MonsDRAWsity Party Board Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

This post is based off of the 2020 version of MonsDRAWsity. The newer 2022 version of the game has the same rules so the instructions below should apply to the newest version of the game. The main difference for the 2022 version of the game is that it has different monster/anomaly cards.

Objective of MonsDRAWsity

The objective of MonsDRAWsity is to score the most points by accurately describing the monsters you see and drawing the monsters described by the other players.

Setup for MonsDRAWsity

Give each player a white board and a marker
Figure out who will be the first witness. The person who most recently watched a movie with an alien or monster in it, will be the first witness.
The witness takes the witness board and an anomaly card.

Playing the MonsDRAWsity

You will play MonsDRAWsity over a number of rounds. Each round consists of a couple of phases.

Study the creature.
Describe the creature.
The witness judges the drawings.
Artists vote.
Scoring the witness’ selection.

After all of the round’s phases have been completed, the role of witness passes to the next player clockwise (left). You will then play another round in the same way as the previous round.

Study the Creature

During the first phase of each round, set a timer for 20 seconds.

While the timer runs the witness should study the picture of the monster on the anomaly card. They should try to memorize as many details about the creature as possible.

Some things the witness should pay attention to include:

How many legs does the creature have?
What parts of the body are the most distinct?
Does any parts of the creature resemble an animal on Earth?
Which part of the body should they describe first?
How big is the head in relation to the body?

The witness should use as much of this time as possible to remember as much as possible about the creature.

Anomaly Card in MonsDRAWsity — This anomaly card was drawn for the current round. The witness will look at this card for 20 seconds and try to remember as much as possible.

Once the 20 seconds end, the witness must flip over the card. They will not be able to look at it again until it is revealed to all of the players.

Describe the Creature

For this next phase the witness will have two minutes to describe what the creature looks like to the other players. During this time the player cannot look at the anomaly card again. They must describe the creature from memory. They can describe the creature however they want, but they can’t use hand gestures. The witness also can’t look at what the players are currently drawing.

Describing the Monster — The witness now has to try and describe the monster. For example they could describe this monster as follows. The monster has a human hand as its body/head. At the end of each fingertip is an eyeball. In the middle of the hand is a human style mouth with a tongue sticking out. Along the top of the mouth is a couple pointed teeth. Below the hand is a flowerpot with some leaves coming out of the top. At the bottom of the flower pot are six long wiggly legs. At the end of each leg is a tennis shoe.

While the player is describing the creature, the other players start drawing it on their white board.

During this phase the artists can ask questions to the witness in order to get additional information.

The Witness Judges the Drawings

After the two minutes have concluded, all of the artists must stop drawing immediately. Each of the artists will then reveal their drawings at the same time to the witness and the other artists.

Revealing the Drawings in MonsDRAWsity — Each player reveals their drawing to the rest of the players. The witness has to choose which of the drawings they think most resembles the monster on the anomaly card.

The witness will look at all of the drawings and decide which one they think most closely resembles what they remember from the anomaly card. They will write on their own white board the number that corresponds to the sketch that they have chosen. They will not reveal their choice to the other players at this time.

Witness Chooses Drawing — Based on their memory, the witness believes the first drawing most resembles the monster on the anomaly card. To lock in their choice they will write 1 on their board.

Artists Vote

After the witness chooses one of the sketches, they will reveal the anomaly card to all of the players.

At this point all of the artists look at all of the sketches submitted. Each player will independently choose which sketch they think is closest to the creature on the anomaly card. Players cannot vote for their own sketch.

Artists' Choice — All of the artists can now see the anomaly card on the right side of the picture. Each player will now choose which picture they think most closely resembles the monster on the anomaly card.

When everyone has chosen which sketch they will vote for, all of the players will reveal their choice at the same time. Players will do this by holding up fingers corresponding to the number of the sketch that they are voting for.

The artist responsible for the sketch that received the most votes, receives one point. They will add one point to their score on the scoring board. If two or more artists tie for first place, all of the tied players will receive one point.

Artists' Choice Scoring — As a majority of the artists chose the first drawing, the corresponding artist scores one point.

Scoring the Witness’ Selection

The witness then reveals which artist they voted for. Depending on how this compares to what the artists voted for, one point will be given to one of the players.

If the witness chose the same sketch that the artists ended up picking, the witness scores one point. You will add one point to their total on the scoring board.

Scoring the Witness' Choice — As the witness chose the first picture alongside the artists, they (the witness) will score one point (the witness was player five).

If the witness chose a different sketch from the one the artists chose, the player whose drawing the witness chose will receive one point.

If there are only three players in the game, you will skip the “Artists Vote” phase. The only point given out will be to the player that the witness votes for.

End of MonsDRAWsity

The game ends once all of the players have had the opportunity to be the witness twice.

The player that scores the most total points wins the game.

Winning MonsDRAWsity — Each of the players have had two chances to be the witness. Player 5/E earned the most points during the game. They have won the game.

If there is a tie, the game doesn’t actually give a way to break ties. Going along with the theme of working for a secret organization tracking down anomaly creatures, the actual tiebreaking rules are blacked out.

Alternative Rules for MonsDRAWsity

In this variant the witness does not directly describe the creature during the describe the creature phase. Instead the artists ask questions to the witness. The Witness may only directly answer the questions that they are asked. They cannot give additional detail above answering a question asked by an artist.

Since this variant is more time consuming, you will get three minutes to describe and draw the creature.

Otherwise this variant is played in the same way as the normal game.

Year: 2020 | Publisher: Deep Water Games | Designer: Eric Slauson | Artist: Hector Amavizca, Kennedy Cooke-Garza, Shawn Daley, Mihajlo Dimitrievski, Gilbert Jansen, David Melvin, Nolan Nasser, Martha Webby

Genres: Drawing, Memory, Party

Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 3-8 | Length of Game: 30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Light-Moderate

Components: 8 sketch boards, 1 witness board, 8 markers, 100 Anomaly cards, instructions

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