Googly Eyes Game Review: Family Drawing Game with Vision-Altering Glasses

The game contents are packed in a nice size box that features the name of the game-Googly Eyes, the logo of the company that manufactures this game – Goliath and the required number of players, which is from 4 to 19. The box is transparent in the part where the googly eyeglasses are and kids can actually see them so this is a nice part because the googly eyeglasses are actually the main feature of this board game because they make big part of the fun.

The box contains a timer, cards, a notepad, a pencil, googly eyeglasses, a board for playing, 4 pawns and a dice with sticker numbers to be put on. The googly eyeglasses have three types of lenses that you can change. They come with green lenses, which are color code for beginner level, and then there are yellow ones for medium level and blue lenses for hard level. There are also instructions on how to play this game.

The manufacturer recommends this board game for kids older than 7 years and there is no age limit since this is a family game. Younger family members who would like to join in the family game can do this but if they do not know how to read the cards may be a good option is to read for them.

Generally, it is recommended for everyone who likes drawing but at the same time you do not have to be an artist to play the game so generally, it is for every family member who likes to spend quality time with the family and have fun. The number of players from 4 to 19 and the fun character makes this game perfect for parties, large families and family holidays. The minimum number is 4 in order to make a team of at least 2 team members since this game is intended to be a team competition or better-said challenge game.

In order to start playing the game of course first, you have to decide who is in your team, or in other words to make the teams. There is a rule that says that the team which has the youngest player should start the game. Each team should also choose one pawn that they are going to play with. Find a comfortable place and put the board between the players. You can shuffle the cards which are 54 in number and put them in a pile right to the board. Take out the glasses and put them near you so you can put them on when required because they give a nice fun twist to this game. After you make sure that all the players understand the rules of the game give the timer to the opposite team.

Each team chooses a player from their team who will draw in that particular round of the game. He or she after rolling the dice should move the pawn according to the number on the dice and number of spaces on the board. The spaces on the board are in yellow, green and blue spaces and some specific spaces where there are signs that team players should abide by.

When the player lands on a certain space he or she should take the top card from the pile and should read aloud only the category for drawing. Each card has three lines correspondingly. The lines are green, yellow and blue and the player should choose the line based on the color of the field/space that he or she has landed on. The line on the card tells you what the player should draw, which color lenses to put on and how much time to set on the timer. As the green is the beginner level the drawing is supposed to be the easiest and the time is the shortest.

The timer has three levels: 15, 30 and 45 according to the color code of lenses which is a pretty short time. After the player reads the information he or she puts on the glasses with corresponding lenses, the opposite team starts the timer and the player begins drawing. The teammates are the ones who should guess what the player has drawn within the time set by the timer. If they guess the words within time limit the drawing player continues to roll the dice and play the game. If they do not guess the word within the set time the opposite team shall continue the game. The team who finishes first is the winning team.

There are a total of 40 spaces on the board and the dice is not a typical dice from one to six but it goes like 2-3-3-4-4-5. On the board, there are special fields that demand special action by the players. One field offers you the option to choose the level of difficulty for the particular round. Other field makes you “switch hands” and try to draw with the non-dominant hand meaning that right-handed players have to draw with the left hand and vise-Versa.

There are other two fields one of which gives a great opportunity to the player not to wear glasses while drawing and if you land on the last special field, unfortunately, you have to skip your turn. The special fields break the typical circle of yellow, green and blue spaces and make the game more interesting and challenging for the players.

Lots of customers compare this game with Pictionary just the basic difference is the googly eyeglasses and the three lenses. The task of the glasses is to alter the player’s vision. This is achieved by applying a kaleidoscope-like effect. The hard level or the blue lenses make the biggest distortion of the vision and makes it hard for the player to draw but the point of this game is actually this – funny drawings.

This is also great for people who are naturally better at drawing skills so by the googly eye glasses everybody is equal and they do not have that advantage against the players who lack this skill or ability and it is also good for the players who are not keen on drawing or are ashamed to show their drawings. So, googly eye glasses make the players start and play on equal level.

But they also give a different perspective to what has to be drawn and the result is often humorous. While with the medium lenses you start to feel the effect on the drawing, the easy level does not do much to your vision. However, there is a particular spot on the googly eye glasses whereof you can see pretty normal. This section is the biggest on the green lenses as beginner level so if you focus on the spot the lenses might not influence your vision much.

Challenges are different and they vary from card to card. What is important to remember when playing the game is that you are not allowed to speak or act or in any way to assist the player or you are not allowed to ask questions if you are the player. While drawing you are not allowed to add letters or numbers to your picture. The glasses are to be worn until the end of the round and you just have to change the lenses according to the field that you land on.

The changing of the glasses is easy to perform and the lenses are made of decent quality plastic but since you have to do it all the time you should be careful with the edges of the lenses and the frames to avoid cracking.
There are a total of 54 cards that present 162 challenges since each card contains three lines that are labeled as easy, medium and hard task. There are three topics: objects, places, and entertainment.

However, the general impression is that the distinction of easy, medium and hard regarding the tasks might not be right and it depends greatly on the player who is drawing. One example of a card whose topic is Objects is: Easy – microphone, medium –camera and hard – James and the Giant Peach. So, in this case, there is not a big difference between the easy and medium level but the time that is set for drawing is 15 seconds for the microphone and 30 seconds for the medium task.

An example from the topic of entertainment is: easy –Gingerbread Man, medium-Humpty Dumpty and hard- the Flintstones and one example from the topic of place: easy-the zoo, medium- airport and hard –train station. So from the examples, we can see that not always the easy task is easy and hard is hard since drawing a train station might be easier than the airport or zoo for some players. The timer is also a nice feature that adds to increasing the anxiety and anticipation and puts pressure on the player who is drawing but also the on the ones who are trying to guess the word.

You might think that the winner is the team which gets the most correct guesses but this is not necessary. The team that guesses the words has the right to roll the dice until they make an incorrect guess, which means that this team has an advantage but is not necessarily the winner. The winning belongs to the team that finishes the round first and this largely depends on the luck of rolling the dice, so if you get high numbers you could be the winner.

All in all the game will probably last about 30 minutes, which we think is enough time for playing the game. It can get quite repetitive especially if one team has an advantage over the other. Talking about the price we can say that the game is affordable and it is definitely worth the price since the time spent with family is priceless.

Kids and all the others who are naturally good at or interested in drawing and like the classic game Pictionary will definitely like this game. However, as said you do not have to be an artist to play or win this game. The glasses add a modern and fun twist to just ordinary game by distorting the vision of the drawing player and this is what makes this board game interesting for all family members because the final aim is having fun and enjoying family time together. It is a silly game because of the wacky glasses with additional excitement added by the limited time for drawing and guessing.

This game is appealing to young kids because of the glasses they just want to put them on and start drawing. All in all this board game is a good option for a family who loves playing board games but still wants something more than the regular board games – wacky googly eyes glasses and lots of fun.