October's review for Asmodee Blogger Boardgame Club is a little late (sorry!), but earlier in the Autumn they sent us Picture Show: Shadow Charade Game for review. This is a great family game which doesn't involve writing clues, miming, drawing, or even acting - instead players use pre-cut magnetic shapes, a screen and lighting, and recreate their scenario, word or phrase using the medium of shadow puppetry.
Suitable for anyone aged over around 7, and 2 teams of 2-4 people each, or even more if you can fit them around the table, it's loads of fun!
Inside the box is everything you'll need except the batteries - 3 x AAA, and a crosshead screwdriver to fit them.
Before first play you'll need to allow 10 minutes to 'press out' all of the
magnetic shapes. Be careful because they are thick and well made, but some are
a little bit easy to bend, and you don't want to lose a foot.
Although you have to 'set up' the screen and lighting each time you play, it only takes a couple of minutes, it's nice and simple.
Before you start, shuffle the cards and decide whether you are going for Yellow, Red or Blue - we can't see any difference in difficulty, it all seems random. When you first start playing it's a lot fairer to allow people to just pick any. Once you have had a bit of practice, you'll be much better.
Each team takes turns for 1 player to 'act out' the words or scenarios on the card to their teammates. It's very funny. At first it can seem impossible, but then you start to remember what shapes are available, and you get better at making them perform as you wish - and you also get better at keeping your own arms out of the way!
You can either create a still image, or have some action involved. A scenario such as 'falling in love' for example benefits from swapping out figures with hearts etc. You only have 2 magnetic rods, and while you can place magnetic shapes together to create a new shape, or a man with a hat etc, you are still limited on what you can show at one time.
You are also limited by time! Each time your team correctly guess the answer,
you move to the next card. You may 'pass' once per round. The stage lights
start to flash when time is running out, which puts the pressure on - or is a
perfect chance to depict "disco". (That card had better be in there
somewhere...).
At the end of your turn, your team keeps all of the cards that were guessed correctly. The winning team is the one with the most cards after 3 rounds.
Picture Show is very different, a great novelty and it takes a fairly well-known game mechanic to a new level. It is fun to create your shadow play, and you DEFINITELY improve at shadow puppetry pretty rapidly. Not like anything I've played before, and a good one for an evening together. Although it gets a bit quick when you know time is running out, overall Picture Show is a very gentle type of physical game, and surprisingly accessible even to me with 1 hand in a splint. (I just poked the other end of the rod into the splint instead of holding it.)
There is an option to play as a two-player game, which we haven't tried yet, but I have no doubt it would be almost as good, for those days when you can't get 4 people or more to join in.
Loads of fun, loads of scope to improve your skills and be pretty proud of yourself, and always room for that random guess that turns out spot on, or just makes everyone laugh.
Picture Show is available now priced around £25rrp, but it seems to be on offer in several places at the moment. Handy Amazon affiliate link below, but please, especially while under COVID restrictions, also consider smaller, independent online traders too - for example Fun Workshop, where Picture Show is, at time of typing, just £14.99.
We were sent our copy of Picture Show for review by Asmodee, for the Blogger Boardgame Club. Amazon links are affiliate, which earns me a few pence 'thank you' if you buy through my link, but you never pay any more.
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