Swipe Interactive recently had a beta sign up for their new game Quick Draw and I was able to pounce on the opportunity in time and snag a copy.  Before we get into this, I would like to remind everyone that this is a beta copy.  Only 100 people are participating in the program, so play is somewhat limited.  The beta version of Quick Draw only has four categories of about 40 words, but the finished version will have many more than that to keep things interesting.

Quick Draw is a Pictionary-style multiplayer drawing game that uses the iPhone/iPod Touch’s wireless internet capabilities beautifully.  There has been a lack of games in the App Store that use the wireless capabilities of the iPhone/iPod Touch for anything other than scores and leaderboards.  If you are in the market for a multiplayer game, this is shaping up to be a good one.

The gameplay is self explanatory to most people, I would hope.  A person draws a picture of the random word they are given, other people guess what it is.  You are given 60 seconds to draw the best you can and hopefully everyone guesses correctly.  If everyone in your room is able to correctly guess the word, your turn is over, no need to wait for the time to run out.  Points are given out to the person drawing the picture depending on how many people correctly guessed the word, this gives the person drawing a reason to actually do a decent job and not just throw their turn away.  On the right hand side of the screen is a whole bunch of different colored pencils you can use to help get your point across along with an eraser.  The person drawing also has the ability to quickly erase the entire screen just by shaking your iPhone/iPod Touch.  Drawing seems to be easy enough even for the not so talented, you just place your finger on the touch screen and start drawing frantically.

The other participants are scored based on when they guessed the word correctly.  You can guess as often as you like, just do it as quickly as you can.  This game had a secondary effect on me, it actually helped my typing skills quite a bit.  The guessing screen is not in a landscape view like the drawing screen is, so your keyboard is shrunk a bit just like the Mail application on your iPhone/iPod Touch which has always given me a hard time.  A whistle in the top corner of your screen is their to help make sure everyone plays by the rules.  If the person that is drawing decides to write something instead of drawing it, hit the whistle to stop them from cheating.

When you first fire up the game, you are given the option to play offline or online.  When you log-in online, the four rooms include animals, characters, food/drink and landmarks.  Next to each category there is a number indicating how many people are playing in that room so you can always find someone to play with.  You can enter the rooms at any time, you won’t have to wait until the game is over to get a quick game in.  Upon entering a room you will see a list of all the participants and their scores.  There are a total of 10 rounds and each person takes a turn drawing.  Online play wasn’t laggy at all for me, so I can’t blame my inability to draw on that.  Offline play is also somewhat entertaining, which I wasn’t expecting.  You are given the word right before the timer starts and than it disappears, unlike online play.  This way you can show the person next to you that is trying to guess what you are drawing without them seeing the word, brilliant.  Now you can bring your iPhone/iPod Touch to your Pictionary parties that you throw every other Thursday and save a tree, on second thought the screen is a little small for such large crowds.  All jokes aside, the offline mode actually proves to be worthwhile.

I won’t be able to give a final verdict on the game at this point as Quick Draw is still a work in progress.  Hopefully we can bring you a full review of this unique game sometime in the near future.