Game: Portrayal

Thread: Re: Portrayal Availability?

dshortdesign — 2008-05-14T16:26:54+00:00

I believe I got it for $25.99. Not a bad price for a FLGS.

It's definitely a great game. Everyone that has played it with me loves it!

Thread: Portrayal My review

donpaulo — 2008-05-14T13:31:52+00:00

Well for starters I sent an email to Bill Jacobson over at Braincog inquiring about shipping prices to Japan. Bill was not only professional but a pleasure to deal with. Big thumbs up on the care and handling of the game. Thanks Bill.

So I heard about the game from Scott Nicholson and thought it would be a nice tool for my upper level ESL classes.

I wasn't disappointed ~!

Components.
I won't go into detail about the timer, but now we use a sandclock which is not only more reliable but more fun to watch. I suggest future versions of the game go with the low tech option of sand. Add a dollar or two to the price of the game if you need to, its well worth the "extra" cost.

The game comes with a large stack of black and white pictures printed on good quality card stock. The pictures are clear and easy to see. There are also a varied number of numbered "bullet" points which are listed on the bottom of the cards. They were also easy to read, although the vocabulary was a bit tough for some of my lower level students. No problem there as it presented an opportunity to learn what words such as Canvas, Visible and Invisible meant.

The game also comes with a large number of player scoring cards. I felt that while its great to have the scoring cards, the drawing area provided was a bit scanty and added a significant amount of weight to the game box. My class used notebook paper and in fact I haven't used one set of scoring papers yet with about 10 games played so far.

I would have preferred to have had more pictures to play with. I guess I will have to wait for the "expansion" set. Right Bill ?

The "art" sleeve is well glued and fits the picture well.

Further the box seals very well and in fact requires a certain manual dexterity to "wrench" open. No major complaints there, although I don't use the box at all as I need to save space in my bag for books and other materials. The art cards and art sleeve are very compact. I would suggest the game include some sort of bag that would allow easy transport of just the cards without the worry of bent edges.

I would also suggest a few blank art cards... so you can add your own.

The game comes with a 10 sided die, but mine had a slight wear on the edge thus tweaking its effectiveness. No worries as I have plenty of 10 sided dice but I can see it would be an issue for someone who wishes to strictly adhere to the rules and doesn't have an extra 10 sider hanging around.

overall components B-

Game play

In a word ? Outstanding. We played this game in approx 10 different classes over the period of a week and it was a big hit.

Here in Japan there is an issue with shyness and folks just being plain old quiet. After a round of two of this game, this was not an issue. Students who rarely if ever speak without being called on where laughing and cheering when they received a point. (here in japan we say "YA-TA" which basically translates to hooray) Anyway there were plenty of YATA's going around. Smiles, laughing, giggling.

There was a little confusion when they didn't understand a word, but what I found surprising is that many of the higher level students actually explained the word in question to the lower level students. In my classes this is often never seen. Students frequently seek their electronic dictionaries when they cannot understand a word. To see students helping other students was very encouraging.

It really was a team building experience, on top of being fun and entertaining. I think there is a lot of room to expand this product for use as a training tool in addition to its already prevalent fun factor.

I used a variety of methods to rotate game play. Whomever had the most points, a straight rotation, rolling of a die. All went over well.

An improvement I would suggest would be for the pictures to be rated from easier to more difficult. Some of the students stared at their cards and had a very hard time describing things, while others had no problem. Clearly some of the cards are more difficult than others. I have gone through the deck of art cards and placed them into two separate piles. (easy and challenging)

Overall game play ? A

So how do I feel about this game ?

Its very enjoyable and a solid game overall. I use quite a few games to facilitate English conversation in class including but not limited to Apples to Apples, Attribute, Pictionary and Wits and Wagers. Portrayal will play an important part of my lesson plans in the future.

I will probably end up making a series of my own cards that improve targeted vocabulary and are ranked in difficulty. Its very important to have leveled cards for different level speakers... obviously not so important for native speakers.

