Gartic Phone

Telephone game meets drawing. Watch your message dissolve into chaos through friends. Best played in groups.

What it is

Gartic Phone is the telephone game with drawings. One player writes a sentence, the next draws it, the next describes the drawing in words, the next draws that, and when the last turn is reached the whole chain comes out, with everyone seeing how a sentence about a cat became a drawing of a submarine. It is built for groups of friends on a voice call, and the site's first how-to-play step says exactly that.

How to play

Pick a character and a nickname on the anonymous tab and click Start. A video ad plays, then you land in a lobby with room sizes from 4 to 50 players. Choose a preset: Normal is the classic alternating write and draw, Knock-off has everyone copy a drawing while the clock speeds up, Animation builds a short animation together, Icebreaker runs on a single sentence, Exquisite Corpse stitches characters together, Masterpiece is one untimed drawing, Story continues a narrative from the previous sentence alone, Secret hides everything until the end, Solo lets you animate five frames alone. Click Invite to bring friends in, and Start when the room is full. Most turns are timed, Masterpiece is the exception, and the reveal at the last turn is the payoff.

What makes it different

There is no public matchmaking. A room needs your own people, and that is the point: the reveal is only funny when you know who drew the submarine. The preset list turns one idea into fifteen games, and two of the presets build animations, Solo with five frames on your own.

Why it is on Bored

When four or more of you are on a call and nobody can agree on a game, this is the link to paste. One lobby, a nickname, a preset, and a reveal you will screenshot, all in a single round. The telephone game needs people you know, because the drawing of a submarine is only funny when you know who drew it, so keep it for groups. Alone, it offers only the Solo animation.