Pictionary is a classic game that many players are familiar with; capturing a prompt with lines, colors and other elements in hopes that your teammates can appropriately guess what it is you’re making. But what if you had to do so with geometric shapes? Worst of all, these shapes were wild, outside of the traditional polygonal structure and on cards. It takes a special kind of person to turn shapes into artistic images, and Motley does its very best to try and capture this.
Motley is a party game designed by Karla Kopp and Jeff Hale with art by Katie Khan. Published by Weird Giraffe Games, it’s aimed at two or more players and offers relatively simple prompts for estimation based on one’s mastery of geometric shapes and abstract thoughts.
The game is simple to learn. The clue giver has to choose a category from among those in hand. These could be things like food, drinks, animals or whatnot. They then choose what they think they can create using those shapes. For example, perhaps they get “Animal.” They’d then use the series of strange abstract shapes on the back to capture the image of an animal. There are four ‘sets’ of shapes on each card, with each a different color and image that can be combined with the other cards to create a variety of images, interpretations and aesthetics designed to convince the others of your mental image.
The key is that the player doesn’t necessarily have to know what animal it is before they begin the creative process, since the abstract images may take time and effort to confirm your idea. For example, you might decide to try and make a fox, but you find making a fish with your geometric shapes far easier. Then you’d swap to fish and have the other players take a guess. The winner gets the card in question, and gameplay continues until the deck run out of cards or a single player gets three cards.
The game is small and is designed to fit into a purse. There’s only 27 cards, which allows for a very short playtime and for gameplay to move quickly once players have caught on to the best approaches to the card game. I found that I could wrap up a game with about six or so players in less than 30 minutes.
The game’s cards and art are delightful. The cards are well made and printed on high quality paper. The art and colors stands out in comparison to others, and the prompts were broad enough for most people to figure out without an issue. That broadness can also be a hindrance if a player attempts to communicate a particular idea but their abstract images are still too abstract.
The game seems inherently easy to learn, as it’s basically ‘drawing with shapes.’ There’s a natural order to the practice that one can learn relatively quickly given enough time. My fellow players took a bit of extra time to catch onto the practice, particularly in comparison to games like Pictionary.
That said, the gameplay was lackluster and seemed to dull over time. The abstract nature may also be a struggle for some more analytically brained individuals, as I indeed found it more of a battle. However, other players more inclined toward art seemed to catch onto how to make it work after a little time. Or maybe I’m just bad at Pictionary. I’ll let my fellow players be the judge.
I found myself really enjoying Motley as a concept and as a game, as it requires a new range of thought to perform well for someone as rationally brained as myself. While I lost interest after several playthroughs, it’s a perfect “purse game” for parties and children to keep themselves creating and thinking abstractly.
You can grab Motley from the Weird Giraffe Games shop or your FLGS at an MSRP of $14.99.
Images and review copy via Weird Giraffe Games
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