Portrayal is well worth buying. I suggest you buy one from Braincog pronto. Tell em scott nicholson did them a solid, I know I did.

Thread: Re: Portrayal Availability?

medievalbanquet — 2008-05-12T01:54:49+00:00

How much did you pay for it David?

Thread: Re: Portrayal Availability?

dshortdesign — 2008-03-31T20:36:13+00:00

Interesting. I just checked Boardgameprices.com again and it still only shows one site that carries it. What sites did you find it at, Jim, and do you have a theory on why those sites aren't showing up on Boardgameprices.com?

Anyway, I did manage to buy a copy at a store when I was on vacation, so I don't need a copy anymore, but I am still confused on why the availibility is so haywire.

Thread: A great game of FUN, LAUGHTER, and ...... ARGUING!!!

darthpilgrim — 2008-03-30T02:53:33+00:00

First...

For an excellent written review of how the mechanics of this game play, see Tom Vasel's review.
For an excellent video review on how to play this game, see Scott Nicholson's review.

OUT OF THE BOX PROBLEMS AND COMPLAINTS:

THE TIMER: This thing is a piece of junk! (Atleast mine is and so was T. Vasel's arcording to his review.) It comes with two batteries in the timer and two extra ones. That sounds great right? But it didn't work out of the box and when you read the directions they actually tell you that it might not work out of the box. So after a change of batteries...it still didn't work! In fact, I had to fool with the thing for over ten minutes before it finally wanted to work. It did work well (eventually) but still seems flimsy and cheap.

THE INSERT: It holds everything great but it has these huge extra dishes on both sides of the insert that would hold your Power Grid pieces perfectly, but nothing goes in them. I think they could have cut the size of the box in half. (Minor complaint)

GAME PLAY 1 - FUN AND LAUGHTER:

My family is a big fan of drawing games. We own several games where drawing is the main ... uh hum...draw of the game. But they're all similar...you draw, someone guesses. The main point of this game has you discribing a cartoon while others draw it, then you score points for meeting certain criteria that was unknown to the artist or the discriber. Very different from pictionary style games.

And yes, it's very fun. I still havn't decided if I like drawing or discribing the best. One of the great aspects is that everyone (except the describer) is drawing at the same time and drawing the same thing. So when the timer is up (90 seconds), you get to see all the drawings and die laughing at the funny looking people and creatures on there pads. Even if you're a half decent artist, it won't mater b/c you're having to draw so much in so little time even a professional would be drawing stick figures.

GAME PLAY 2 - LET THOSE TEMPERS FLY:

So yes, I'm fairly new to this side of board gaming but I've been an avid board and card player my whole life, and never, ever, have I played a game that causes more arguing. Why?
When you're finished your drawing you pass it to the person next to you to grade. Let the first round of cat scratching begin!
* You know you drew 3 smiley faces on the guys shirt, they're there but a little on the "weak" side, your "judge" doesn't think you should be awarded the point, you do. So you go to everyone else to see what they say and let the claws come out! * What? Everyone drew the sun on the left and the point is awarded if the sun is on the right? But the judge swears he said the sun was on the right, why did everyone hear left? Let's argue it!
I mean, every picture had atleast two people arguing about something! It was crazy! One of our players actually got so upset they decided to stop playing and in this persons defense, they've NEVER gotten upset over a game before.

MY THOUGHTS:
DESPITE the arguing, the game is still a lot of fun. Not all the disagreements were "never gonna talk to ya again" disagreements. I think this game is going to see a lot of play of the next few game nights. I actually hope they put out new cartoons b/c once you've gone through all 100 or so picture cards you'll be done and I've already went through about 25 of them.
I would love to see them come out with actual photos that you have to describe and have people draw.

FINALLY TALLY
7.5

Thread: Re: Portrayal Availability?

darthpilgrim — 2008-03-30T02:05:34+00:00

I'd love to see a game store that can carry every game! I can't get my 2 local game stores to carry Shadows Over Camelot. Anyway, i just ordered this game through Thought Hammer but b/f I did I located it on several online gaming stores.

