HOW TO PLAY
How to play Sketch Relay
- Players
- 3–10
- Time
- about 10 minutes
- Ages
- 8+
- Price
- Pro
Sketch Relay is a drawing telephone game for 3 to 10 players. Everyone writes a short, silly sentence. That sentence is passed to the next player, who draws it. The drawing goes to the next player, who sees only the picture and describes it in words. Then that description gets drawn, and so on, until every chain has gone all the way around.
At the end, you flip through every chain together and watch “a cat ordering pizza on the moon” turn into “an astronaut fighting a frying pan”. There are no wrong answers, which makes it one of the most relaxed and laugh-heavy games on FamGames. It is part of FamGames Pro.
What you need
Three to ten players, each with a phone, tablet or computer. One-phone mode works too: write, pass, draw, pass, describe.
Rules: how a round works
- Write a prompt. Everyone writes a silly sentence, or uses the suggestion shown.
- Draw what you get. You receive someone else's sentence and draw it as well as you can.
- Describe what you see. The next player sees only the drawing and describes it in words.
- Keep passing. Draw, describe, draw… until every chain has been round the whole group.
- The big reveal. Flip through every chain together and react to your favourite pages.
Scoring
Scoring is light: every reaction your page receives from other players is worth 10 points. The real prize is the reveal.
Difficulty levels
- Easy: More time for every write, draw and describe step.
- Normal: Standard timers.
- Hard: Much less time — fast, messy and very funny.
Tips and strategy
Draw exactly what it says
Don't try to be clever. The chain drifts on its own; your job is to draw the sentence as literally as possible.
Describe literally
Describe what is actually on the page, not what you think the artist meant. “A green blob with legs on a ladder” is more fun than guessing “frog”.
Write specific prompts
Sentences with an unusual action and a place (“a grandma surfing in a bathtub”) give the best chains.
Variations and house rules
- Theme round: everyone writes a sentence about the same thing, such as a family holiday or a favourite film.
- Keep the best: screenshot your favourite chain each game night and start an album.
Who it's best for
Larger groups, mixed ages, people who say they can't draw, and anyone who wants a game that is more about laughing than winning.
Playing on FamGames
Part of FamGames Pro, which unlocks all 12 games with unlimited rounds and no ads. The host picks the game and difficulty, creates a room and shares the five-character room code. Everyone else joins from their own device — no download needed. No phone for everyone? Switch to one-phone mode and pass a single device around.
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Last updated 2026-10-21