Invisible Think: Can You Guess a Drawing That You Can't See?

Draw a picture and get your team to guess it. The catch: some or all of your team can’t actually see the ink. Can you still guess what word that is being drawn?

Published by MindWare, Invisible Think is a straightforward drawing game but with a unique twist and an unusual component.

Gameplay

Players form into two teams. The cards are shuffled and the game begins. On your team’s turn, someone is selected to be the drawer. He then spins the spinner which says who will wear the glasses: the drawer, the guessers, or everyone on the team. The glasses have red lenses, and when you wear them they block out the red ink of the game’s marker.

The glasses are put on, the timer is started, and the drawer takes a card. There are two types of word cards. One simply lists the word you must draw such as ukulele or microscope. The other type shows the word you must draw but also lists a word your team may not say or else you automatically lose the round; for example the word you might be trying to draw is bat, but your team may not say bird. The drawer tells his team which type of card it is. He then attempts to draw his word on the game’s drawing board with the dry erase marker.

If the team guesses the word before the timer runs out they earn one point for a regular word card, two points if it was a card with a forbidden word, and an additional point if the spinner had everyone on the team wear glasses. The team with the most points after six rounds wins the game.

Review

Invisible Think manages to combine the mechanics of a fairly standard drawing game with a really fun twist on the concept. It can certainly be difficult to guess the words when you can’t actually see the drawing, but that challenge is part of the enjoyment of the game.

There’s a nice range of words included in the game, and some of them can be rather difficult. The fact that it changes up who is wearing the glasses is a nice touch that also changes exactly where the challenge lies. Are the guessers focusing intently on the drawer’s movements, trying to figure out what kind of picture he’s drawing? Or is the drawer struggling to draw a microscope without actually being able to tell how it’s looking?

The glasses work well, and are a really unique component. They do fit better if you don’t require eyeglasses, but even if you do we found they effectively blocked out the drawing board, you just have to be more careful not to peek under them. The game also only comes with one marker. Since so much of the game hinges on having the right color marker, it feels like a backup or two would have been a good addition.

If you enjoy drawing games and are looking for a more challenging one, Invisible Think is worth giving a try. The complexity doesn’t come in the form of rules that make it less accessible than your standard drawing games, so it’s still easy to teach, and it’s interesting to see the ways players compensate when they can’t see the ink.

Pros: Added challenge without complicating the rules, range of words to draw

Cons: Glasses don’t fit as well on top of eyeglasses, no extra markers included

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.