failed to guess (although familial familiarity does help). A small annoyance is that, when you get beyond a streak of 99, it sticks on 99. No idea how many we’re at now.

This is, of course, easily solved. Have an option to play the game thus: leave the number of letters, take away the letters themselves and force the opponent to actually work it out without solving an anagram.

In-App Chat

The most fun I get from Words with Friends is patting @andrewburnett on the back via chat for rude words. DrawSomething really needs the same. Obviously, most of the chat will be “WTF is that?” but that will be a lot more fun. If it’s a social app, it needs to have interaction and not, as I’ve done a few times, drawn on the screen ( once in a hilarious incident with @Sheamus  ).

That’s it, that’s all it needs to be less boring. Not that it really matters, I paid my 69p – my job in the mobile economy is done. Whether I keep playing or not is, perhaps, somewhat irrelevant.

I’m sure this will happen in future versions, it’s not like it’s non-obvious,

So, not only did I invent Angry Birds, I’ve now improved DrawSomething. Go me.

Definitely a Friday kinda post. Next week, the logic and philosophy and Wittgenstein.

EDIT : So there is a new version, what amazing influence this blog has. I’ve not played with the new features yet (coz I’m bored with it ) but, from what I’ve heard, they should help a lot.