Thread: Re: Portrayal Availability?

troubadour27 — 2008-03-13T02:25:45+00:00

David - I'm having the same problem by my Game Store doesn't carry it either. I've got to ask if they can order.

Thread: Re: Portrayal Availability?

Zambo — 2008-02-21T00:54:02+00:00

Our game store has never had a problem carrying it.

Thread: Portrayal Availability?

dshortdesign — 2008-02-21T00:47:50+00:00

Does anyone know what the deal is with Portrayal being in such limited release? I mean Amazon.com doesn't even recognize its existence and boardgameprices.com lists only one website that carries it. One?!! I don't understand. Someone please enlighten me.

Thank you.

David

Image

bjhendricks — 2008-02-16T23:39:28+00:00

Results of our first round - this is the same card used in Board Games with Scott video review

Thread: Re: Video exploration and review

asgelb — 2008-02-02T23:06:57+00:00

I agree..this is a great, fun game perfect to play over dessert or coffee with family or friends.

I would LOVE to see an expansion set released, and/or maybe it could come with a little dry erase pen and placard so that players could draw their own picture and criteria to have players try out!

Thread: Re: [Review] Portrayal

JohnnyDollar — 2008-01-16T05:11:59+00:00

TomVasel wrote:

Sometimes one of the criterion is something that nobody was expecting to have to explain, such as a certain part of the drawing is bigger than another part. However, a lot of the criterion on the cards is similar to other cards; so as players get more familiar with the game, they start to automatically tell what part of the canvas each figure is on, how big everything is, how many there are, what facing the figures are in, etc. So in this regard, the player who goes last might have a bit of an advantage.

What about a beginner variant game, where the "describer" doesn't get points, only the "drawers"? That way the describers who go last won't have the familiarity advantage.

Thread: Re: Video exploration and review

snicholson — 2007-12-30T18:30:24+00:00

For some reason, the Internet Archive server where the files are kept are down.

I hope this is fixed soon, but if not, then I'll have to figure out something else.

EDIT - It looks OK now. Holiday issues, perhaps?

Also, I put up a new file which should go on to a video ipod just fine. I'm still hammering out the kinks on my new system.

Thread: Re: Video exploration and review

mbrna — 2007-12-29T06:01:21+00:00

Braincog wrote:
delirimouse wrote:
How do you feel about there being only 120 cards? Does that seem like too few? That's only three hours of "drawing".

DISCLAIMER: Answer from the game designer and I'm not biased at all!
...it is definitely true that once you play a card you won't likely want to play it again.

Sounds like an excellent opportunity to offer expansion sets of cards!

mike.

Thread: Re: Video exploration and review

Braincog — 2007-12-28T16:57:40+00:00

delirimouse wrote:
How do you feel about there being only 120 cards? Does that seem like too few? That's only three hours of "drawing".

DISCLAIMER: Answer from the game designer and I'm not biased at all!

Assuming you play with six people total, you will go through six cards (maybe one more for practice or whatever) per game that will take about 30 minutes. So it is reasonable to expect that you will get about 17-20 "plays" out the game for a total of 8.5-10 hours before seeing a card you've already played.

That said, it is definitely true that once you play a card you won't likely want to play it again. Even after months and months, you will probably remember enough about the image and the criteria to get a couple extra points if you want to cheat. :-)

Thread: Re: Video exploration and review

mbrna — 2007-12-28T14:38:28+00:00

Great Review, Scott!

I played along (excellent idea, btw) and scored 3.

One thing I noticed is that all I could muster
were stick figures. The 90 second time limit
meant there was not much chance of drawing any
detail. Do you find that to be the case when
you play with other folks? Do people become
frustrated enough to stop playing?

Do you think another 30 secs would make this
a more (or less) enjoyable game?

Thanks again for the review!
mike.

ps. I notice this one isn't formatted to go
directly to my iPod. I only mention it because
the rest of the videos you have done went to
my iPod just fine. iTunes will convert the video
for my iPod, but its a step your other shows
didn't require. Thought you might be interested
in case you changed something on your end.

Thread: Re: Video exploration and review

snicholson — 2007-12-27T11:54:30+00:00

tritone wrote:
I'm not able to view this video today. It is also appears to be missing from the "High Quality QuickTime" link of http://www.archive.org/download/bgws_044/bgws_044_hq.mov. Probably just a temporary problem... maybe it will fix itself? I tried several browsers.

Hmm. Looks like the host (Internet Archive) had a little too much egg nog for Christmas. Looks OK now.

Thread: Re: Video exploration and review

tritone — 2007-12-26T23:36:13+00:00

I'm not able to view this video today. It is also appears to be missing from the "High Quality QuickTime" link of http://www.archive.org/download/bgws_044/bgws_044_hq.mov. Probably just a temporary problem... maybe it will fix itself? I tried several browsers.

Thread: Re: Video exploration and review

delirimouse — 2007-12-26T22:56:34+00:00

Let's find out what Scott scored! I did horribly though, I only got criterions 2, 3, and 5. Somehow I completely missed that there was a sun. I should have started closer to the bottom, I ran out of room for the ballerina's head (hence her pupils weren't visible). I drew my picture on one of those little dry erase boards that are a dollar at your local office supply store.

Also, another great episode Scott! I think the boyfriend would like this one a fair bit. How do you feel about there being only 120 cards? Does that seem like too few? That's only three hours of "drawing".

Thread: Video exploration and review

snicholson — 2007-12-26T12:21:26+00:00

As an episode of Board Games with Scott, I did a 13-minute video all about Portrayal.

You can see this video at
http://www.boardgameswithscott.com/?p=77

Thread: [Review] Portrayal

TomVasel — 2006-08-13T13:14:10+00:00

As I prepare for yet another year of school, one of the biggest problems that I know that I'll deal with is following the directions. Or to rephrase, my students will most likely have that problem; as no matter what I say or write on tests, someone is bound to do it differently, causing trouble both for myself and them. Portrayal (Braincog Inc., 2005 - William Jacobson and Amanda Kohout) is a game in which players must give clear directions, and follow the directions of others as they draw pictures. While drawing is the major focus of the game, it's not how well one draws, but if one draws correctly.

I'm always willing to play a game involving pictures that doesn't require artistic skill, since I have none. Portrayal has hilarious pictures that must be described to others. There are a lot of fun moments in the game - especially when the picture (which is almost always ridiculous) is shown to the "artists" and compared with their work. There were times, however, in which the game felt like work instead of fun. Since the game doesn't last that long, and the pictures are funny, I'll certainly hang on to my copy; but the game won't be for everyone.

Each player is given a pad of paper, with one person chosen to be the first Portrayer. The Portrayer shuffles a deck of scene cards and places it face down on the table, drawing the top one and placing it in a concealment folder so that only the picture is seen. The Portrayer announces the title of the scene and rolls a ten-sided die, to see which of the ten questions about the picture will be the "golden criterion", with players circling the number rolled on their pads. A ninety second time is started, and the first round begins.

In a round, the Portrayer must describe the scene to the other players, who draw it at the same time. They can say anything they want but may not show the picture, look at player's drawings, make hand gestures, or answer questions from the players. This continues until time runs out, at which point all other players should pass their drawing to another player to evaluate it. The Portrayer pulls the card out of the folder and reads each of the criterion on it, one at a time - with players marking checkboxes on the pads "yes" or "no", depicting whether the artist got it correct or not. Examples of criterion from a card include:
- The man is facing the left side of the canvas.
- The man is standing in a sandbox.
- A truck in the sandbox is to the left of the man.
- There are at least four toys in the sandbox.
- The man's shoes do not have any laces visible.
- One end of the golf club is above the man's head.
After all ten criterions have been read, players total the number of "yes" checks on the sheet and award one point for each one, with three points if the player got the "golden criterion" correct. The Portrayer gets one point for each question that at least one person did correctly, for a maximum of ten points.

All pictures are then shown, with everyone laughing at how the ones drawn look nothing like the original. The next round then begins, with the player to the Portrayer's left becoming the new Portrayer and drawing a new card. Play continues until each player has had the chance to be the Portrayer once. At this point the game ends, with the player who has the most points becoming the winner!

Some comments on the game…

1.) Components: Portrayal comes in a big sturdy box, which is probably a bit too big, but does hold everything tightly in a plastic insert. The box art is a bit abstract and wasn't too my tastes, but the artwork on the cards themselves was great (a lot of it coming from www.clipart.com). The cards themselves were long and slid easily into the envelope. The pads, of which many sheets are generously provided, have two squares on them - for the two pictures, with a nice series of checkboxes below - including one on each page for the Portrayer. If a player keeps their sheets together, totaling their final score should be rather simple. I was a little displeased by the push button timer in my game, as it didn't work - we substituted another for the game, but it could have been a fluke game that I received. Six full-sized pencils and pads are included, along with over 100 picture cards.

2.) Rules: The rulebook is four pages of black-and-white rules, with tips and reminders included. I wonder who playtested the game, because there is a lot of room dedicated to resolving disputes amongst players during the scoring time. We never once had an argument in our games, as players knew if they had done something or not - and it was just a party game! But for those rules lawyers out there, don't worry, because the booklet covers all the different situations that might show up.

3.) Pictures: The pictures are silly and are often what I would call an "indescribable picture" - although this game proves otherwise. Occasionally we would draw the correct thing by accident; but more likely than not, if a player doesn't clearly explain how to draw the picture, players will get many of the criterion incorrect. Some of the pictures make me wonder about the mental state of the artist, but that's all part of the fun of the game! Artistic skill counts for nothing; because if I draw a stick figure with a sword, that's a knight - and passes the criterion.

4.) Time: The ninety seconds included is plenty of time to allow players to completely describe the picture. I look at it as more of a way to keep the game moving, as very few Portrayers were disappointed because their time ran out. The pictures are usually fairly simple, with only a few figures on each - with several details, of course - but nothing that most people can't describe quickly. Since each player's turn takes about three or four minutes, a six player game is less than half an hour, keeping the game time to a reasonable length.

5.) Directions: Sometimes one of the criterion is something that nobody was expecting to have to explain, such as a certain part of the drawing is bigger than another part. However, a lot of the criterion on the cards is similar to other cards; so as players get more familiar with the game, they start to automatically tell what part of the canvas each figure is on, how big everything is, how many there are, what facing the figures are in, etc. So in this regard, the player who goes last might have a bit of an advantage. More importantly, I think that Portrayal makes an excellent tool for teenagers to teach them to both accurately describe something and to follow directions carefully.

6.) Fun Factor: Much of the fun in the game comes from the silly pictures and the even sillier ones that folks draw. It is a game in which players are straining to hear every word the Portrayer gives, and the stress level might be a bit higher than I would like for a party game. After a full round, I haven't had anyone want to play the game again, although all agreed that the game was fun. It's a little too much work, I think - but it is done in a fun way.

Portrayal is a change of pace, a game in which players with no artistic talents can draw and do well. I'm not sure it has a lot of staying power; I can see it coming out only every once in a while, but it is a great tool for kids - both educational and fun. Following directions is an important skill in life, and probably both the strongest (educational) and weakest (work) part of the game. If the above description sounds like something you'd love - pick it up, you'll probably have a lot of fun. Others, who don't like confusion and just want to play a funny game, may want to pass.

Tom Vasel
"Real men play board games"
www.tomvasel.com

Image

Braincog — 2006-07-16T16:55:43+00:00

Portrayal Components

Image

Braincog — 2006-02-16T21:49:03+00:00

Portrayal Box Bottom

Image

Braincog — 2006-02-16T21:46:34+00:00

Portrayal Box Top